E-motion - Energy in motion

Improving our body's ability to deal with chronic stress should be taught in school everywhere and in my opinion, at a young age. Usually when we think about things that bring on stress we think of a physical trauma or a death of a loved one or losing our job and so on. I wanted to touch base on a type of chronic stress that many people don’t really associate with when thinking about it and that is- How the power of our thoughts and beliefs can create fear and worry and therefore create chronic stress.

If you know me, I like to get to the deepest root as often as possible when it comes to balancing my body, so I am always looking upstream- looking beyond just treating the symptoms, I ask myself what are the systems/pathways within the body that are the roots to the imbalance? When it comes to stress awareness this is where learning how to change our thoughts and stimulate the vagus nerve can calm the nervous system and improve our relationship with future stress.

I’m sure many of you understand the basic concept of how chronic stress can affect the body and mind in a negative way, but did you know that chronic stress from fearful thoughts, ruminating and worrying can increase insulin, cortisol and fat deposits throughout the body? Did you know that the emotion of fear alone can program our brain and cause systemic inflammation, high cortisol and leaky gut?

Please continue reading if you are interested in learning how to improve your vagal tone in order to balance the nervous system and learn how to become aware of how fear is but an emotion that induces a stressful physiological reaction that can be managed through changing our behaviour and programmed beliefs.

“The moment you begin to FEEL the way you think, you begin to think the way you feel”- Dr. Joe Dispenza

When we are living in constant fear and stress our body tends to take over, our subconscious mind starts running the show and begins to program our mind and body to be in survival mode. It’s like, practice makes perfect, but this perfection comes with a negative impact instead of a positive one and keeps us in survival mode.

I like to explain survival mode as a necessary system that turns off all unnecessary systems within the body in order to use energy for only the most important survival needs. By shutting down most systems due to stress, our digestion is muted, our growth factors are muted, sex hormones are turned down, we increase cortisol, adrenaline, insulin, blood sugar and we become highly focused on the main issue at hand.

This creates an ego rewarding loop that enables specific chemical compounds to be secreted and validates that stress and fear. This is why they say stress and fear are addictive, the body is looking to re-enforce the negative loop. Your body becomes programmed to reward itself when continuing that negative loop and when you start to break that loop, trust me, it (the ego) will fight back as hard as it can and tell you that you are wrong, don’t leave your comfort zone. But, I promise, the darkness is worth every penny because once you regain your true self, no one can manipulate your truth and doubt becomes far less of a daily ruminating thought.

What is Chronic stress?

It’s an addiction and an energy consumer to be blunt.

Amongst many antagonists, fearful thoughts and other emotions create chronic stress which then activate our sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight system). When this system is activated for a short period of time, it’s a good thing but when it has been conditioned to stay activated by ruminating thoughts, negative mindset, worry and fear, we start to run into some problems.

Stress is our body's response to anything that requires our attention. It usually shows up as some kind of symptom so that it can alert us to take care of ourselves, many of us just ignore these symptoms and then the stress bucket begins to overflow. When stress is induced brain chemicals get released and sent out to the body telling certain pathways to either shut down to conserve energy or be on alert and begin to try and rectify the situation.

At some point we are all going to be under a certain amount of stress, the key is learning how to manage that stress and not allow it to become chronic. I was personally under a LOT of stress for about 5 years not long ago and it took a toll on me that I am still recovering from. I can no longer multi-task or take on as much as I used to, at times I wake up with a pounding heartbeat in the middle of my solar plexus and I cannot take a deep breath, that’s when I know I need to call my acupuncturist and get a handle on it before it gets worse. I have learned to slow down and listen to my symptoms and be aware of my thoughts. I distance myself from negative thinkers and those that judge my way of living.

I didn’t think I had much control over how I managed my stress and fearful thoughts until I read and studied the work of neuroscientist Dr.Joe Dispenza and the father of epigenetics Dr. Bruce Lipton. Everything changed for me when I heard Dr.Joe Dispenza say this- “ According to neuroscience, your brain is a record of your environment. As long as you think equal to everything that is familiar to your environment you will keep creating the same thing. To change, to truly change is to think greater than your environment. As soon as you start to believe in a future that has not actually happened yet, your body will start to align with your thoughts and before you know it, you have changed your program mind to a more positive and healthy thought process.” Your personality creates your personal reality, your personality is made up of how you think, how you act and how you feel. SO, if you want to create a new personal reality, one must change their current thoughts, beliefs and emotions that they have memorized and been taught and observed since a young age. Powerful shit right?

