Hi,
My friends.
I'm Christy Ballant.
Welcome to my home in Northern California.
I'm glad to have you here.
We'll be stimulating and supporting the vagus nerve in the face.
By using acupressure points to help regulate the nervous system.
To begin,
I'd like you to take a hand to your heart and a hand to your navel area.
And just close your eyes for a beginning check-in practice.
Just noticing how you're doing below the surface of your being.
See if you can soften the muscles of the face just by saying,
Let go of any unnecessary tension.
Sometimes we don't even know that we're holding tension in our face.
Good.
Now,
To regulate the nervous system further,
We'll do the HA breath.
Exhale with me on this first breath,
Draw belly to spine,
Squeezing out the still air.
Inhale deeply.
At the top of that breath,
Pause,
Open your mouth,
And make a gentle,
Long,
Slow,
Ha sound.
Good,
Inhaling as you're ready.
Gentle pause at the top and exhale.
Good.
Keep breathing in this manner.
The vagus nerve responds better to a slow,
Gentle practice.
Never aggressive.
Let's begin just releasing our hands.
Take that next deep breath in and you can use this.
Ah breath throughout.
Our session.
Take your hands and.
.
.
Cut the chin and then move the fingers up next to the ears.
Take the thumbs behind the base of the earlobe.
You might even rub gently with your thumbs.
Good,
The fingers can go all the way up to the temples.
Pause here again,
Closing your eyes and returning to that gentle breath.
Big,
Full inhale.
Long,
Slow,
Gentle exhale through your mouth.
Nice.
Now two more,
Just like that.
The vagus nerve is very close to the skin of the face.
And around the ears.
At the end of that next exhale,
Drag your fingers down to your cheeks.
And feel those tight muscles of the jaw.
Begin to push upward toward the temples.
Again returning down to the cheeks.
And pushing upward.
Should feel pretty good.
And then one last time.
Pushing up to the temples.
Making slow,
Gentle circles here.
Repetition with the vagus nerve help.
It's like a calming movement.
Good,
Especially get into that bony ridge next to the ear.
Nice,
Notice if you're taking some deeper breaths.
Letting the nervous system let go.
And then release,
Taking just your index fingers to the base of the nostrils,
Going out just an eighth of an inch,
Hardly at all.
And this is an important acupressure point.
Begin to circle here,
But we're not really moving our fingers.
We're planning our fingers against the skin gently and then moving the skin.
Do you feel the difference?
Nice.
If you've been doing the vagus nerve practices with me for a while,
You may already notice a lot of saliva in your mouth.
Because the biggest nerve practices are.
.
.
Accumulative.
So the more you do the practices and commit to them,
The better your nervous system and easier your nervous system responds.
Now go slowly in one more circle and find an area of tension.
Once you find that area of tension I want you to press in a little more deeply.
But still gently,
We're pinning down the muscles that are tight here.
This helps the whole facial muscles.
Get a nice glow about it.
Some Countries call this a beauty point.
Yeah.
You may notice percolation under your fingers.
As the muscle releases.
Good,
Nice.
Now let it go.
Go back to that base of the nose and push upward.
And all the way up over the eyebrows.
And to that bony ridge on the side of the eyes and underneath.
Yeah.
Come back to our starting position here.
This time pushing up to the base of the nostrils or that very.
.
.
Not the base of the nostrils,
But the bridge of the nose.
Yeah see if you can just find that little point that feels like you can make small circles here.
You may even feel a little indentation there.
And again check your mail.
Notice a deeper breath.
Swallowing,
More saliva,
All those signals your nervous system is letting go.
Nice,
Now push.
The index fingers into the eyebrows.
Right at the very beginning of the eyebrows this is a sensitive point again another beauty point to help the facial muscles let go just hold here Just a gentle but firm pressure.
So you're feeling what's going on underneath your fingers.
Yeah,
Take some breaths as you're holding it.
And if it's super tender,
You be super gentle,
Okay?
Now,
Circle.
Finding that little area that's more bunched up i've found one here And just hold there,
And you can make many circles if you'd like to.
Only if it feels good,
Because this is a very tender point.
And we'll move up into the eyebrows.
All the way back to our temples here.
Good,
Just circling for a moment.
Yeah feel that letting go Now bring your hands up to the forehead,
Finding those bony points that are right above the very middle of your eyebrows.
And just begin to massage here.
I like to stimulate this point because it's their neurovascular point.
On your forehead that help bring the energy to our frontal thinking brain for more clarity.
And away from the brain stem at the base of the skull.
Nice,
And now just relax for a moment.
Just keep your fingers there and relaxed.
Remember,
We're calling the blood away from the stress point.
At the back of the skull.
Good,
Nice.
Now just take your hands and smooth over your head and down to the base of the skull.
And then around through your neck.
Traveling the path of the vagus nerve.
And then back to our heart.
Just let your eyes close,
Give yourself a nice big smile.
And I want you to just check in and just notice.
Some of you may feel like yawning.
Relaxing.
Take a couple of more deep breaths here.
And let your body know that you appreciate.
The relaxation response.
Wishing you deep peace,
My friends.
