Resetting Our Nervous System With Accuracy

Let your shoulders relax and take a few deep breaths.

Let yourself really be here.

That's so helpful.

Notice how you're arriving.

If you were to say,

I am 100% calm and regulated or I am just losing it,

Where would you be on that continuum?

Probably not at either end.

It's somewhere in the middle there.

Notice your breath.

That's a good indicator.

If we're breathing that continuity in the breath,

Breathing diaphragmatically,

Smooth breath,

That really reassures our nervous system that we're safe enough to make some noise,

To let our body move a little.

It's safe enough to breathe.

Saying that really brings to mind how fragile our situation is so much of the time.

Do we really feel safe enough to breathe?

We have a habit in our body,

Our nervous system might have been decades now,

That we hold our shoulders kind of tight and we breathe enough to get enough oxygen in to support life in a way,

But it's not vibrant.

It's not enough.

So it's not abundant.

So let's do a little bit of abundant breathing right now.

Bring in some oxygen and as with everything that we do,

Modify this so that it works for you.

We're going to do some cyclic sighing for a few minutes.

Such a good way to reset our nervous system and to get some oxygen into our brain,

Into our body.

It helps us to feel more alive.

It's a double inhale through the nose and a long exhale like you're breathing out through a thin straw.

Inhale and again and then release.

And as you release the stale air out of your lungs,

Release the stale ideas out of your mind,

Release tension out of your body,

Let yourself soften.

Double inhale through the nose.

And often we'll have a little bit of a rise in the shoulders as the top of our lungs get some air.

And then on the exhale,

It'll allow that to soften,

Release away from your ears.

As you're softening your body on the exhale,

Let a wave roll down through your body.

We could do that slowly over several breaths or one big breath if you wanted.

As you're exhaling,

Soften through the forehead and eyebrows,

Your eyes.

See if you could let go of any worry,

Concerns.

Right now in this moment,

There's nothing that we need to do.

We don't need to take any action.

Let's double inhale.

Soften your forehead,

Eyebrows,

Let go of worry.

If you're clenching your teeth,

Let your jaw soften,

Your tongue.

Breathe in as much volume as you're comfortable with and then as long of an exhale as you're comfortable with.

Really take your time as you're breathing out.

The way we breathe out when we're breathing diaphragmatically is that we're not pressing in at the end of the exhale with our stomach muscles.

The stomach muscles are soft and they're just allowing the out-breath.

We're not pushing the out-breath.

Double inhale.

All the way down through the upper back,

Mid and lower back,

Neck and shoulders,

The chest.

And we might even work with the arms on the inhale.

Really bring your arms up,

Stretch up through the ribcage.

Double inhale.

And then exhale,

Long,

Slow exhale.

Let your arms come down,

Your shoulders soften.

Let your whole body feel the difference.

Inhale up.

Again,

Stretching up,

Long,

Slow exhale.

Breathing out through pursed lips.

And take a few of those breaths with some movement,

Some other kinds of movement.

Maybe swaying like I'm doing or lifting your collarbones up and then rounding through the lower back.

Just something that will help you to loosen your body.

And then back to whatever breath feels natural for your body right now.

Let go of the cyclic sighing or the practice,

Unless you really are enjoying it and you want to continue it.

Of course,

We can certainly do that.

So what's happening right now in your experience?

Well,

We've really done is a few minutes of opening our body,

Getting some more oxygen.

Part of what's happening in the background with that is that we're signaling to our nervous system that right now our body is safe enough to move,

To make some noise,

To breathe more deeply.

And we're also getting all that new oxygen,

Which feels pretty delicious to the body.

Our tissues love that.

It's not just our brain,

It's our whole body loves the extra oxygen.

And we've also been releasing the long exhalations.

An exhalation of six seconds or longer is what the research shows.

I think any kind of a longer exhalation is also helpful.

It activates the parasympathetic nervous system,

The relaxation response.

If we can have at least some longer exhales,

We might do a cyclic sighing,

Which is a great one.

You might breathe in to kind of three,

Out to kind of six,

Both through the nose.

And just bringing our awareness to our chest,

Front and back,

And the stomach area so that we can soften,

Gives our body a little bit more room to breathe.

When you think of a really tight muscle,

It's hard for that to just soften and release and lengthen.

