Vagal Toning for Nervous System Regulation

If you feel anxiety, stress or similar emotions, vagal toning can help. Using the vagus nerve, we can tap into the parasympathetic nervous system to calm. When we stay in survival mode for long periods the nervous system can become disregulated. Try these techniques to help.

Transcript

Hi, This is Rena from Rena Davis Wellness. I'd like to talk to you today about vagal toning. This is a technique used to help to regulate the nervous system. The vagus nerve itself is one of 12 cranial nerves, And it is the 10th one, Actually. Bi-directional just meaning it comes down into the body give signals from the brain to the body and the body gives signals to the brain as well. When you think about our feelings of whether or not we're safe, This is the vagus nerve communicating all the time up and down through the body to sense into our world and decide if we're safe or not. Some of the ways that we can activate the calming part of the vagus nerve are self-massage points, Breath work. And using heat and cold. Going to show you some of the self-massage points and then we'll go into using heat to activate this this part of the nervous system and as we go i'm going to be using a breath called ujjayi pranayama this is a yoga breath that can be translated into breath uh Ocean sounding breath. And that is done just by pulling back slightly in the back of the throat to make a sound like the ocean. Some people like to call it a Darth Vader breath. Whatever suits you is fine. I'm going to show you that first with my mouth open so that hopefully you can hear what it sounds like. Don't worry about getting this right. The massage points, The heat that we're going to use are going to activate that system. You can try. So Ujjayi is pulling back the tongue, So that's what I'm gonna be doing. I'm pulling it back and then the sound goes. Then you close your mouth to just allow yourself. You can hear your own breath. Maybe some others can hear it as well if you're louder in your breath, But not everyone will. What it's doing is helping to vibrate the vagus nerve because your vocal cords are vibrating. So that's one of the extra ways that you can try to do this. So let's go into the self-massage. The first point is right at the inner parts of your eyebrows. So I'm taking just two fingers. I'm gonna just make some small circles here to begin. So small circles. And then we're gonna come across the eyebrow over to the temples where you can again make circles right here. Then we'll come back into that point. I like to do about three sweeps on each of these points. Head back to the temple for a few circles in there. Again, We come into that. And circle the temple. And then we're going to move up to the mid part of the forehead, Sweep across. Again, Those circles at the temple. Maybe taking that ujjayi breath. Midpoint again. I'm using a little bit of pressure here, Not a ton though. And then we'll come up just below the hairline and sweep across here, Hitting that point at the temples once again. A couple more times at that point. If you're using that Ujjayi breathing, You might be letting your stomach pump out as you inhale, Just bringing it lightly back in as you exhale. Next point, We're going to come right into the bridge of the nose and sweep under the eyes on the cheekbones and up toward the temple. Hair in my way. Up along. And then we're gonna come right to the bridge of the nose again, But this time we'll sweep under and on the underside of the cheekbone. Toward the ear. So engaging that breath. If you're not using Ujjayi, That's totally fine. Maybe you're just taking some deep. . . Inhalations and exhalations you might even take your exhalation a little bit longer than the inhalation that sends it sends a clear signal to your brain that There's no danger right now. We wouldn't breathe that way if there was. From there, We're going to come to the point just inside the chin, The little dimple in the chin, If you will, And we're going to sweep across and once again up towards your ears. And then taking peace fingers, We're going to come on the front and back of the ear on both sides. We're going to sweep up here and then down and pull down all along the SEM muscle towards the throat. We're not right in the throat. We're on the either side. Right down along that muscle. You can take several sweeps right here. The vagus nerve runs right along that muscle. I'll do one more, Little bit more on this point. And then we're going to take the finger and just place it inside the ear and just make circles inside. And then holding the ears, We're just going to give a gentle tug down. You can also hold on to the cartilage in the ear here and make some little circles with some pressure. So I'm just squeezing it as I circle. And then come in and sweep all the way around the top part of the ear. There's a good nerve bundle in here, So we want to get into all parts of the ear if possible. So next, We're going to use heat to help to activate this nerve, The dorsal vagal part of the nerve. So we're going to just rub the hands together just to build some heat in the hands. If you're already warm, This won't take long. If you're cold, It's going to take a little longer. I'm pretty warm already, So it won't take me long. We're going to then just cup the hands. So we're not flat. We're cupped. And we're replacing the palms, Not the fingers, Over the eyes. We're not adding pressure here. We're just holding them over the eyes to help to build some heat and help it penetrate in. You can continue with that ujjayi pranayama if that feels good for you. Or simply those deep breaths with long exhalation. Next, We'll take the hands and place them over the jawline. Holding about 30 seconds in each of these points. Next point is right along either side of the throat. Keeping the breath moving still. If you need to warm the hands up a little bit more, Do that. Next we're coming right to the heart. Maybe one hand over the other the way i'm doing right now you can use one hand if you prefer little bit of pressure here. So I'm pressing lightly on my chest here at the heart level. This is a great point for self-soothing as well. Moving the hands this time to the diaphragm, Which sits right between the ribs. Feeling the expansion of the belly as you inhale. Expansion in the ribcage. Contraction as you exhale. And finally, At the stomach. As you release, Just allow the hands to rest in your lap for a moment, Just feeling your body right now, Noticing the emotions. Hopefully feeling a little bit more calm and relaxed as we finish this practice. You can do this every day if you like. You can do it as often as you want to. That's it for today.

Reviews

Perfect set of easy exercises to implement at any time when needed or to start the day in a calm and gentle way. The demonstration and guidance were clear. Thank you 🙏🏼🩵