Five Top Evidence-Based Somatic Tools For Anxiety & Stress

Anxiety and chronic stress are physiological states that trap the body in loops of hyperarousal and nervous system fatigue where cognitive insight alone cannot reach or generate lasting effects. This 70-minute recorded session offers a bottom-up, experiential exploration of six powerful somatic tools designed to calm anxiety and build lasting resilience. Through direct practices including the Stanley Rosenberg Basic Exercise, the physiological sigh, and somatic containment, you'll learn how to shift your autonomic state and restore a settled baseline. Discover how to work gently with your body's physical cues to release tension, close stress loops, regulate stress, and return safely to internal balance and comprehensive wellbeing.

Transcript

Hello everyone Somatic tools. Yes, They are to calm ourselves and there's also a misunderstanding about nervous system regulation is that it's always about down regulating and calming ourselves and While it is it's also for some people who are stuck in a more frozen or collapsed state It's a way of actually activating the nervous system to release that collapse to release the stress and whatever is stuck in their nervous system that's preventing them from actually accessing energy. So some people are more hyper activated and they want to calm down and most of the tools address that. And some people also need to actually bring up the energy, Some activation so that they can come out of what's called dorsal vagal collapse, Which we'll talk about today. And then they can calm. Themselves that said not from a place of being in a frozen or collapsed state they can just be calm and regulated and also have access to energy when they need it. Which is not the case when we're in dorsal vagal collapse. It's very important in the world of nervous system regulation because we can feel like we need to be calm all the time and that's not necessarily true, Right? When we're socially engaging with others, When we're being playful, When we're curious, And learning, We actually need some of that sympathetic activation. We don't need to be just completely calm. We need to have a little bit of both in balance. So that's what nervous system's regulation and somatic work, Somatic tools are all about. So let's just start with something that is all about arriving, Grounding ourselves, And really being in this place where we're becoming more present with our bodies, With interoception, What's going on inside the body, So that we can actually develop more nervous system intelligence, And more capacity through that intelligence to actually regulate our states from moment to moment. If you'll start by either closing your eyes. . . Or just having a soft gentle gaze I like to close my eyes I'm quite visual and I spend a lot of time on the computer and reading so it's nice for me to just disconnect from the visual And since no one is here visually, It allows me to actually go inward and connect to you from that place, From my interception, From what's going on inside of my world as I connect to our collective space right now. So you can do the same thing or you can just focus on what's going on inside of you without opening up to what's happening within the greater container based on what you know about yourself right now, Where you are at in your nervous system. And so if you'll start by simply noticing. Where you are in space. And you don't need to look around right now, We're not doing an orienting practice, Although that is also relevant sometimes. You're just sensing where your body is in space. You can even say your name. The date. The country, City, Place that you're in right now. Your age if you want, So that there's really a sense of like coming into the present moment in a very practical manner. And then if you'll scan your body. And so the tendency is to scan from the top of the head down to your toes, And that's fine. And that actually can be very helpful, Especially when you're doing a practice to relax top to bottom. Because more dense energy can be in the lower parts of our body and so when we want to smooth out and relax the different parts, It's useful to start at the top. That said, When we're bringing awareness, And simply noticing it can be also nice to start at your feet. So that you immediately become more embodied, More grounded. So just notice. The soles of your feet on the ground if you're Sitting on a chair. That's immediately grounding. If you're laying down you can notice maybe the back of your sacrum, Your tailbone. And the surface that it's touching. And then just move up, So back to the feet, So starting at your feet, Your legs. Going up and just noticing if there's tension. You're not trying to change anything. You're simply noticing. And that's Awareness. And the development of your interception of what's going on inside your body, Actually that in itself is regulating. It's going to regulate. Bring the nervous system into a state of down regulation. More presence, Less thought. And if you have thoughts just notice them maybe just like clouds in the sky or like leaves on a stream just floating by Calming and going. As you continue to bring your awareness from the bottom of your feet moving up your legs to your pelvic floor your sacrum, Your hips. Your abdomen, Lower, Middle, Back. Your heart space. Your chest. And your back. Your shoulders, Your arms, Your hands, Your fingers. Your neck. Your head. Your crown. Just noticing. What is here right now, The sensations And from there. If you'll intend without forcing yourself. To yield into the support of your chair or of your sofa. Or of your bed, Or if you're standing, Simply standing on the earth or on the ground. And just yielding into the support. And if you're standing or sitting, Pressing the soles of your feet against the ground. And as you press down, Feel the energy of the ground, The earth pressing back up. So that you're connected to that relationship between yourself and the ground. And receiving the support and then maybe notice if there's more of a yielding into this support. Now we're going to take a breath. First we're going to exhale all