Objectives

• Every function and action of your body is in a delicate balance. This is achieved by every action being combined with an almost equal opposite reaction.
• The autonomic nervous system regulates your internal organs, and the two parts are the activating sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the calming parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).
• Sustained activation of the ANS causes illness and disease.
• There are ways of recruiting the PNS to counteract this process and heal.

The areas of the nervous system are named by location but are just different areas of one system. It consists of:

• Central nervous system
• Autonomic nervous system
• Spinal cord
• Peripheral nerves
• Sensory receptors

The autonomic nervous system

Every aspect of it is equally as critical for survival. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates all the internal organs and chemical balance of your body. It is named as such because all of its functions are automatic. A few of its actions include regulation of:

• Heart rate
• Bowel and bladder function
• Regulation of acid/ base balance
• Respiration
• Sweating
• Blood pressure
• Immune response
• Level of alertness
• Rate of metabolism (energy consumption)
• Electrolyte balance

There are two parts to the ANS that are constantly active and counterbalancing each other – the sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic (PNS) systems. The SNS is often referred to as the physiological gas pedal. Its role is to activate your body’s defenses to fight off threats of any kind. The threats can be physical, mental, or emotional. For this discussion, we’ll categorize societal threats under physical threats. The threats may be real or perceived, but your SNS will respond in a similar manner.

Activated

This activated physiological state is called, “Flight or fight”. When your body is exposed to prolonged elevations of inflammation, metabolism, and stress hormones, different physical and mental symptoms will be manifested. When it is sustained, people develop serious illnesses and diseases, including chronic pain. The late phases of SNS activation are called, “freeze or faint” where there is systemic collapse of bodily functions. It is the body’s final survival attempt.

Calm

The most effective way of combatting and preventing chronic disease is to stimulate the PNS, which has the opposite effects of being anti-inflammatory, lowering metabolism, stimulating regenerative hormones, and calming the nervous system. The PNS is the physiological brake pedal. Remember that both the SNS and PNS are both almost equally active most of the time to maintain an incredibly delicate balance (homeostasis).

Your body has to be in a regenerative state of safety in order to heal and replenish itself. It is the common denominator of the various effective healing approaches and there are many ways to achieve this state. The foundation of the calming PNS effects is the vagus nerve. It is the 10^th cranial nerve that originates in the midbrain, below your main body of the brain. It is connected to every internal organ in your body, including the immune system. Recruiting and reinforcing the vagus nerve is the most powerful way of inducing a relaxation response to counteract threat physiology.

Inducing relaxation – breath work

Research suggests we can induce this relaxation response of the PNS through various breathing exercises. Some of them include:

• Voluntary relaxed slow breathing exercises (e.g., diaphragmatic breathing and alternate nostril breathing and applications of mindfulness practices.¹
  • Engaging in slow breathing exercises during stressful experiences (mental or physical) at a rate of 6-10 breaths per minutes helps optimize ventilation gases, arterial oxygenation, gas exchange. Higher arterial oxygenation stimulates the PNS.
  • Given the evidence and benefits of slow breathing exercises on health and well-being, and decreased mortality in diseased states, it is surprising that the medical community has not prescribed this effective and simple tool as part of a standard care of medical treatment for those struggling with acute and chronic diseases. Slow breathing exercises are a vital part of optimizing health.
• Slow long exhalations especially linked with deep short inhalations
• Alternate nostril breathing
• Breathing slowly through your nose – also stimulates Nitric Oxide release, which is powerfully anti-inflammatory.
• Meditation with deep breathing. Try using a counting method (such as 4 counts breathing in and 4 counts out; or 4 counts in, hold for 7, and release for 8); alternating nostril breathing (block one nostril while breathing in and the other nostril while breathing out); or just focus solely on your ²

Other PNS recruitment strategies

• Quiet humming – stimulates the 7^th cranial nerve at the back of the throat, which is close to the vagus nerve
• Certain relaxing pitches of quiet music like a lullaby stimulate the 8^th cranial nerve, which is also near the vagus nerve.³
• Other calming activities will stimulate the PNS
  • Mindfulness/ meditation
  • Biofeedback/ medical hypnosis
  • Visualization
  • Slow-movement martial arts

Understanding that using these tools directly effects your flight or fight response, helps you to engage and use them daily. Again, this is working with your physiology and the effect on your psychological state is secondary. Your physiology is what determines your mental state. It is desirable to stimulate the PNS as much as possible.

