Les 1
The stress response overview
Have you ever wondered why you get sweaty or clammy palms when you’re nervous and why your breath might tighten up or you get tunnel vision when you’re about to have a difficult conversation?
In lesson one, we explore the basics of stress and how the body responds under stressful situations.
This lesson culminates in a short breath practice to help calm the body & mind when you’re experiencing moments of stress
Les 2
Nervous System Basics
Our Nervous System is the body’s command center & messaging system. It controls everything we do from breathing, digesting and walking to thinking, feeling & our automatic responses to the world around us.
It is through your nervous system that you perceive life!
In this lesson, we will dive into what the nervous system is and how it supports us in everything we do. We will also learn about the vagus nerve which is one of the most important nerves in the body and is an integral part of the nervous system.
We’ll look at what happens when the vagus nerve is not functioning at it’s optimum and why this happens.
This lesson culminates in a practice to help ‘tone’ the vagus nerve, supporting it to return back to it’s optimum function.
Les 3
The 3 self-protective states: #1 Fight or flight
Fight or flight (aka our sympathetic state) is the first of the 3 ‘protective’ states of our nervous system. It is the state of activation or mobilisation. It’s the state we’re typically in when we feel anxious, frustrated or overwhelmed.
In this lesson, we deep dive into the fight or flight state, how we end up in this state, how we can tell in our own bodies when we are heading into, or are in, fight or flight and, most importantly, what we can do to help our systems to transition out of this activated state.
This lesson culminates with a short practice to help our systems to transition out of fight or flight and back into a calm, grounded state.
Les 4
The 3 self protective state: #2 & #3, Freeze & Shut down
Freeze & shutdown are 2 different states which also fall under the ‘self protective’ category. Shutdown is a result of being in our dorsal vagal complex and typically happens when our system perceives that there is no point in being activated or mobilised – so it shuts us down.
The freeze state is a combination of both our sympathetic state (fight or flight) and our dorsal state (shutdown).
In this lesson. we dive deep into both the freeze and the shutdown states, how we can end up in these states, how we can tell in our own bodies that we are heading into or are in freeze or shut down and most importantly how we can navigate our way out!
This lesson culminates in a short practice to help ease you out of the shutdown (dorsal vagal) state
Les 5
The 3 balanced states
There are 3 balanced states of our nervous system, we come into these states when our system doesn’t pick up on any perceivable threats.
The primary is – our ventral vagal complex state - which is commonly referred to as rest, digest, repair, reproduce & connect. And as the name suggests is the state we are in when our ability to rest, to digest, to heal ourselves, to reproduce and connect with others is at it’s optimum.
The next 2 are blended states..
The state of play, this is when we are in our ventral vagal complex but have a splash of sympathetic (mobilisation)
And Stillness, this is when we are also in our ventral vagal but we have a splash of dorsal (shutdown).
In this lesson we dive deeper into the balanced states of our nervous system, the importance of spending the majority of our time in these states and how we can better support our systems to being in these states.
This lesson culminates in a short practice to help to shift you into your ventral vagal (balanced) state
Les 6
Why are we dysregulated if we’re not in imminent danger?
Here we will look deeper into why, as a society, we are in an almost constant state of dysregulation – how the way & speed at which we live & the pressure we put ourselves under keeps us in a cycle of dysregulation.
We will also look at how, whatever state we are in, creates our story – keeping us stuck in perhaps a constant cycle of stress, fatigue & overwhelm.
We will then discuss actionable tweaks we can make to our day to day life to release ourselves from the cycle of dysregulation.
This lesson ends with a short awareness practice which can be used in any moment to bring you back to the present moment
Les 7
Co-regulation vs self regulation
Self regulation is when we use resources that are within ourselves in order to bring our selves back into a place of balance.
Co-regulation is when we utilise another person or animal, and their balanced state to bring us back into a place of balance.
In this lesson, we will explore self & co-regulation and the importance of having both resources available to us on our journey towards regulating our nervous systems.
This lesson culminates with a short guided practice to facilitate self-regulation
Les 8
The breath & the nervous system
The breath is one of the most vital tools we have when it comes to regulating our nervous system.
It is a powerful resource that every single one of us possess. We breathe on average 25 – 30,000 every single day and we can begin to harness this recourse at any given moment to help bring us back to a place of harmony, easefulness & balance.
In this lesson, we will dive deeper into the breath and how it relates to the nervous system and explore different ways we can use it to promote a more resilient, flexible and regulated nervous system.
We will do 2 different practices during this lesson to explore how the breath can be used to both UP regulate the nervous system and to DOWN regulate the nervous system.
Les 9
Creating the map of your nervous system
In order to be able to change where we are in our nervous system (what state we are in), it’s vital we know where we are.
Many people get ‘stuck’ in a state – simply because they don’t know ‘the way out’
In this lesson. we will look at the main states of the nervous system — dorsal shut down, sympatheti, and ventral vagal — like a traffic light system to harness more familiarity around the states in order that we can create pathways that become easier and easier to traverse so that we can easefully find our way out of the self protective states and into the balanced state of our ventral vagal.
This lesson ends with a sensory practice which is one of the pivotal practices for nervous system regulation
Les 10
A summary of all you have learnt
In this final lesson, we will recap on what you have learnt over the last 10 days in order that you can integrate the learnings even further.
Today’s practice, we build on the previous days' practice so that it becomes a familiar and easy practice to call upon when needed.