the air out of the lungs, Which is always nice when we start a practice. We want to exhale the air out and then start the breathing practice. And we're just going to do one round, So just one breath of inhaling normally and then exhaling and sighing and making the sound and maybe you can feel as you do that that the energy moves down from the crown all the way down to your feet and into the ground and releases the stress and the health tension in your tissues and muscles. So. . . Exhaling all the air out. Inhale gently and peacefully. And exhale. And notice After you exhale in this way, After you release with a sigh, Is there more yielding into support? As tension releases. Are you feeling more open, More relaxed? Just noticing, You're not trying to change anything again, You're simply noticing. So. . . At the end of a practice, And we're going to do that throughout, We're going to pause, Rest, And notice, And that allows us, After we've done something, To integrate. The brain then looks and notices what has happened, What is different, And that allows the brain to register, Oh, This was helpful in this way, This changed this and this and this. And so now there's a reference point you have available for when let's say you are activated and you want to settle down and you have now this database that you're building to get to this place where you're going to come back to a state of calm, Of presence, Of groundedness, Of So this is very helpful in this way. So after that, One thing that I want to now integrate for those of you who have been here is a bilateral. . . Tap. So I like to actually Interlace my fingers, Put them on my heart and tap like that. That said, You can also tap here on the side your arms or you can tap on your shoulders or you can tap and crossing is good because then you get this crossing of well when you're crossing any limbs you're going to activate the different brain hemispheres in certain ways and bring about more again integration. So. . . Just tapping wherever you want to tap So when we sigh or when we yawn at the end of a practice, This is a sign that we have actually been able to access the vagus nerve and that we are getting a response from the nervous system, That the nervous system is experiencing some change. So that's like the feedback of that happening. Now, There's other types of feedbacks that can happen. It can be blinking of the eyes. It can be just like a sense of deeper relaxation. It can be sometimes people burp There's yeah tremors also can happen. That's that means you also have like Interceptive awareness of what's going on inside of you that's allowing you to see okay You know, These are the changes that are happening inside of me after this practice for instance when we are in a sympathetic Activated state right so the fight-or-flight Necessarily we may not even sense that we are that said if we're really focused on some work that we're doing we might actually have more tension in the head because we have that, You know, Very narrow focus maybe on the computer or Just focusing on one, You know one specific topic and so then it's going to To yet to just build some tension in that area. So when you feel lighter in your head, It might be a release. One of the things that's very important to understand about somatic tools and their relevance in helping us to not be as stressed, Not be as anxious, Not be as worried, Be more able to perform better, To be more focused, Is that sometimes when we inadvertently trigger the sympathetic nervous system. So our autonomic nervous system has both the sympathetic branch, Which is the one that revs up for fight-or-flight, And then it has the parasympathetic branch, Which is rest and digest. And so sometimes when we're working or when we're thinking about certain things that maybe, You know, Have some stress associated with it, We might actually engage our sympathetic nervous branch of the nervous system and we might start to tense, We might start to hold, You know, Different places where the flow of energy is not moving as much, As freely. So, When that happens also, There's going to be a lot of the motor cortex and the the amygdala, And the parts of the brain that are basically part of that sympathetic stress response, That's going to be, There's going to be more resources and energy that is towards that, And less towards our prefrontal cortex. And therefore, Top-down processes, Even of meditation, And of positive thinking, Or refreshing, Different even positive affirmations that we might have access to and that can sometimes help us to change our nervous system state. They might not be available to us because there's not enough blood flow actually to the prefrontal cortex for us to think rationally, To think clearly, And to have access to those tools. So that's why somatic tools are so helpful because without having to think about anything. We just apply the process. You'll see the five tools that I've chosen today are super simple, Super accessible. They don't take much time at all. So they're very practical and easy to integrate in your daily life and they allow you to access the nervous system and get into a state change without having to think about it. You can even put a reminder on so that you start to train yourself. One thing, If you have participated in a live CLS before, That you might be aware of is that the new science has proven that we need 7 to 10 times a day of short practices to rewire the brain, So to engage the neuroplasticity of the brain and allow us to build new neural pathways for instance for self-regulation and the practices can be 10 to 30 seconds so it's not a big commitment of time or energy it's a lot less than meditating and you can still meditate and meditation is wonderful and long meditations are very helpful also to rewire the brain that said for people who don't have enough time or as much time available to themselves and also if If you actually want to have a more consistent capacity, Flexibility and resilience in your nervous system, You're going to get more results by having 7 to 10 touch points throughout the day of 10 to 30 seconds practices, Which is what we're going to do today. So