Recap

One of the basic premises of successfully solving chronic pain is taking control of your own care. One step deeper is directly stimulating the calming effects of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). There are multiple ways of making this happen, with breath work being one of the most accessible and it works quickly. However, you are addressing just one aspect of the body’s response to stress, which is the physiology (output). It is temporary and just part of the solution.

Addressing the input and the state of your nervous system are bigger picture strategies, but it is critical to have easy and direct access to your PNS.

 Questions and considerations

1. Have you wondered why techniques such as breathing, mindfulness, meditation and soft music are effective in calming you down? It is because they directly stimulate the ANS.
2. These tools are only part of the solution, but a critical aspect of it. It is helpful to be able to quickly calm your body’s threat response. You can bypass hours of misery.
3. Part of the flight or fight reaction is elevation of inflammation throughout your body, including your brain. Your nervous system is hyper-reactive, and your sense of peace and well-being is gone. Your physiological makeup is a driving force behind your mental state.
4. The good news is that you have many ways to recruit the PNS through addressing the input, the nervous system, and output. You can regain control of your health and life.

References

1. Mason H, et al. Cardiovascular and respiratory effect of yogic slow breathing in the yoga beginner: what is the best approach? Evid Based Complement Alternat Med (2013); 2013:743504. doi:10.1155/2013/743504.
2. Zaccaro A, et al. How breath control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiologicalcorrelates of slow Frontiers of Neuroscience (2018); 12: 1-16.
3. Vickhoff, B, et al. Music structure determines heart rate variability of singers. Frontiers in psychology (2013); 4: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00334.

The post Calming Yourself by Recruiting the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) first appeared on Back in Control.

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The gift of life

Every living creature, from one-celled organisms to mammals, have a reaction to threats that improves it odds of survival. It is intended to be so unpleasant that action has to be taken to resolve it. Once the danger is passed, the chemistry of the organism returns to a neutral or safe state. Humans have the additional characteristic of language and consciousness. Unpleasant thoughts and emotions cause the same reaction except that we can’t escape them. Repressed thoughts and emotions are even more problematic. Every person has to deal with this issue at some level. Although every animal has this response to danger, humans have labeled it “anxiety”. It describes your total bodily response to threat; it is not the cause. It signals danger and it is the pain – and also a gift.

It is critical that you separate your identity from this powerful reaction. It is amoral and unpleasant and not who you are.  The first step is to get rid of the word, “anxiety” from your vocabulary and substitute, “elevated stress chemicals” or “survival response.” So, regardless of how you accomplish it, lowering your stress hormones and levels of inflammatory proteins/cells decreases this unpleasant sensation. It does not respond rational means.

When your stresses overwhelm the coping capacity of your nervous system, you will experience mental or physical symptoms. There are ways of increasing the resiliency of your nervous system and also methods to process stress so it has less of an impact. But this response is part of life and inevitable. When it occurs, you will want to minimize the time spent in this state. This set of tools directly lower your elevated stress reaction.

Taking control of your body’s neurochemical state

Much of the effect is modulated through the vagus nerve, which is at the core of the autonomic nervous system. It is calming and strongly anti-inflammatory. Many of these suggestions directly stimulate this nerve.

