Soothing The Vagal Nerve

The following practice is led by Sonia Lockyer,

Host of the Wellbeing Ritual Club.

We're going to work in a circular breath and we're going to do a little bit of alternate nostril breathing but not usually when we do alternate nostril breathing we kind of do that bridge shape but we're going to make it circular instead and we're going to use our eyes as well because soothing is really referencing the nervous system and out of the nervous system there's two branches that we talk about parasympathetic and sympathetic and we want to get into parasympathetic on a Monday morning which is the calming,

Soothing place that helps all the systems of the body to work so it helps nutrition happen,

Fertility happen,

Healing and mending and restoring and rebalancing to happen.

Whereas sympathetic is amazing for getting stuff done and responding and reacting and being the epic superhumans that life seems to expect us to be.

So both are good but for this practice we're looking at parasympathetic and in particular out of the nervous system the vagal nerve which is like the thermometer of the nervous system so we're going to help the vagal nerve to soothe everything to send the message out to all the organs and all the cells that we are safe and we are well and a lot of a big big influencer of the vagal nerve is our eyes and our ears and the way that we look when we see each other.

We're social animals so if you look at someone's face and the lips are soft the eyes are soft and they're smiling our vagal nerve takes that as a well our brain sends a message to the vagal nerve saying we're safe and all is well so when you walk around and everyone's stressed and there's fear in the air it's our vagal nerve that's reading that and saying yikes there might be a threat so we're going to counter that this morning.

Okay so we're going to start by sitting comfortably and ideally you want your spine to be straight you can be sitting on a chair or on the floor you can even be lying down on your back and as we practice I find closing my eyes very helpful for guiding my awareness inwards but it's not always necessary if you are going to keep your eyes open then just soften soften your gaze so you're not looking straight ahead at you you're looking out to the sides you're letting your periphery vision kind of take you out of focus we'll all be opening our eyes in a bit anyway and so let's start by just noticing the breath the inhale how that feels and how the exhale feels and you might start to work with an ujjayi breath after a while that really becomes quite instinctive but just to remind us all of how your ujjayi breath works you're breathing in through the nose and out through the nose but the vibration of that breath is in the throat so it's almost like a quiet snore which makes it audible and the heat that builds through ujjayi breath through that vibration in the throat is a direct influence on vagal nerve activity and you can hear for yourself if there is ujjayi breath happening listen out for that quiet gentle snore of a sound and because we're social beings and we're interconnected as we do ujjayi breath actually the ripples of the soothing influence expand outward so it's one of the reasons why animals find it so magnetic and tend to come and join you but even other people in your household will subtly start to tune into that vibration and their bodies will understand that they are safe so and then using our sense of hearing let's expand it to notice what else we can hear maybe in the room that you're in or maybe the building that you're in maybe you can expand your sense of hearing out beyond the walls of the building to outside and if you had to name the furthest sound that you can hear what would it be so so and then bringing that sense of hearing in again closer intimate sounds of your body and then letting your eyes gently open and then without moving your head you just use your eyes to go over to the right as far as they'll go and back to center over to the left as far as they'll go back to center and up as far as they'll go and down as far as they'll go and you'll do that a few times you'll find your own rhythm your own pace and you'll stay curious as we play with our eyes there's definitely no getting this wrong it's just a game to notice what comes up and what we feel so so coming back to center we'll drop right here to right shoulder and start to circle our heads allowing the time and space to feel what's happening in the neck to hear the sounds and feel the sensations and then changing direction so and when you find yourself back at center circling your shoulders go slower than normal even it's only really possible to tune in and feel when we move slowly elbows circling so where do you feel it so your man arms circling as long as you have space if you're lying down then just exploring how that feels to circle your shoulders whilst lying down and noticing the interconnectedness of it all bringing hands to knees circling heart slower than perhaps your instinct first moves and switching directions so coming back to center when you're ready we're going to bring our hands up in front of us and just have your fingers raised and and look at the fingers both fingers with both eyes and slowly start to take the fingers wider apart and notice how you're able to still see both fingers as they widen and notice the point where you start to lose the fingers and they go out of your peripheral vision and just stay there on that edge and then drop the hands but keep your vision out to the side like that and one more game with our eyes we're going to let our eyes lead and our heads will follow so this time the eyes are going to go over to the right and eventually when they go as far as they can your head will follow and continue and just notice how far you can go and then once you feel like you've reached just about as far as you want to go today your eyes will switch direction over to the left almost like they're pulling your dragging your head behind and then eyes slowly bringing you back to center there's no rush you don't need to get my pace and actually go a bit faster because I'm presenting it to you but when I'm doing it on my own I'm much slower and then lifting your gaze up to the space of your third eye and even above there and even above there and slowly letting your head follow and then using your gaze to draw downwards head will slowly follow so coming back to center when you're ready dropping the eyelids or not you choose we'll begin with a circular breath so you're going to visualize quite a big circle in front of you a circle of light and as you inhale the light moves around the side from the base around the side and all the way up to the top and as you exhale the circle continues out to the side and then down to the bottom so you switch from inhale to exhale quite effortlessly they glide dovetail from one into the other and the length of the breath is pretty balanced between the inhale and the exhale not too different so so so and then bringing your hands up to your nose you're going to have the pad of your thumb against one nostril and the pad of your ring finger against the other you're going to find the place that's not just fleshy soft tissue and not hard bone but there's this sort of in-between place and even with the hands resting against the nostrils you can actually still breathe through your nose it is just a little bit obstructed and instead of the usual pattern that we practice this time we're going to inhale through the right nostril exhale through the left inhale through the right exhale through the left so we're making a circular breath and we're going to do that 10 times and then we're going to switch so we'll inhale through the left nostril exhale through the right you don't even need to have your hand up you can just visualize it if you prefer but if your hand is up just watch that this shoulder doesn't accidentally come up around the ear that's what i often do myself try to keep the neck free and easy okay so exhaling out of both nostrils to start with and so we begin inhale right exhale left inhale right exhale left exhale left inhale right exhale left nothing forced just as gentle as you need to go inhale right exhale left inhale right exhale left inhale right exhale left inhale right exhale left inhale right exhale left inhale right exhale left inhale right exhale left and then we switch sides so inhale left exhale right inhale left exhale right inhale left exhale right inhale left let it feel easy nothing forced exhale right inhale left exhale right inhale left exhale right inhale left exhale right inhale left exhale right inhale left exhale right inhale left exhale right bringing your hands down into your lap just be with your breath without trying to change it or shift it noticing all that it brings so so and soften the lips into a gentle smile just because of how it feels invite your heart to allow you to become aware of an intention this week and as we quiet and week on week becomes so much easier to hear the quiet whisper of our hearts so may our hearts keep bringing our awareness back to that intention this week namaste everyone