MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS: How to Calm Your Nervous System

One of the hallmarks of being a human is feeling emotions. Emotions add flavor and color to our life experiences; they provide vital information about changes in our environment orienting us toward threats and pleasures; they also prompt us for action. More importantly, emotions reflect our fundamental beliefs about ourselves, others and the world and contain information about our fundamental needs and desires. Emotions show up through body language and facial expressions, informing others about our internal states. The ability to regulate emotions impacts every single domain in the human lives: work, relationships, parenting, spirituality, physical and psychological well-being etc. Our bodies were designed to instinctually process emotions and allow them to flow through the body in the form of sensations (that can present as discomfort or pleasure). Once the emotional signal fulfills its function (protect/meet a need), it disappears. Our ability to process emotions is vastly impacted by the sense of safety and connection with other people. The primary mechanism to deal with fear and discomfort is to turn to a safe and secure trusted one. Afterall, humans are bonding mammals wired to stay in close proximity to those whom they depend on.

Negative experiences, that happen especially in the context of primary relationships, trigger our body in a state of panic or fear. Humans then seek proximity with attachment figures or enter a state of ’fight’ (irritability,anger, frustration, rage, moving toward threat) or ‘flight’ (worry, anxiety,avoidance). When the attempts to adapt and resolve emotional discomfort fail, the last ditch effort to survive and find safety is to enter a state of dissociation or ‘freeze’ (depression, numbness, shut down). All of these physiological states signalize that the body goes through a significant dysregulation and needs help regulating. Prolonged, unresolved emotional dysregulation and discomfort causes further damage to organs and various systems of the body. Unprocessed emotions get trapped in the body and show up in the form of reactive behaviors, as well as gastrointestinal, integumentary, immune, circadian rhythm, respiratory, muscular, cardiac, reproductive and skeletal issues. The body is no longer a safe place.

Peter Levine, who is the founder of Somatic Experiencing (the approach that deals with helping the body process and unblock trapped emotions and sympathetic system energy), strongly believes that healing from adverse experiences must start with creating the safety in the body in the context of a safe relationship with the secure other (therapist, caregiver, partner, or a friend). Clients who went through traumatic experiences, who experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress, do not feel safe in their own bodies and get very overwhelmed with and afraid of experiencing emotions. Their bodies are propelled in the stress response (fight, flight, freeze) after getting in contact with stimuli that others perceive as benign. These experiences feel usually unpredictable and out of control.

Dr.Levine came up with a somatic intervention-’Voo breath’, that calms the body from the ‘bottom-up’ (gut-brain axis), by stimulating the Vagus nerve- a structure responsible for deactivating stress response and calming the nervous system. All you need to perform this technique is a comfortable seat and yourself. If it feels safer, you can invite a secure other to accompany you. 

1. Begin by sitting in a comfortable position, with your legs resting firmly on the ground. Make sure you do not cross your legs or arms. 
2. Bring attention and awareness to your breathing. Slowly notice the air coming in through your nose and coming out through your mouth. 
3. Direct the air to your belly. Make sure you are breathing into your belly instead of your chest.  Follow 3-5 breath cycles.

*If you notice your shoulders moving up and down, that is a good indicator that the breath is going into your chest. Put a hand on the belly and attune to directing the air in and out. 

1. As you settle into belly breathing, start making a voo sound as you exhale. 

*There is no right or wrong way of doing it, however it is helpful to notice a vibration that can be felt in your gut, chest and throat. As you keep breathing, that vibration may expand to your shoulders, arms, pelvis and legs. 

1. Perform the technique for 3-5 minutes or as long as your body needs you to attune to it. 
2. Bring awareness back to other parts of your body. You can wiggle your toes or make a couple wrist circles. Bring awareness back to the room. 

It is essential to practice this technique when you are calm and relaxed to create muscle memory.

The degree of well-being of our nervous system has an impact on every single structure in the body, from cells to organ systems. The ability to effectively regulate emotions is vastly dependent on the amount of stress that our bodies experience. With more stress, human behavior becomes reactive and impulsive and the body loses its ability to regulate naturally.  The ‘Voo technique’ allows us to support the body by using breathing to stimulate the Vagus nerve which in turn signalizes to the brain that we are actually safe.This technique can be used whether a person experiences hyperarousal (fight or flight: anxiety, panic, irritability, anger) or hypoarousal (freeze:helplessness, terror, numbness, dissociation, shut down) to regulate and tune into the body. Recovery from the stress and rest prevent the body from entering the state of wear and tear. Feeling safe in our bodies facilitates reaching out to the trusted people for co- regulation and helps the nervous system gain positive experiences with others. 

By: Marcelina Grynechko, LMFTA