[00:00:03] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna. I'm joined with my co-host Melissa today. We're gonna talk about nervous system hacks. If you've ever wondered about a dysregulated nervous system or vagus nerve, this is the episode. Welcome, Melissa. Thank you for joining me.
[00:00:19] Melissa: you so much. This is definitely an area where I am very interested in. As a somatic facilitator, yoga teacher, and breathwork instructor, this is… Mm. I love this topic.
[00:00:30] Vesna: So stick around, Melissa's gonna take us through some somatic exercises, but we're first gonna talk about the nervous system, dysregulated nervous system, the vagus nerve, cortisol, stress response, all that kind of stuff, which have become more mainstream now with their information. A lot of people are talking about it, wondering if that is affecting them, and what can you do about it?
[00:00:51] And a lot of people are feeling very confused. And so one of the things that I'll just add is that, you know, part of my [00:01:00] journey was understanding that once the nervous system is in that sympathetic dominance, which we're gonna talk about, it's very hard to change. It's very hard to get the results that you want on a physical level or a mental and emotional level, right?
[00:01:14] Because there's like a handbrake, the body has this handbrake on, and, uh, it can be very frustrating if you don't understand what's happening there.
[00:01:22] Melissa: Yeah, I think it's a really interesting topic, and I think, like you had mentioned, it is something that people hear a lot about these days. Um, regulate the nervous system. You have an unregulated nervous system. but I think a lot of people are really wondering, at the basic level, what is the nervous system, and what is it actually doing for us every day?
[00:01:42] Vesna: So the nervous system, we have two parts. Well, we have the autonomic nervous system. It's our automatic nervous system, which branches into the sympathetic and parasympathetic. And so what that means is that there are certain functions in our body that run automatically. breathing, our heart rate, uh, you know, you go to bed [00:02:00] at nighttime, you know that you're going to be breathing while you're sleeping, and there's something controlling that.
[00:02:04] That's part of the autonomic nervous system. And so that branches into the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. And a lot of the time when we hear things like the fight or flight response, or a dysregulated nervous system, or a stress response, or cortisol, what we're really looking at is that part of the nervous system which is the sympathetic- nervous system, right?
[00:02:27] So this is a part of the system get- gets us energised to get up and go and fight and flee. We also, it's activated when we're exercising. Even in really focused states of working we can even be in a sympathetic nervous system. So it's not all bad, but we don't balance it out enough by being in the parasympathetic.
[00:02:48] So the, you know, the parasympathetic is like that rest and relaxation response. you know, I went down this journey to understand, you know, when I looked at, into the placebo effect many years ago, [00:03:00] it was really centred around the parasympathetic nervous system. So when the body is relaxed, our body goes into self-healing mode. But the problem is when we're in sympathetic dominance, we're not healing, we are surviving. you know, it's not important for our body to be digesting when it thinks that it's trying to help us survive mortal danger,
[00:03:21] Melissa: So would you say that it's accurate to say that the nervous system is constantly scanning for safety or threat?
[00:03:27] Vesna: Yeah, so part of the brain, the amygdala, is always scanning for threats, in our environment, and it could be things that are… You know, it's funny, I had this conversation this morning with a girl from the gym. She was like, “This thing happened to me, and now whenever I walk past that street, I get, my stress response is activated,” right?
[00:03:44] And that's the amygdala. It's because the amygdala's like, “There was a bad situation there one time, and I'm gonna scan for threats, and I'm, I'm… There was a scary situation then, so I'm gonna prepare for another scary situation.” And so it's our threat detection centre which then mobilises [00:04:00] the nervous system, and it does that to protect us, right?