today we'll practice a little more than 10 to 30 seconds so that we can experiment together and you can really learn to integrate those practices. Once you've learned them and once you have like a map in your brain, The neural pathways are being laid down as you're doing the practice to have those tools available, Then you can just have touch points, You know, 10 to 30 seconds, 7 to 10 times a day. And that's easy enough, Like I said, To set a timer, You know, Throughout the day and say, OK, Every hour I'm going to just do 10 to 30 seconds. And that's going to change the way that you experience yourself at work, In your relationships, In your life, With your inspiration, With your capacity to focus. So it's really very, Very helpful to start having that process. Another reason why somatic work and nervous system, You know, Regulation tools are so helpful is that the vagus nerve, Which is the, It's basically the main component of your parasympathetic nervous system, Your rest and digest part of your nervous system. Well, 80% of the of the nerve fibers from the vagus nerve are actually afferent. So it means that they're bottom-up. They go from all the organs. So your vagus nerve innervates your heart, Your lungs, All of your abdominal cavity. 80% of it actually is in your gut of your vagus nerve. And 80 to 90% of the nerve fibers are afferent, They go up and they send signals to your brain. And so the fastest way to feel safe, To feel settled, To be rested, And again, Rested doesn't mean, And to feel safe and settled doesn't mean that you can engage and be playful and be social. It simply means that your nervous system is in a state of balance and you are able to to move from state to state easily. So when we do something somatic through the body, Now we can help our body feel safe. And when our body feels safe, Because 80 to 90% goes from the body to the brain in terms of signals, Now it's telling the brain everything is okay, So then you can calm down your thoughts. So I think everyone can agree that We can, And that might not be true for everyone, That's it, Everyone can agree that, For most people, We want to have less thoughts. And the way to go about it is not to try to control your mind to not have thoughts. Because as Deb Dana says, From Polyvagal Theory, Deb Dana says, Story and narrative follow state. So the story we tell ourselves, Meaning our thoughts, Any situation that we're in is actually driven by our nervous system state. It's driven by how our nervous system is assessing what's going on inside of us. Now, That's the body, And that can be, Of course, The mind that's set from the place of memories that are like Dr. Bessel van der Kolk in his book, The Body Keeps the Score, How those memories, The trauma, Is actually stored in our fascia, In our tissue, In our muscles, In all kinds of tension patterns that we've accumulated over time. And so that's, When we have those tension patterns, Patterns in place, Even if we're not reading the environment correctly in the present moment, We are reading the environment in the present moment from what's going on in our body, From what's stored in our bodies. So that's why somatic tools and nervous system tools, Which you could say, In a way, They're one and the same, Or they work together. They're very complementary, And sometimes they are the same. You have nervous system tools that are used in somatic work. So that's why that's so effective because you're accessing your body to help your body feel safe and then to send the signal to the brain that you're okay and then the story can change. Now you can have different types of thoughts or you can have less fault or no fault. So today is going to be all about that. Well, I'm going to add one more thing in terms of theory and then I'll add the theory at the end of each practice so that you can get a sense of what you're doing. So today we're going to use five different tools that actually have different entry points to your nervous system. And the reason why I've chosen tools that have different access points or entry points to your nervous system is because we're all wired differently and we have different levels levels of interoceptive awareness or interoception of what's going on in different ways, In different parts of our bodies. And so those entry points are going to help different people to connect. Oh, Am I connected to this space in my body or am I connected to this entry point to my nervous system? So if you don't feel much after a practice, It means that you have less interoceptive awareness in that area. And that's not a lacking on your part. That's the way that your nervous system has developed. And you can change that over time if you choose to, Or you can just say, You know what? I found this one tool that really helps me to downregulate or to upregulate my nervous system. Again, Downregulate is going from hyper arousal, Right? So fight or flight, Any type of fight or flight. There's many different ways that that works. That plays out into a state of ventral vagal energy, Social engagement, Rest and digest. We're here and we're present. And then there's the up-regulation where if someone is shut down in dorsal vagal collapse, For instance, Or if they are burned out, Which is one and the same, It means the same thing. It's just another way of saying it. So if someone is in that state, Well, They need to build up their energy slowly and gently because if they were in a state of freeze or collapse, They need to just slowly come out so that it's not too much too soon and too fast. And so the upregulation is going to actually be using a practice that brings people out of this freeze or collapse and helps them to start to feel energy and to feel safe with that energy because oftentimes people who go into dorsal vagal collapse are people who have had a lot of activation for a long time and they actually don't feel safe in their body. Maybe they have a lot of trauma and they don't feel safe being in their body with a lot of energy. So we're going to, Again, Have these different entry points. So I'm going to name the entry points so that you have a reference point for that. It's not that