Changing sensory input

• • Active meditation/mindfulness – you are placing your attention on something more pleasant.
  • Deep tissue or light touch massage
  • A cold compress to the face (Mäkinen), especially after exercising or if acutely stressed.
  • Connecting with nature – historically a basic aspect of the human experience.
    • Walking barefoot in the sand.
    • “Hearing” the silence
    • Taking in all of the senses
      • Birdwatching
      • Learn about the flowers and trees
      • Notice different smells and fragrances
    • Awareness
      • Become aware of your feelings of anxiety and anger and train yourself to separate from and observe them.
      • Awareness is a powerful tool. A pain psychologist and close friend of mine pointed out that, “You have to feel to heal.”

Breath work directly stimulates the vagus nerve, which is strongly anti-inflammatory (Mason).

A lot of research has been done on the effectiveness of meditation. It is challenging to measure as there are so many schools of thinking that espouse different methods. However, one common factor that has  been documented in an extensive medical literature review  (Zaccaro), is slow breathing.

• A respiratory rate of < 6 breaths per minute (bpm) and < 10 bpm was consistently correlated with stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which also decreases inflammatory cytokines (communication proteins). Whether you paid attention to your breath or not, was not a factor.
• Breathing through your nose during either inspiration or expiration could be of some benefit.
• One deep breath, followed by a slow exhalation
• Meditation with deep breathing. Try using a counting method (such as 4 counts breathing in and 4 counts out; or 4 counts in, hold for 7, and release for 8)
• Alternating nostril breathing (block one nostril while breathing in and the other nostril while breathing out)
• Focus solely on your breath (Mason).

Calming activities

• • Acupuncture
  • Exercise – hard workouts
  • Biofeedback
  • Medical hypnosis
  • Yoga, Tai Chi, Chi Gong

Visualization

• • Remembering in detail the most enjoyable of your life.
    • Connect with and feel it.
  • Visualize what others are seeing when you are upset.
    • Would you be attracted to you?
    • Would you want to be around you?
    • Is this really how you want to treat those who care about you?

Decrease stimulation of your nervous system

A sensitized nervous system more quickly creates anxiety. So, it is important to be mindful of activities that fire up your brain. It is not a matter of right or wrong. The point is to observe the effects on your nervous system. Consider what you feel happening to your body when you:

• Play intense video games or watch violent movies
• Argue with family members
• Watch news that upsets you

Some additional suggestions to remain calm include:

• No discussing your pain or medical care with anyone except your health care providers.
• Limiting the time that you spend watching news and other over-simulating programs.
• Choose less intense video games.
• No complaining about anything, including the pandemic.
• No criticizing anyone. You are simply projecting your view of yourself onto them.
• No offering advice that is not requested. How do you feel when you are on the receiving end?
• No gossip

These techniques are effective and necessary short-term strategies, they can be incorporated into the larger picture to solve your pain. The bottom line is to use common sense to actively calm yourself and avoid activities that stress your nervous system. It is surprising how much difference it can make.

References:

Berk LS, et al. The neuroendocrine and stress hormone changes during mirthful laughter. Am J Med Sci (1989); 6:390–396.

Kok BE, et al. How positive emotions build physical health: perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone [published correction appears in Psychol Sci (2016); 27: 931]. Psychol Sci (2013); 24: 1123‐1132. doi:10.1177/0956797612470827.

Mäkinen TM, et al. Autonomic nervous function during whole-body cold exposure before and after cold acclimation. Aviat Space Environ Med.

Mason H, et al. Cardiovascular and respiratory effect of yogic slow breathing in the yoga beginner: what is the best approach? Evid Based Complement Alternat Med (2013); 2013:743504. doi:10.1155/2013/743504.

Miller M, et al. Positive emotions and the endothelium: Does joyful music improve vascular health? Circulation (2008); 118: S1148

Vickhoff, B, et al. Music structure determines heart rate variability of singers. Frontiers in psychology (2013); 4: 334. 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00334.

Zaccaro A, et al. How breath control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiological correlates of slow breathing. Frontiers of Neuroscience (2018); 12: 1-16.

The post Directly Calming the Threat Response first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Directly Calming the Threat Response appeared first on Back in Control.