[00:04:03] So when we get ready to fight and flee, it's simply a pr- protective response. For I don't know how many years, but only in the last maybe 200 years, have we not needed so much of that survival response, that stress response. Because before that, yes, we were surviving. We were like hunter-gatherers, many situations where we were in danger, so there's years of programming there, Hundreds, thousands of years of programming there to keep us in that stress response. And so as our world is more safe, but we still lean into that stress response, right? It still gets activated too much, and it can stay activated- And so we don't spend enough time in parasympathetic. And if we don't spend enough time there, our body can't repair, it can't rest, can't digest, can't rebalance, can't detoxify, can't do everything that it needs to do in that phase, right?
[00:04:56] And so there's imbalance. So it's like a dysregulated, so [00:05:00] we can be, you know, hyperactivated or overstimulated. The stress response could be running in the background all the time, draining us of energy, using up a lot of our nutrition, you know, exhausting us, um, lowering our brain chemistry because it's using all of that to kind of rebalance us.
[00:05:21] we end up becoming very depleted.
[00:05:24] Melissa: so just to clarify, what does it feel like to be in a sympathetic versus a parasympathetic state?
[00:05:32] Vesna: Well, sympathetic, as you can imagine, you kind of feel very alert You can feel when the fight or flight response is activated, you feel anxious, you feel, you know, there's a lot going on, right? The, the blood is being moved into the muscles, like you're getting ready to fight or flee. Um, you're more hyper-aware.
[00:05:46] You're very, very alert and probably, say, more energized, right? So there's a lot of energy and, um, glucose moving through the body to give your muscles energy. it can feel like stress, it can feel like overwhelm, it [00:06:00] can feel like can't switch off, or it can feel focused, right? It can feel focused.
[00:06:05] you're on a task, and that is activated as you're keeping really focused, right? But there's an energizing, hyper-stimulating effect to it. Whereas parasympathetic is very calming. You feel very relaxed. You feel very, in your body, you feel, calm and at peace. There's no tension. You know, there's no, um, worries or concerns.
[00:06:26] You feel really good. You feel really positive, good emotions, right? And so we can look at our emotions that we're feeling. Like I will say to people, “How often are you in a calm state or not in a stress response?” And they're like, “Oh, in a calm state? Maybe lucky an hour a day.” where the body feels at peace, where you feel mentally and emotionally at peace, where you feel centered, where you feel there's no sense of urgency.
[00:06:54] There's nothing on your mind. Like, there's no concerns. that's the parasympathetic response
[00:06:59] Melissa: what [00:07:00] I'm hearing as well is that the, sympathetic nervous system isn't necessarily a bad thing, right? We have this automatic response within our body. It is for survival. It is, like you said, that process of sending the glucose to the muscles, that process that gets us up in the morning, that energizes us.
[00:07:18] and so it, it is helpful in a certain way to get certain tasks done. But what you're saying is the issue is that when you're always in that state and when you can't switch it off, when you can't enter into a new state of relaxation, a whole heap of health issues can come from that.
[00:07:37] why is it that safety and being in a parasympathetic state is such a key requirement for healing?
[00:07:44] Vesna: Well, so when we're in a sympathetic dominance, when we're in a stress response, our body mobilizes to, you know, use nutrients and systems to help us survive. And so it shuts down other systems. Digestion, reproduction, hormones, things like that are not necessary [00:08:00] while we're in a survival response.
[00:08:02] So if we stay in that for too long, those systems are obviously shut down, so we start to get complications from that.
[00:08:09] and so balancing it out with being in the parasympathetic is our body gets to catch up on all those activities. So when we sleep, we're in a, hopefully, in a parasympathetic nervous system response, and therefore, our body is healing.
[00:08:21] It is– Our immune system's active, our brain is detoxifying, our hormones are detox- you know, our liver is detoxifying. There's, there's just so much happening while we're sleeping, so this state is very, very necessary. But, you know, it's predicted that we were designed to deal with a stress response two to three hours every two to three days or something like that.
[00:08:40] So now we're in a stress response maybe eight hours a day daily, right? Or six hours or four hours or 24 hours, whatever your, your li- your life is looking like at the moment. And so therefore, that starts to have an impact, right? We're not meant to live in survival mode. And because people have become so accustomed to it, they don't understand, [00:09:00] “Well, why do I feel like this?”