important. That said, We're going to use the vestibular ocular reflex pathway. And all of those are linked also to the vagus nerve. And so that's why they're in the brainstem. They have connections in the brainstem, In the pons, Which is where, You know, When we access those subcortical areas of our brain where our stress responses get activated, We're able again to calm the stress response. And again, Calming the stress response doesn't mean necessarily being more calm because calming the stress response can be if someone is in shutdown, Slowly building up the energy so that they can get out of the shutdown or the collapse. So the first one will be with the eyes. The second one is pulmonary CO2 carbon dioxide chemistry. The third one is cerebral blood flow. The fifth one is accessory nerve vagal connection. And then the fifth one is peripheral tactile boundary definition. So this is again a little bit technical that said don't worry about it. It's not even important. I just want to let you know that we're going to go through different entry points to your nervous system so that that you can shift to. From state to state, Whatever state you're in and that you want to shift into. And then I have at the end a little surprise with a tool that doesn't require actually you to do anything. It's a tool, A device that you can use and could be also very helpful, Especially to complete our stress loops, Which is very important. The first practice we're going to go into is going to be the Stanley Rosenberg maneuver. So this is very simple, And you can do it sitting or lying down. I'm going to do it sitting. That said, If you have the opportunity to lie down, I actually recommend that, Because when you lie down, You're going to be able to really relax your head, And that relaxation, For instance, For Anja, Who was mentioning she has a lot of head and neck tension, That type of relaxation weight of the head and just completely surrendering into the hands and the hands holding the head can really also bring down the stress response. What we're going to do is you're going to you can interlace the fingers if you want or not and You're going to go right here at the so base of the skull right where the neck meets you know the head and you're going to basically hold that so I'm still releasing some of the tension and letting some of the weight be in my hands and if you can just spend a little time here just closing your eyes and just feeling what it feels like to let go of tension here. Surrendering the weight of your head. And your neck, Some of the weight of your neck into your hands. And maybe, Like for me for instance, I've been working since really early this morning, I did not sleep well last night, So I could feel like a deeper breath as soon as I did this, Because I am holding some tension. And then you're going to open your eyes. And you're going to keep your head still and centered. And again, Keep the weight where it is and you're going to shift your gaze and your eyes to the left. And you're going to stay there. Until you get a response. So your timing instead of timing it, Is to have that stage shift that you know happens when you get a sigh, A yawn, A blink, Maybe even a swallow, A bird. A tremor. Or acetylene. And once you get the response, Then you're going to come back to center for a moment and just stay here at center. Just noticing. Pausing here, Resting. And then without moving your head, You're just simply going to move your eyes to the right. Shift your gaze as far to the right as you can. And as is comfortable, You don't want to strain your eyes, You want to be gentle. And then again. Until you get it your way. Or some kind of response. And then you can come back to center so keep your hands where they are supporting your head coming back to center And just take a moment to pause. Breath. So I call it PRN, That comes from actually, Well, Different modalities that said also my felon Christ therapist. At the end of every movement and every rehabilitation of posture and body movement there's this pause rest notice which again leads to integration The brain is scanning, Noticing, We are increasing our interoceptive awareness. And then this tool becomes more available to us because now we have a reference point for what happens when we use it, Which is we usually do things when we know why. So we don't just do things without having a purpose for it, For most people. And so when we know, When we have the reference points, Then it really helps us to be motivated to do those things. And then again, So whichever one you like. A little bit of Butterfly Tapping to integrate. So I got a deeper breath. Again, I'm holding quite a lot of tension today from not sleeping well and waking up so early at 4am. And being on the computer for many hours. Can feel like I'm actually really enjoying and needing to practice Somatic tools right now with you. Okay, So I'm going to read to you. Well, First of all, I'm gonna tell you Usually what each tool is most relevant for and then I'm gonna share the science I always do that so that you understand what's happening and when you understand what's happening in your body in your nervous system in your brain again And that's the why. And that's going to motivate you. That's the why and the how. That helps you understand the why. Why do it because of what it's doing. And so then it's going to be more available to you because you're going to be like, Oh, I'm feeling this right now. And I remember when I used this tool that was for this situation, It really helped me. So I'm going to do it again. And you won't have to think about it if you've practiced it enough. So the Stanley Rosenberg basic maneuver, There's different Stanley Rosenberg he's an osteopath and a therapist and he has a lot of different practices called the Stanley Rosenberg there's one called the reset that's more involved which I think I might have taught in another life so that's it this one is most suited for high stake situation so when something you know when you're gonna have a big meeting or big conversation with someone or you know that something is conflictual and you need to get your clear-thinking mind