What is fear?

It’s an addiction. It is an energy consumer.
Fear is an emotion (energy in motion) that makes you feel like you do not have control. Fear is driven by the ego and loves to be as dramatic as possible. Fear creates lack of trust within one self and numbs the logical mind. Chronic fear activates the sympathetic nervous system, it increases inflammation, breaks down your immune system, it can cause dis-ease within your body and make you feel constant lack within your life. Fear can stop you from living your full potential, it can prevent you from living your true authentic self. The craziest part is that it is just an emotion and we can control it but we have never been taught to even be aware of how much we fear or how much our decisions are based upon fear.

Nerve cells that fire together wire together

Dr.Joe Dispenza and Dr. Bruce Lipton both have remarkable research and studies on how our thoughts can create our reality and that with practice we can change our conditioned mind. I am not an expert in this field so that is why I highly recommend looking into these two amazing humans for further research and begin understanding how thoughts and conditioned minds are only but a program that we can change. I have suggested books below.

Vagus Nerve

Vagus in Latin means wandering, the vagus nerve begins in the brain and wanders throughout the body keeping tabs on what is truly going on inside and then reports back to the brain. It’s best friend is the gut and they are truly two peas in a pod, they love connecting to one another and chillin as often as possible. The vagus is responsible for calming the nervous system after a stressful event. It is the longest nerve of the autonomic nervous system and it is a SUPER important part of healing.

It is THE Queen to regulating our parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest system). It has many tricks up its sleeve in order to maintain homeostasis and plays a large role in the health of our immune system by stimulating the production of acetylcholine in order to reduce inflammation. It keeps our gastrointestinal system calm and makes us feel like we are safe. So if our vagal tone is compromised we will have a tendency to live in a stress and fearful mode (sympathetic mode), have digestive issues and systemic inflammation. Becoming aware of our daily thoughts, and stress levels is a gift and can only increase one's optimal health and reduce the chance of chronic disease.

Signs your vagal tone is suboptimal

Low HRV (Heart rate variability)
Poor digestion
Heart palpitation
Insomnia
Constipation
Not being able to relax
Lack of gag reflux

The vagus nerves role in the body

Controls inflammation in the body
It regulates the gastrointestinal system and gut bacteria
Maintains proper gut motility
It helps regulate heart rate and dilates blood vessels
It maintains your parasympathetic system
It releases acetylcholine which is needed for brain health, immune health, learning and memory.
It helps keep our immune system top notch
Assists in digestive enzyme production

How to improve vagal tone

Here is the best part, you have the power to improve your vagal tone, reduce stress and fear and most of them are FREE.

Aggressive gargling 2-3 times a day
Humming
Singing
Mini trampoline
Breathwork
Laughter
Fasting
Cold showers

A few other holistic tools that can really help bring the power over your thoughts and mind are

Becoming aware of how often you ruminate or feel fear about something.
Observe your family and begin to recognize where you have learned these beliefs and behaviours
Begin to focus on what is better in your life, it can be as small as having a little more energy one day.
Practice gratitude, write down or think of 3 things you are grateful for everyday or as often as you can.

A note on Ruminating thoughts from a recovering ruminator myself.

I was and still am at times quite the ruminator, I felt like if I didn't ruminate and think of all of the terrible possibilities, I was going to be unpleasantly surprised in the future. Speaking of the future, the process of fear and rumination keeps you in the future and does not allow you to be in the present moment.

Rumination and fear feeds and validates the ego, it fills up the negative cup, it keeps you in constant fight or flight mode. So remember we are not our thoughts, we must be brave enough to accept the truth in order to live without fear. What has served me the best in order to reprogram my ruminating mind is to gain trust in myself and realize that with time, I can change my thought process. By accumulating knowledge on things that would make me start to ruminate or fear empowers me and I can then make decisions based on my true intuition instead of fear.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.