So as we're breathing in and we're breathing diaphragmatically,

It feels like an expansion of the stomach area as we breathe in.

The muscles lengthen.

And then as we breathe out,

Everything softens back towards the spine.

Notice your experience now,

And where would you put yourself on that scale,

That continuum of I'm completely relaxed,

Or I'm kind of frantic.

Somewhere in the middle,

Most likely.

And then let's work with the back of the body.

Notice your whole back body.

One of the things that happens in the back of our body is that we sometimes need to protect ourselves from the back.

We have phrases for that,

Like being stabbed in the back,

Describing social threat,

Usually.

But we have a vulnerability in the back.

We don't have eyes in the back of our head.

We have ears that can hear sound behind us.

Sometimes it's really helpful to look behind you.

Let your eyes take in the safety.

Is there anything behind me that could be threatening me?

And then look around as well in the front.

Are there any cues of danger?

Are you seeing anything that's alarming?

We see so many alarming images in social media,

Primarily,

News and YouTube.

There's so many ways that we can just get these.

Some of them are still images,

Like somebody's face that looks very angry.

There's one thing that's kind of activating for us.

It's a signal of threat.

It might be a video clip of something that's going on,

Or maybe you have sounds in your mind that you're still hearing,

Even though maybe the last time you actually heard that was years ago,

Or last night,

Or whatever it is.

Our nervous system's grabbing onto that evidence that there's something here that we need to be alert about,

Something dangerous.

So it's very helpful to do some practices like this that will help us to come back into more reality around the threat.

When we see something with our eyes,

Our brain is built to assess that as an immediate threat.

And when we're looking at images online,

Those are not immediate in the same way.

It's not an immediate threat to our mammal body.

By stepping back and having a look at those,

We can see a lot of the source of our alarm comes from our nervous system reading things in a certain way.

And then we tighten up.

We feel like we're under threat.

We might have a feeling of doom,

Like things aren't going to work out.

And then we come back and do a practice like this.

And it's just a chance to counteract some of that building tension.

So when we think about our back,

We're bracing ourselves often for trouble,

Having that tight upper back,

Muscles of your upper back.

And then if we move those muscles around like we were doing in the cyclic sign,

Or when we were bringing our arms up,

We're letting that area of the body experience a little bit of softness.

Now we can't really tell our body to be soft.

That's not how it works.

But we can experience and encourage that.

So as we're looking around,

We're not noticing danger.

We could also look for support.

What in your environment is nurturing for you?

I have art and trees and my dog and a safe home.

I feel very blessed by everything that's around me that's signaling safety.

And yet I have a lifetime of experience,

As we all do,

That we're not always safe.

We're trying to bring ourselves into a practice of reassurance in a way,

Like right now,

I'm not in danger,

So I could relax.

And I could let my shoulders soften.

And one of the things that signals safety is that we're here doing this together.

So when we connect with each other,

When we are calm,

And we are feeling connected,

We're feeling like this is a person that's safe to be open to.

And when we're doing this kind of practice,

We start to associate the experiences of the practice,

My voice,

My face,

The words,

The way we feel when our shoulders relax.

We start to associate that with this experience.

So then our nervous system starts to help us.

It's like,

Oh yeah,

Let's do the practice today.

I always feel good when I do that practice.

You know,

It might be other things too,

Like I always feel good when I walk outside and I smell the air.

And today I heard a robin for the first time this spring,

So I was really happy about that.

And then we can feel that in our body too.

There's more here than just the nervous system alarm.

There's a lot of other ways that we can appreciate the moment that we're in.

Notice your muscles in your upper back,

Your neck,

Back of your shoulders,

Through the back of your arms,

The large muscles that cover the shoulder blades that are in behind the heart center.

And if there is activation or tension in those muscles,

See if it would be okay.

They're probably already a little softer.

We've let down our guard,

As we say.

And then notice the muscles of the chest as well,

Around the front.

Notice the energy of the heart area when we touch into things that we enjoy,

Things where we feel safe,

People we feel safe with.

It tends to be a different experience in the heart area than if we're feeling really doom or dread or something like that.

Bring a moment of joy into your awareness and notice what happens with that.

And then come down again through the back of the body,

The back of your head and neck,

Your shoulders,

Back of your arms,

Your upper back and behind your heart center.