on, Or you want to be socially engaged, You have an event or you're hanging out with people that you love, Or after being activated as a rapid reset. So that's a way of Resetting very fast. I have never been so today I Practiced it before so I didn't yawn right away that said I have never had a situation where I've practiced Stanley Rosenberg The basic maneuver and not having on right away like for me. It's like it's just very very effective so that means that the entry point that I was mentioning the neural ocular what is it vestibular ocular reflex pathway for me is quite already available to me. So I'm gonna read now. What's happening in the brain and the nervous system when we do that, When you're in your brain and body, Brain, Nervous system, And body. So the Rosenberg basic practice targets the vestibulo-ocular reflex, VOR, The neurological pathway that connects the eyes to the brainstem's vestibular nuclei. These nuclei share brainstem connections with your vagus nerve, And that's why it's so helpful to bring about a parasympathetic response. So, With the vagus nerve, Dorsal motor nucleus and nucleus ambiguous. Sustained lateral gaze activates the VOR, The vestibulo-ocular reflex, And sends direct parasympathetic signals to the brainstem, Right there. Modulating vagal tone before any cognitive processing is involved. You don't need to think about it. You don't need to, You know, To want to, You know, Like change your state. It just happens without even having to bring cognition online. The subconscious suboccipital muscles, Which govern the position and movement of the skull on the atlas vertebra, The very scientific, Also release on the disposition, Reducing a significant source of proprioceptive threat signaling that keeps the brainstem in a low-level alert state. So when we are able, Through this process, To have less of that threat signaling, Then the brainstem is not going to be in this low-level threat signal alert state. The yawn or swallow that signals completion, And as I said, There's more ways that you can know that you have had a release, Is the confirmation of the brainstem state change, And that stored stress in your nervous system has been released. So a yawn, A burp, A sigh the eyes can also well the blinking or the eyes closed or some other type of sound or some people hear a sound in their ears like if there's a lot of pressure in the ear and then that releases they also hear a sound and then it can be somatic like just feeling more settled and feeling a shift in their energy that's also a response. Crying. So that's another response. That's a letting go. That's a releasing of whatever we might be holding onto through crying. So slow down breathing. It will change your breath. So your breathing rate will change. That's also a sign that the nervous system has changed state. So it can be an increase or a decrease. With this practice, It's going to be most Like most of the time a decrease in your breathing rhythm. You didn't get a response. That's what I was saying earlier on today We're going to have five different entry points to your nervous system. That means you haven't practiced this before or maybe there's tremendous tension in your in your Nerves in the nerves of your eyes or there's some other Phenomenon that's happening. You know, Maybe your neck is really tight. There's so many different reasons and that's why We don't need to actually worry if we don't get a response We just know up that is not my thing right now, And it could become my thing if I practice it There's also by the way performance Anxiety I have some clients when we do this they do not have a response Because they're in front of me unless they are clients that I've had for a long time and they're very relaxed with me That said new clients. It's like they feel self-conscious and they wanted to Don't do it right. So there's going to be this sympathetic activation that comes from wanting to do it right. By the way, In all your practices, Don't try to do it right. Don't force yourself. Don't bring effort. Just bring intention and then surrender. Because the moment that you bring this kind of like effort and trying to pressure yourself into doing something, Now you're sympathetically activating. There are literally thousands of somatic tools out there and hundreds, Probably more than that, Hundreds of hundreds of, You know, Nervous system regulation tools. So you'll find yours. You can try some, You can try my course on inside timer that has, You know, A lot of these tools. You can try some of our meditations that have a lot of other tools. You can, Uh, The lives, By the way, A lot of the lives I've had have been recorded and approved by inside timer. So they're available, You know, Video section. On our profile and you can see if other tools might work for you if today none of the tools we do work for you. So the hand positioning is just to release the tension that we hold from holding our head. Our heads are very heavy and it requires a lot to hold our heads up so it can be really nice just like, You know, Surrender that weight, And then that can help with that. And also, When we're holding there, We're bringing energy, Thermal energy, And proprioceptive input to the brainstem, And that also is going to help. And we're gonna have another practice that's just focused on that. You know, When we're cradling our head, It also reminds us of cradling, Of being held, You know, Of that support. So if there is an area in our lives where we might not be feeling supported in whatever, You know Aspect of our life that might be whether that's personal relationships work relationships money health There's many different ways that we might not be feeling supported in our lives. Then that's going to Yeah, We're going to have this sensitivity when we bring somatic support because somatic support is experienced as and then it helps us realize, Oh, I might be lacking support somewhere. That's why we get emotional about it, Because we actually really needed it. You don't want to try anything in soma work or nervous system work. That is going to be counterproductive. Trying is going to sympathetically activate you. You don't