Micro-Reframe #4

Emergency Triage -- tending the nervous system

The central nervous system is the command centre of our body. It is our brain, spinal cord and all the nerve which brand out from there. It is also like an old-fashioned switch board, processing in-coming information from the environment and body, to make out-going decisions on how best to keep us alive.

The part of the nervous system that’s important to replenishment is the autonomic nervous system. It has two parts. The first is the sympathetic nervous system, where everything turns on and its superpower is to enable fight or flight. The parasympathetic nervous system is the opposite and its superpower is rest and digest.

Figured prominently in this speeding up and slowing down is the vagus nerve.

The Vagus Nerve

Resmma Menakem calls the vagus nerve the soul nerve and devotes an entire chapter to it in his book on healing trauma.

The vagus nerve is actually two nerves the begins at the brain stem, where our skull meets our neck, comes down the side of our neck, wraps around into our throat, down into our heart, our lungs, down into our diaphragm where it branches out int our stomach. It touches just about every organs. It’s a bottom up system, meaning it is passing information to the brain upward, from our body and our organs.

The vagus nerve is involved in our heart rate, our breathing rate, sleep and digestion.

The train line of the vagus nerve gives some pretty serious hints as to how overwhelm in our nervous system can play out. Anyone who has experienced anxiety or panic knows the way the throat closes up, the heart thunders, it’s hard to breath, the churning in the stomach.

The Problem of Modern Living

Modern living plays havoc with our nervous systems, which evolved out of simpler times and was designed for more obvious and clear cut experiences of danger. Where stress was acute, not chronic.

If our nervous system is struggling to regulate, because of chronic overwhelm, stress or illness, then we become a colander, unable to hold water.

This means our best efforts to refill become a titanic struggle. It also why so many “self care” regimes fail — because we simply don’t have the physical, emotional and mental reserves to do the things we want to do, or that we know we need to do.

We are Sisyphus — trying to accomplish the impossible — and beating ourselves for our perceived failures.

This is why I begin the deeper drive into the nuts and bolts of replenish with the nervous system.

Baselines and Regulation

Jessica Maguire, a Sydney-based physiotherapist and bioplasticicty specialist talks about regulation in very simple terms.

First she places and brain and the body seperate from each other to create a baseline.

With the brain, she says you to place yourself on a scale between 1 and 10, where is unable to think and 10 is a constant swirling vortex of thoughts. We want to be around 5. That’s regulation. Activated enough for movement, but still enough for clarity and focus.

Then with the body, again, 1 to 10. With 1 being exhausted collapse an 10 as a constant restlessness. At 5 there is regulation, energy and movement to do things, but with a sense of anchored direction.

So sometimes we want to up-regulate and sometimes we want to down regulate to find our way into the middle.

If our brain is at one end and our body at the other, Maguire says to focus on the body first.

For me this middle is a sense of being in the centre. But I know for others the middle is a place of flow, or clarity or grounding to move with and from.

Regulation Practices

A lot of the self care practices derided by the main stream are actually very simple and potent somatic practices for tending the nervous system. For moving toward that mid-point. For example: A bath is the soothing that comes with immersion in water. A candle is the relief of low light. Or the gentle impact of a favourite scent.

There are at least half a dozen things you already do unconsciously to down-regulate (or up-regulate) your nervous system. Each of these emails also offers a bio hack to support you in moving toward to that mid-point.

Emergency Triage — The First Step

The first step into replenishment will always be to check in with your nervous system and tend to it, with the longer term focus about becoming more of a beautiful, robust vessel that can be easily filled, emptied and refilled.

Replenishment for some of you, like it was for me, might be a long journey through nervous system regulation. Especially if you have trauma or any other chronic issues that perpetually activate the nervous system.

On any day though, or in any minute or hour, we can be back in triage mode and that’s okay. And in no way a failure.

We are in endless movement and relationship with our body and the world around us.

Having the skill, experience and resources to identify where your nervous system is and move toward the middle is what ultimately will become your super power.

Reflection Questions

1. Right now — where is your brain on that baseline of 1-10. And where is your body on the baseline?

1. What word resonants most with you — centre, flow, clarity or grounding? How could you incorporate that into your understand of regulation for you?

1. What regulation practices are already in your tool box? If at a lost, think of your go to things for soothing or comfort?

Emergency Triage

Hack #4 — Contact Points 

This is a practice on exploring up-regulation and down-regulation. It is a four step bottom up practice.

First take a baseline of your brain and body. Does your body need to up-regulate or down-regulate?

This works best seated.

Feet

Feel where your feet touch the floor. The pressure between your sole and the surface. Which bits make contact. Which bits don’t. Focus on the touch of the air or your socks. Explore the temperature difference of different parts of your feet. If you are down-regulating, imagine your feet melting a little into the floor. Ice turning to water. If you are up-regulating, press your feet gently into the ground.

Consider how this changes how your body feels.

Back of legs, bottom of pelvis

Feel where your legs touch the chair. The pressure between of your thighs on the surface. Focus on the touch of clothing. Explore the temperature difference of different parts of your thighs. If you are down-regulating, imagine the chair taking up a little more of the support of your body. If you are up-regulating, tighten just gently, your thighs and glutes, then release.

Consider how this changes how your body feels.

Spine

Feel where you spine touches the chair and where is doesn’t. The pressure of your spine against the surface. How your clothing meets the spine. Is the temperature the same the whole way along. If you are down-regulating, relax into the chair more, letting the chair support you. If you are up-regulating, rise up to straighten and lengthen just a little. Press the feet into the chair a little height. Then release.

Consider how this changes how your body feels.

Hands

Notice your hands. Where are they? Are they touching each other? What sensory information are you getting from them? If you are down-regulating, soften you hands. To up-regulate press them together to create resistance then release.

Now take another baseline.

Where is your body from 1 to 10. And your brain? How has it changed? How do you feel?