Then come down to your lower back,

To your buttocks and the back of your legs.

Come through your pelvic floor,

Your hip joints,

To the front of your legs as well.

Are you feeling safe enough to let your legs be off duty?

You might stretch,

Flex and extend through your feet.

Do a little tension and release in the muscles of your thighs,

Perhaps.

If you're feeling a lot of restless energy in your legs,

You might give them a good shake one at a time or both of them.

Is it okay right now to let your whole back body be unprotected?

Is the environment that you're in safe enough to do that?

Some people might be in their car listening or in a coffee shop or something.

And if that's the case,

You got to keep a little bit more vigilance there.

So it's not that vigilance is bad.

It's how we keep ourselves safe.

It's are we at the right level given what's going on?

Do we need to protect ourselves as much as our nervous system might think?

It's usually not so much.

So we don't want to exhaust ourselves by being hypervigilant when it's not necessary.

Let's see if you could let the whole of your body from head to toes soften as you breathe out.

And then breathe in a sense of nourishment,

Of support.

Really notice exactly what does it feel like?

What is the subtle experience of feeling safer in your body?

It usually involves some feeling of softening.

Maybe your body could rest more securely in whatever you're in on the floor,

A chair.

You could breathe easy.

We have so many sayings in our cultures that talk about the nervous system that we don't even really think about as nervous system.

I can breathe easier now that I have that burden off my shoulders.

We're carrying something really tight.

It's hard to breathe.

So maybe there's something on your shoulders that you could allow to release.

Slide off down through your arms and hands.

Let it go out your fingers into the ground.

And let yourself breathe.

Notice your forehead again,

Your eyebrows,

Your eyes.

Is there any worry in your mind that you could release?

Yeah,

Sometimes as we let go,

We do feel how tired we are.

And it has a big cost in our body to stay hypervigilant.

To really rest,

To let yourself rest,

Even if it's for the next three minutes.

Let's go deeper into resting.

I don't need to do anything right now to protect my body.

My prediction that my body will be safe for the next three or four minutes is highly accurate.

There's no sounds of danger,

No visuals.

I'm here doing a practice.

So I could let myself enjoy a few minutes of feeling safer.

And then notice what happens.

Did your body go,

No,

That's not true.

The alarm might still be there,

But see if you could come into more of a rest anyway.

You might do some more cyclic sighing or a more quieter breath.

Notice the hinges of your jaw,

Your mouth,

Your tongue,

Your throat.

There's nothing to say right now either.

You could let your sense of speech be at rest.

Notice your throat,

The sides in front of your neck,

Down through your shoulders,

Your arms and hands.

And with each time that you breathe out,

Let a little bit more softening happen in your body.

Notice your collarbones,

The muscles of your chest.

We have a pretty good system of protection,

The ribcage.

Notice the muscles that cover the ribcage.

These are the muscles that operate the arms,

Muscles at the front and the back of the ribcage,

Through the shoulders.

See if you could allow the muscles of your chest and your upper back to be soft.

And what's happening in your heart area right now?

Notice your stomach area and the rhythm of your breath.

Maybe taking a few deeper breaths or maybe just letting your body soften as you breathe,

Bringing your awareness back into your legs,

Your feet.

Coming back to your heart area,

Bring to mind a lovely thought.

For me,

It's standing outside this morning in the sun,

Hearing the first robin of spring.

That's probably something else for you.

Let's savor that thought for a moment.

Let yourself feel that in your heart and in your whole body.

And your mind might be moving ahead into the day already,

Since we're just about finished.

See if you could anchor in a little bit during the day,

Just to assess where am I at with my nervous system.

Probably 50 times a day,

I just check my muscles of my shoulders and upper back.

And very often they're pretty relaxed,

But almost always I can soften them more.

Sometimes I'll just do a little wiggle or something.

Often I don't even do that.

I just bring my attention there and just let them release a little bit more.

As we're doing that through the day,

Maybe taking a deeper breath or taking a break and going outside for a moment or standing up,

Moving around or putting your hand on your heart.

There's so many ways that we can reassure ourselves in this moment.

And all of that contributes to a more settled nervous system and a more accurate assessment of do I need to be on red alert right now?

Most of the time,

The answer is no.

We could be a little bit more regulated,

Kinder,

Less vigilant and give ourselves a break.