[00:09:01] Well, you are accustomed to being in a stress response that you can never relax, you can never switch off, you can never be without your phone. You need something to distract you all the time. You can't sleep properly. You've got digestive issues. You're tired. You've got hormonal issues. Like this, the systems are starting to break down
[00:09:18] Melissa: connection here to the vagus nerve? I think, it's just getting so much attention right now. It's such a buzz, a buzz-worthy word and, um- Um, yeah, in your words, how would you describe the vagus nerve and the relationship to the the vagus nerve to the nervous system?
[00:09:33] Vesna: Yeah, so the vagus nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, right? And it's the connection between the brain and the gut. And so, you know, there are vagal nerve exercises in order to stimulate and get us into that parasympathetic nervous response. So just like the brain influences our gut, and we know this through, you can get a nervous tummy, uh, you sit an exam, you feel nervous, you get butterflies in your belly.
[00:09:57] But also the gut [00:10:00] influences the brain via the vagus nerve, and so therefore the food that we eat can influence our moods and our mental health and our mental wellbeing due to this vagus nerve. So it's part of the parasympathetic nervous system.
[00:10:14] Melissa: So when talking more deeply about the nervous system and how we're able to heal it, you often talk about this top-down approach to managing the nervous system and dealing with it, on a more top-down, technique. And, and what does that look like?
[00:10:29] Vesna: Yeah. So for me, it kind of makes sense. Like, I mean, there is somatic exercises which you're gonna talk about and take us through, and there is other things that we can do to offset a stress response once it's already happened. So when we're feeling very overwhelmed or very anxious or like we can't switch off and it's driving us crazy, so there's things that you can do to switch that off.
[00:10:51] And my top-down approach is really about, well, what's creating the stress? Because, you know, one of the examples that I've used on, on [00:11:00] another podcast is like, you know, if I get a headache every day and all I do is take a Panadol, w- and I do that every single day, like that l- doesn't make sense to keep doing that, right?
[00:11:09] I have to find out what's causing my headaches. And the same thing is with the stress. Now, people look at nervous system dysregulation and go, “Well, it's my job. It's my finances. It's the petrol crisis.” It's whatever it is, right? But you have to then still go upstream from there and go, the only thing that can create a shift in your chemistry and in your body and your nervous system is our thinking, that it comes from our own mind, okay?
[00:11:36] That amygdala has to activate that system, I mean, on a physical level we can activate the nervous system response by, you know, missing meals and sugar levels drop and all of that, but the most common is our mind and our thinking. And so it then kind of makes sense to go, well, if I am tripping up my nervous system response every day, maybe I should have a look at what is going on with my thinking and where my mind is [00:12:00] at and where my mental wellbeing is at, rather than trying to fix the circumstances around me in order to feel better, right?
[00:12:07] So wherever you go, you take yourself with you, and so it's very much internally generated. So that's my top-down approach. That's, you know, it's a longer approach. It's not gonna, you know, heal you in the moment, but it's a longer term approach for longer term success in a sense of you get to understand that, you know, this is how I create my nervous system dysregulation, and so therefore this is how I get out of it, and this is how I stay out of it.
[00:12:33] Melissa: Yeah, I think that's a really great approach because it kind of takes things a little bit deeper as well. That's the long-term homework, right? that's the not quick fix. and oftentimes when you are in these really hyper, states, the brain also isn't functioning. So the idea of thinking of, oh, we're…
[00:12:51] Like, having that conversation can sometimes be too overwhelming, and this is where the gentle and practical [00:13:00] somatic tools can really come in handy, right? They are in the moment, tools that we can use every day, or whenever we're feeling overwhelmed, and we just cannot get out of it.