want to bring the sympathetic nervous system online, Even if you're upregulating. Yes, You're going to bring that back online. That said, Not by trying. Because with people who have been in shutdown or collapse. . . You need to be very gentle. And you need to learn to be with yourself, To listen to yourself, To develop a relationship with yourself that is very gentle and that allows you to shift state, Not through force or not through effort. If any of you have done my meditations, You'll see I'm always making invitations. I never say, Do this, Do that. I will say, If you would, Or if you will, Or I invite you. So you always want to invite yourself into any experience so that you don't activate your sympathetic branch of your autonomic nervous system. A complete, In my opinion, Shift in perspective and the way that you engage with life, With yourself and with things. And it's also going to start to really build your parasympathetic response and lead you to be less and less in sympathetic activation over time. So it's really good to just build that parasympathetic tone. So the next one is one that for people who have been here before is something that I I've already taught in, I think, In self-regulation, The self-regulation life, And it's the physiological side. And one of the things that I personally love about the physiological side is that it is so accessible, And it is so simple, And there have been so many studies that show that it's more effective than box breathing, It's more effective than some of the hyperventilation breathwork that really can lead to a lot of release. So it's been proven to be way more effective than that. And Andrew Uberman, Who has a podcast called the Uberman Lab, He has done a lot of research and he's emphasized that a lot. And he's really helped to bring that practice general public so that it's more accessible to more people so that they can have a simple tool that they can use that can basically clear the accumulation of carbon dioxides that can, You know, Well, Accumulate, That can build up in your lungs, In the alveoli, When we're not breathing deeply. And when we're in this shallow breath, Because of health tension in the body, Then we're going to have CO2 in the body, In the blood, And the brain, Our nervous system sends the signal to the brain that there's a lot of CO2. And I think it's read in the brainstem. I'll read the science in a moment. What happens is that it takes us right into a threat response. Because if we have too much CO2, We're going to start to feel like we can't breathe. And that's going to lead us to potentially be even more contracted, More stressed, And in fight or flight. So, Let's do the practice. It's very simple. You're simply going to once again sit and settle. If you want to lay down, That's fine too. Close your eyes. Or have a soft gaze. Press your feet into the floor and maybe feel the floor, The earth. Pressing back against the soles of your feet. Feel that support, See if you can yield into the support of the chair. And we're just gonna do three rounds today. And so remember, Before the first round, So I'm gonna tell you about the practice and then we'll do it. You're going to exhale all the air out and then you'll start, You'll take an inhale. So in the physiological side, We're inhaling through the nose. Kind of like normally, But a little more forced than usual. And then at the top of that first inhale, We're going to do a shorter, Sharper inhale through the nose again. So it will sound like this. And kind of like the side that we did earlier on. So that was just me telling you and showing you and now we're going to do it together. So again, Don't force yourself, You know, If this is new to you, You can even slow it down, You can do whatever pace works for you so that you're not over activating yourself. So let's go, Let's start by exhaling all the air out of the lungs and then he counts And then pause. Rest and notice. So you might notice if something has changed where The change has happened. Maybe you get a yawn. Maybe some other kind of response, Maybe you need to do more. So please feel free to continue. I have taught in the past serial yawning. Sorry, Serial yawning is also a practice. Serial physiological sighs or serial sighing also. So where you keep going. And so there is a practice actually of physiological sighs where you do it for five minutes. And that is extremely helpful to release when someone has a lot of buildup of CO2 in the blood from being maybe in a chronic stress response and in state of tension for a very long time. Maybe they have PTSD or maybe they have complex trauma or they're carrying just a lot of stress in their lives and they haven't really been able to release that. Well, That's really going to help. So I highly recommend if this works for you and if it's a practice that you resonate with to try to do five minutes of that. I actually have a practice, I don't know if it's five minutes of it, That says it's a nervous system reset where we use the physiological size. So you may want to try that out so that you have a companion guiding you. I have two, I have a long one that's 45 minutes and a shorter one that's just 10 to 15 minutes I believe. So that you can practice. And then once you have paused rest and notice you can then do the butterfly. Tabs and just allow yourself to integrate. Whatever response in your nervous system OK, I'm going to read the science and then I'm going to go to your comments, Your questions and whatever you want to share here about your experience with everyone. In the lungs. So it's like the tiny little things at the end of your lungs, Well, At the extremities of your lungs, Those collapse. And so when that happens, When we have anxious breathing, Shallow anxious breathing, This allows carbon dioxide to accumulate in the blood. Elevated carbon dioxide is detected by chemoreceptors in the brainstem's medulla, Right there, Which respond by increasing the urgency and rate of the breath drive. So maybe, You know, Like where we feel like we need to breathe. Creating the physical sensation of breathlessness that escalates anxiety. The double inhale of the physiological side