The last nerve. My mother often warned me I was on hers. I’ve visited my own many times and probably stepped on a few others’ as well. I have physical and mental health issues that cause “dysregulation.” That means I am more likely to experience overwhelming emotions that override the logical part of my brain.

I’ve learned a lot as I’ve worked with this over the past few years. The most important part? That when I am going through intense emotions, they aren’t just thoughts in my head. I get overwhelmed by powerful physical feelings too. My feelings are actual feelings in my body. I know, who’d have thought, right?

Of course, I’d heard “Healthy body, healthy mind” before. But I thought of the brain and body as separate parts. I wandered through most of my life feeling like my body was something to carry my brain around.

And then I had an issue with my spine that sent me to a neurologist. The problem was in my spine and my brain. They were connected. And this connection between our body and our mind is scientifically documented and accepted. Hence expressions such as “stress kills.”

The system that runs all the billions of signals between our body and our mind is our central nervous system. It’s a two-way super highway running up and down our spines.

Spines are cool like that: They hold us up and keep us going. Yoga is heavy on spinal health. And the philosophy behind yoga is based on the union of body and mind, of using that highway to communicate back and forth between the two.

And while it’s cool to use the mind to help my body do something nifty, using the body to calm my mind is way cooler. It’s like a superpower. I know that if I breathe a certain way, my mind and body will react by relaxing. Good to know.

It’s called Nervous System Regulation. When we are afraid, our brain tells our body to shoot us up with stress hormones to get our heart pumping and senses tuned in. That makes us alert and gives us the energy to fight or flee. Of course, sometimes we’re not actually in danger, but we feel afraid. Then we call what happens anxiety or a panic attack.

So the idea is to trick the body into doing the opposite. To switch out of fight or flight, survival mode to rest and digest, relax and enjoy mode. Then we can be calm, eat, sleep and basically sustain ourselves.

That part, the rest and digest mode, is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system. And learning about how to engage this system when I’m freaking out, or know I’m getting close to, has helped. A lot.

Finding what worked wasn’t hard. I went with what I knew. To encourage myself to do my PT, I thought I’d make it fun by adding it to a yoga practice. I had regular yoga classes and practice when I was younger. I threw in some meditation because when I took yoga classes, we always meditated after our savasana rest.

Well it just so happens that deep, rythmic breathing, mindful movement and meditation are some of the key ways to regulate the nervous system. To induce that rest and digest response.

Later I read the book The Body Keeps the Score, and Von der Kolk explains this with MRIs, studies, studies of studies, meta-studies, contemporary understanding of how the brain functions, and his experience working with patients at the VA after Vietnam. He later worked with people who experienced other types of trauma that had created these emotionally overwhelmed people. Most had unusual, physical ailments with no apparent cause, and they were all actively destroying their minds, bodies and lives.

What he discovered was that unregulated stress and negative feelings made people sick. Some people turned to drugs and alcohol, some were destroying their lives with their behavior. And all of their bodily systems were worn out by the constant strain of living in that heightened, stress hormone fueled survival mode. Their nervous systems were shot. They were all at their last nerve and were ending up chronically ill or dead, usually early.

So, learning to self-regulate can mean helping me live a better and a longer life. It just so happened that my yoga and meditation practice were great tools for achieving that. I simply didn’t know the science of it when I began.

When I get overwhelming emotions now, I know what I need to do to calm and soothe my mind and body. I’m still experiencing the same emotions, but I know what to do about them, hopefully before they take me over. And there are a ton of ways to do this. Think rhythmic, think nature, moving, breathing. Or just Google “nervous system regulation.”

Quick trick: Look down. Breathe in deep down into your tummy. Soften your forehead, unwrinkle your brow, part your lips and loosen your jaw. Now breathe out slowly while pulling up the muscles at the sides of your mouth. Ha! Made ya smile.

Truth time. This is blog is me coming back to write that blog post my computer ate a bit ago. I was fit to be tied. Then I did some yoga, had tea, made dinner. I was still ticked, but then I wrote a blog about losing my blog post. I actually like this post better.

So what do you think of the mind-body connection and nervous system regulation? Where do you feel your heavy, scary emotions? How do you soothe that feeling? Lemme know down below. Fly, you legend!

Namasté,

J.Lakis

✌🏼❤️‍🩹🧘🏻🧙🏻‍♂️🦅🤟🏼

PS – You know that post called “Have you tried yoga?” is on the way, right? 😉

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