[00:13:12] Vesna: Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, I've heard of, you know, one of my friends just did like a military boot camp or something, and he said that even in the military they were using these somatic exercises to regulate the nervous system. So it's definitely a powerful tool. hence why you're gonna take us through it today. So what, what's the first one and what does it work on?
[00:13:31] Melissa: great. So today we're gonna go through, um, a little bit of breath. So just to preface, I wanna just kind of talk about why the breath is such a powerful tool. So it's something that we don't really think about often. Like you said, it's kind of part of the autonomic nervous system. We do it automatically.
[00:13:50] But what's really interesting is that we actually have control over our breath more than we give ourselves credit for. So the breath is actually the remote control [00:14:00] between your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. So when we have fast, shallow breathing, this signals danger. It ramps up the stress hormones and what helps us flee in situations of high stress.
[00:14:12] But the slower deep breathing is what signals safety in our body and activates a calm, um, reparative, and digestive state in our body. So when you slow your breath, especially on the exhale, um, you stimulate that vagus nerve that we talked about, and we can tell our body that we are safe on a physical level.
[00:14:30] ‘Cause we can tell our body, “I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe,” but your body may feel something different, and that's really what somatics is. Somatics is the understanding of what's happening inside the body. so when you adjust your breath, you can lower your heart rate, you can reduce your blood pressure, you can improve oxygen delivery throughout your body, and you can shift brainwave activity.
[00:14:49] So all of these things come in handy when you can even just take five minutes a day to do the practice that I'm gonna talk about. So when you are kind of stuck in these hyper stress response states, your body [00:15:00] is often running on that loop, right? So the stress creates this, uh, shallow breathing, and then the shallow breathing reinforces more stress, and then more shallow breathing, and then the next thing you know, you can realize, “Oh my God, like, I haven't taken a deep breath all day,” right?
[00:15:11] Like, we often have those moments where we're like you know? And you realize, “Wow, I haven't taken a big deep breath all day,” 'cause you're stuck up in here. The
[00:15:20] Vesna: And your shoulders are like
[00:15:21] Melissa: the shoulders are like this. The body's like this. It's tense, right? And so just like relaxing the shoulders, letting that long exhale. So the breath and consciously connecting to the breath, even if it is just for one to two minutes a day, really helps- Break that loop, and it can stop that stress response mid-cycle.
[00:15:40] It can reduce those cortisol spikes and prevent the escalation of anxiety and overwhelm. So this is, um, a very simple practice. What we're go- what you would do is you would focus on your belly, so you'd put your hands on your belly, and you would work on diaphragmatic breathing. So the diaphragm is located just, uh, below the ribcage, and you [00:16:00] want to feel your belly moving like a balloon, right? You're inflating the balloon, and you are deflating the balloon. So you wanna
[00:16:07] Vesna: And are you pushing your belly out as far as it can go or just pushing it out?
[00:16:13] Melissa: You're pushing… You, you wanna push it out 'cause you wanna feel… You wanna activate the diaphragmatic breathing, right? You wanna activate the deep belly breathing 'cause a lot of the times we're, we're breathing through our chest, right? We really wanna be breathing into the belly. So you would inhale for four.
[00:16:27] Vesna: think
[00:16:29] Melissa: And then exhale for six. So you exhale one, two, three, four, five, six. So inhale for four, two, three, four, and exhale for six, five, four, three, two, one. So it is very simple, and I know it's like, “Oh, I'm just gonna sit here and breathe,” but it really does, just doing this for two to three minutes can be really [00:17:00] helpful in bringing yourself back to the present moment and activating the breath and also lowering the, cortisol and the anxiety.
[00:17:08] Vesna: also too, just focusing on like the numbered breathing, right? Is going to get your mind distracted to have you focused, right? So
[00:17:17] Melissa: that rhythm, right? Just focus on the rhythm of it, and it takes your brain into the body, and it takes you back into the body, and anything else that you were thinking about just fades away, just for a couple minutes. So yeah, that's why the breath used in practices like yoga and meditation is really great.