pops collapsed alveoli open, Maximizing surface area for gas exchange and rapidly offloading excess CO2, Carbon dioxide. The extended passive exhale then activates the cardiac vagal tone directly. Producing a measurable reduction in heart rate within seconds. Research from the Hubberman Lab at Stanford in 2023, Comparing five-minute daily practice of cyclic sighing, Box breathing, And cyclic hyperventilation found that cyclic sighing through psychological, Sorry, The physiological side, Most significant improvements in positive effect, So your mood, And the largest reductions in resting respiratory rate over time, So bringing down your heart rate and your breathing rate, Which work in combination with each other. I'm going to get into the next practice, Which is super simple. So for this one, You can start again, Just settle yourself. Try to see if you can learn to come back to a state of relaxation where you were when you were at the last practice. You can kind of remember, Oh, I was this relaxed. And bring that into your awareness and try to settle back there. And now all you're going to do is hold. Your forehead and the same space that we were holding during the Stanley Rosenberg maneuver and you're just not pressing, You're not putting pressure, You're just bringing blood flow there. So it's a proprioceptive input and it's also a thermal input because your hands are going to radiate heat. To your forehead and to your brainstem. And so now, So this is a great one, By the way, When you are having, For instance, A panic attack or when There's nothing available because you are just feeling overwhelmed. And that's gonna help you to calm down so I have clients that do that naturally I haven't even taught them to do that and they don't do the back that said they'll do this They'll just hold themselves there and without even knowing because we have that wisdom inside of us what they're doing is They're bringing the prefrontal cortex back online They're bringing the blood flow to their prefrontal cortex and moving the blood away from maybe the amygdala You know the different Centers the limbic centers in the brain that are reacting to some kind of threat that they're perceiving either from the past that is held in the body or from them. For instance, For me right now having parasites, I'm definitely having, You know, Different ways that my body is sending signals to my brain that I'm not okay, Which is why also sleep is not Very good for me right now because it's telling my body's telling my brain my gut specifically Something's wrong. Something's wrong fix this fix this And so then the blood is going to be in those centers, So in the amygdala, And the hippo, I think it's the hippocampus, Or the hypothalamus, I can't remember which one, Maybe the, I think it's the hippocampus, The one involved in memory, And you know, Kind of like replaying that out, And the brainstem, And the pons, All activating to say, Okay, Let's engage and let's get rid, In my situation of this parasite, Slides. So whatever it is that is being perceived as a threat. When you're doing this you're calming down the palms and the brainstem and you're activating the the prefrontal cortex so that you can have clearer thinking. So again, You can do that, Like I was saying earlier on, It can be 10 seconds, It can be 30 seconds, It can be more, And just see how that helps and what you feel when you're doing that. So I'm skipping the pause, Rest, And notice. That said, You can pause, Rest, And notice, And then you can do an integration at the end. Just see how that works that usually works for everyone to some degree and it usually helps people to downregulate pretty fast. So what's happening in your brain and body under acute or chronic stress? Cerebral blood flow, Prefrontal So shunts away, It goes away from the prefrontal cortex toward the limbic system and the motor pathways that support fight or flight behavior as running away, Right, Engaging our muscles to run away from the threat or to fight the threat. The neurovascular hold works by using the warmth of the hands to encourage visodilation, So dilation of the blood vessels, Redirect blood flow back toward the prefrontal cortex. Frontal cortex, The region responsible for perspective-taking, Flexible thinking, And emotional regulation. The occipital contact of the back hand adds a proprioceptive cue directly to the pons and brainstem, Supporting parasympathetic tone from below, While the frontal hold supports cortical return from above. This is a mechanical intervention that doesn't require any belief or intentional focus to produce its physiological effects, Which makes it particularly useful during very high states of activation, Like a panic attack, When directed attention is difficult to sustain. So the physiological side, And even doing the eye movement, The Stanley Rosenberg, It still requires a little bit of presence, Even reminding yourself to breathe, Reminding yourself to keep the eyes you know like this or to keep the hands like that whereas if you're just holding here it's like you don't have to think about anything you're not doing anything you're not you don't have any steps you're just there and you're holding so Yeah, That's very accessible to many people. So we're going to go to the next one. So our next one is going to be. . . Okay, This is a real simple one so again for the sake of time just recall yielding into support. Take your time. I'm not rushing you. Dad said we're going to go more into it faster. So all you're going to do is just let your head Drop to the right. And without trying, Just let the shoulder on the right side be relaxed so that it's not like you're not bringing the shoulder to your ear, You're just letting the ear drop to your shoulder. And just let gravity Take care. Oh. Just things unwinding. And your head. Getting closer to your shoulder. So this is going to be good. Sorry, I can't remember who mentioned that they have neck and head tension. That's it's going to be good for that. So useless. Because we can get a lot of tension trapped in our neck and our head and then come to center And just take a moment. You might notice that your right shoulder