[00:17:33] This is a super simple exercise that you can do. Um, and also if you don't wanna do the breathing or you can couple this with the breathing is some gentle yoga postures. So one of the most popular ones is, uh, Viparita Karani, which is legs up on the wall. So you'd, you'd basically lie down flat on the ground, and you would put your legs up on the wall and allow your legs to- Basically drain.
[00:17:57] So by elevating the legs, [00:18:00] it reduces the cortisol, lowers the heart rate, and boosts lymphatic drainage through your legs. So you would just hold your legs up on the wall for five to 10 minutes. You can do this right before bed, and that can be really relaxing. Another really relaxing, posture would be Balasana, which is child's pose.
[00:18:17] I think a lot of people are familiar with what this looks like. you are basically folding forward on your knees and having your arms straight out. You guys can do a quick little, um, Google search on exactly what this posture looks like. But, this is really good for encouraging that diaphragmatic breath because you can actually feel your belly on your legs while you're breathing.
[00:18:40] So the posture helps turn the senses inwards. Um, just the body positioning of that helps turn the senses inwards, slowing down that mental chatter again, um, and reducing feelings of anxiety and overwhelm. So this is a really… And it also really just beautifully stretches the back, the sides of your body, the shoulders, the [00:19:00] hips.
[00:19:00] It just releases so much physical pattern, uh, so, so many physical holding patterns that we have when we're stressed, like we talked about, like with the shoulders up and the, the body tense. Um, it just kind of allows all of that to just relax down. And if you can couple these with the breathing, mm, you're good.
[00:19:18] You're
[00:19:18] Vesna: Perfect. Okay, so we've got breathing in for… So first one was breathing in for four seconds, breathing out for six,
[00:19:25] Melissa: exhale is really important there. Like I said, it's the exhale that's more important. And everybody's breathing can be a little bit different, but if you can just try to control the breath, four in, six out, just really practicing extending that exhale.
[00:19:38] Vesna: And then the second one was, putting your legs up against the wall. So obviously you've got to get close to the wall, legs up, let them drain, five, 10 minutes. And then the third one was the child's pose.
[00:19:48] Melissa: Yes. So these three together can be just even five to 10 minutes of your day, whether it's in the morning or at night, um, or in these moments of extreme overwhelm, can be really helpful for [00:20:00] settling that nervous system.
[00:20:01] Vesna: Hmm. Nice. Thank you. I do breathwork obviously more recently you know, I've been to breath workshops and they're really interesting. And it can be quite hard when you're doing a lot of breathwork. I've heard of people say that, uh, it's such an important part of healing is this
[00:20:22] breathwork.
[00:20:23] That oxygenation does a lot to the body
[00:20:26] Melissa: and it can also be quite dangerous too, in the sense of if it is not properly facilitated. The breath is such a powerful tool for reaching the parts within ourselves that we oftentimes don't have access to. So the breath really is that portal and that gateway to life, right?
[00:20:46] Like in a yoga tradition, the breath is prana. It is life. Um, it is our life force. It's what keeps us alive. It's what we come into the world with. It's the last thing we do before we leave the world, right? It is just this real vital life source for us [00:21:00] that we become so disconnected to because it is automatic, right?
[00:21:04] But when you really stop and think about how you are breathing throughout the day, in a stress response state, you are holding. You're having really short breath periods because your body's trying to conserve, and just softening into deeper breaths and slowing down, it really does signal to the rest of the body, all of your organs, all of your muscles, everything, that, like, you are safe.
[00:21:26] And in that moment, it's a really great tool.
[00:21:30] Vesna: Awesome. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, guys, so we'd love to hear your comments. If you see a comment below this video, please do share if you try any of these, these somatic exercises. And if you also feel that, do you f- feel like having a dysregulated nervous system is something that is maybe holding you back right now?
[00:21:49] Leave us a comment below.