is dropping. I've noticed that right away. You might even see it. I don't know if you see it here. Do you see my right shoulder is lower, A little lower? Then my left. So just notice, If you can't see yourself, Just notice if that's happened. And then go to the other side again you're not forcing it just it's more like the weight you're letting the weight of your head, Bring your head. Towards your shoulder. So I took a deeper breath there. That's a signal. Like I got a release from doing that because I'm sure my neck Very intense today. From the sleeplessness and the early morning rising And then come back to center. Pause. Rest. And knowledge. Thanks. Yeah, It's funny because as I'm looking right now and I'm sensing, Intercepting, I can feel my right shoulder rose back up a little bit and my left dropped. So I'm consciously, By the way, In Feldenkrais, We bring the shoulders up. And then we gently drop them. And we do that. So I'm integrating that right now. And down. And that can also really help. So you could do that at the end of something like this and it would actually even release more tension. So this is going to release tension here. In your neck. In the, What's the name? See, I'm so tired I can't even remember the name of, I think it's the. . . Those muscles at the back. I don't think it's this. Well, It might be the scapula actually. Forgive me for not having access to that right now. So, Anyway, I'm going to read the science and then I'm going to tell you when to do this. So, The science for this one, The upper trapezius, There it is, The trapezius muscle, That's what I was looking for, And sternocleidomastoid SCM, I'm going to call it SCM, Muscles are innervated by the accessory nerve, The cranial nerve 11, Which shares its brainstem nuclei of origin So, When these muscles can carry an unusually high density of proprioceptive receptors that continuously report their tension state back to the brainstem, So they're saying, It's tense, It's tense, It's tense, Which is only gonna make you more stressed and anxious. Under chronic stress or high anxiety, The upper traps and SCM brace significantly, Right, We're like this, And this bracing generates a stream of proprioceptive signals that the brainstem reads as ongoing threat, There's a threat, There's a threat. So when you're like this, It's like there's a threat, There's a threat, There's a threat. Because if you were like this, You know, In an environment, It would probably be because you feel like there's a threat. And so if your body through something that it's holding or interpreting as a threat is doing this and bracing and Tensing then it's going to send signals to the brain like there is a threat and that's going to maintain the stress response even when the original stressor is no longer present even if like, You know, Let's say you had an argument with someone or Something happened at work and now you're holding that, You know tension in your body well, If you don't release that tension then it's just gonna keep telling your brain there's a threat, There's a threat, There's a threat, Because the body is actually taking the shape of there is a threat. So mechanically releasing this tension through a passive gravity-assisted lateral stretch, Like we did, Sends deactivation signals through the cranial nerve 11, Which is directly, Directly through it, To the shared vagal nuclei, Providing a direct bottom-up input into the stress response circuitry, A widening of peripheral visual field. So usually you'll know that this has worked because your vision instead of being narrow focused like this, You'll now see more. So when I do Feldenkrais therapy, For instance, We'll work on one side of my body. And it's so interesting when we do the pause rest notice, I'll look on the right side. If we start with the right side and I will see so much of the room, It's like, It's so expanded and I can see so much. And then the left side, I see very little, You know, And it's like all close, But I don't have an expanded view. And then when I do the left side, Then the same thing happens on the left side. The contrast that said with this right now we're not well actually you were doing one side and then another so maybe when you come to center you might feel like one you know once you've opened one side you you can see on one side more than the other and then at the end of it you'll see on both sides Um. . . A widening of peripheral visual field after the practice is a reliable indicator of improving ventral vagal tone, Meaning your capacity to shift from state to state. Tunnel vision is associated with sympathetic activation, Right? When there's a threat, We're focused. We have a narrow focus. We're not like expanded and soft-gazed. We're like, Nope, There's a threat. I need to focus on that and address the threat. Um. . . And. . . And doing this, It gradually reverses that narrow focus as our vagal tone improves with this practice. So specifically, Lateral vagus nerve stretch is most suited for physical, So for when you have physical tension after a conflict, An argument, A high stake conversation, A lot of computer use. So for instance, I've been on the computer since 4 a. M. I've got a lot of tension there or any period of Hypervigilance right like if you have felt like there's a threat whether it's something physical that's going on with you or something in your environment It's such a blessing to be in space with you. I hope this was helpful for you I hope that the somatic tools that I demonstrated today that was helpful and that now you have a good sense of what to use one and These are just five tools. They are so many tools out there. So whether it's in my course or whether it's, You know, In different tracks that I offer on Insight Timer or looking on the internet, You know, For nervous system tools. I'm actually in the process right now of designing a massive database of somatic nervous system interventions. And so there's hundreds that I'm compiling. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet. That said, I hope to be able to share share it with as many people as possible. And it's my joy and pleasure to be in space with you always.