Autonomic nervous system healing

[Canari]

Here is a very good on line resource with some practical tools I cannot give you: Home - Irene Lyon

I also wish to make the bridge between directly regulating the ANS and the tools we have by using diet and mineral balancing. I do not have a ready-made bridge, I wish we build it, and I just go fully on intuition, though supported by what I read about typing, Eck's work and relationship to the nervous system. I also bet that any work on the ANS will help any work you do at more direct body level.

 

[Canari]

[21-Day Trial] Lesson #1
I don't know how long she will have it on line for a free trial. I already know this stuff, but I have registered to do it because I know it is worth it, and that it works only if doing it. And like many of our supps, my knowledge often stays in the cupboard where it does nothing! For untouchable tools like the ones for the ANS, some video or audio support to use are very useful.

It will look too simple, but really, try it!

You will find plenty of free stuff on her website, and they are worth it. Again, don't believe it is too simplistic. Same as a mere liquorice root seems nothing but has potency! If you integrate the orienting at the same time as feeling what you feel inside you, and do this a few seconds many time per day, as a new habit, your body will do it in any stressful condition in everyday life.

It has the power to shift our sensations toward a spontaneous resolution of tensions without doing it on purpose: it will just occur. We already have the reflex to connect at the same time to the outside and our inner world, as all animals, but if we enhance it instead of forgetting about it, what we do most of the time, up to the point of blocking it, then we become more resilient and more reactive toward recovery.

 

[Canari]

Placebo is the only one well known, and unfortunately it is synonym of "what you take does not work by itself"
Nocebo is when you have the bad side effect of what you think you take but do not take.... Which is the proof for me that there is something we do not understand very well about those processes.

Due to the side effects of chemicals and even natural ones, and side effects of what can be good and healing in general (what is potent is potent punto!), I do not understand why we do not look all for placebo effect! We should find ways to get placebo effects more. The only problem is that it seems to work only if you do not know that placebo is at work.... Well, all this just because "know" is about cortex, and placebo is about the "with no word" inner intelligence of the body.

I take Ribose as pre workout. Does help Imo, but could be placebo.
But placebo can help too, right ? :lol:

I guess placebo is better than nothing :lol:

It is even better than something imo!

Working with the ANS is in a way enhancing placebo effects and getting rid of nocebo effects...

How do you consider placebo?

 

[Canari]

Here is a text coming from a balancing program website. I correspond very well with what I learned about the ANS.
Copper Toxicity

Part of what can happen as we become healthier, is that a certain kind of "lid" is removed from our emotions and minds. We may have relied on fairly strong emotional suppression which can be achieved by creating certain biochemical imbalances in an unconscious manner.

This "lid" is the "hand brake" of the dorsal parasympathetic system. This brake is slowing an active sympathetic activation we are not aware of, because of this "lid"

When we are specifically undoing those imbalances through the application of a targeted Nutritional Balancing program, we may find that we have to work on some underlying issues that this has allowed us to avoid in the past. The imbalances were acting as a kind of coping mechanism which we had come to rely on. It is almost like learning to live without cigarettes or alcohol if those were used as problems solvers in the past.

Only health and balance allow us to deal with nervous system memories: they are like still active past nervous activations. When we have enough strength/energy, then we can discharge those activations. They look like strong emotions, but they are especially hard to stand at physical/physiological level. This is just like an elevtric charge that needs to be discharged....

Although certain emotional aspects will very much improve as the copper clears out (for me this was noticeable after about six months), in other ways, we will be faced with issues we have been avoiding. Eliminating copper toxicity often results in an increase in awareness. As these aspects of our life and self become more visible, we may need to do some soul searching and habit breaking in regards to our beliefs and reactions to life.

If you do not, then life will find a way to make you go back into a more frozen state! The numbness etc, are just there to save you from melting and overflowing. The way out is to work with the felt-sense of your emotions. It is that easy, when you feel an emotion, put your attention on where in the body you feel it. If you can sustain the strong sensation, then it will go away. If you cannot, either you will burst into a strong emotional reaction, or you will feel numb, or you will dissociate. Of course there are tips to help sustain difficult physiological sensations during the time necessary for the body to process the excess energy and regulate it. The first one is called titration, which means little by little or drop by drop. Do partial jobs several times and not all.

 

[Canari]

Fight flight freeze.... Well they just wanted the 3 F!

I have found a comment that says what "freeze" is.... at least in its extreme, because it can be much less than this. First and basically, Freeze is a safety GOOD response.

Here is the quote, but do not believe all of it. As he does not know what it is, what he says is mostly WRONG:
"I've heard people who work with the dying say that all death is suicide. That people simply, psychologically and consciously "let go"."

It is not conscious, but freeze does happen when the body knows there is no way out. It can be a form of anesthesia, cool, you feel nothing, so you can die quiet. It is not a suicide and it is not conscious, it is the inner wise knowing what is going on. It does not kill you but makes you not feel it.

"I became aware of the "medical" technique of assisting terminally ill patients with death by lying them flat which I suspect hastens death due to the psychological affect, rather than a physiological affect. I think with being just plain worn out from being sick, the added burden of an inability to breathe properly which would trigger a burst of adrenaline followed by a "What the hell, I give up." psychological response and calmness allows them to simply "let go and go"."

It is not psychologic but physiologic. Thinking is just the mind interpretation... The rest is correct! Well.... the "give up" is only apparent....
BEFORE a freeze response, there is a fight or flight response. So, a freeze response is both sympathetic AND parasympathetic. It is a very intelligent trick from life! Basically, you play dead and the mottor is still running on, so that you can suddenly go out of the colapse and go away!

 

[Canari]

I opened this thread because depression is a form of freeze. I will post more examples of what it is because you need the right idea about it. Freeze can be a good thing, but it is not meant to last, because it is very energy consuming. Depression is a freeze response that you do not go out of totally. Those reactions are autonomic, your mind has no power on it directly. (very indirectly, yes, if you know what to do)

The freeze response is the body waiting safely for better times to come, like a sort of hibernation. I prefer the word dissociation, because of the definition: it is a separation between two things, or two feelings, or a feeling and one part of the body.

- Basically, when you dream about your last holidays or your future holidays, you are not present, and you are dissociated! Nothing bad!

- When you are shy in a big group and open up again when you get home and are with your family, your body was just doing this: waiting safely for better times to come...

- When you get an anestesia, I bet your body is also waiting safely for better times to come!

Sometimes, for various reasons it does not work well. All is safe, but your body does not believe it and stay in "inside the shell" protection mode...

 

[Canari]

Good theme for ending a year? When something ends, something starts!

What is usually said about letting go.... is bu** sh** because it does not let go really, it only hides. And when it works, the reason why it works is not the one we think. Letting go is presented as a mental or cognitive process, and even when you use your mind to do it, it is something that happens at the autonomous level. As said a Zen monk once, it is like farting, you cannot decide when you do! You can just help and facilitate that something autonomic happens. You cannot make your mouth salivate, but you can imagine you cut a lemon and squeeze it above your opened mouth and imagine the lemon juice and taste in your mouth, on your tongue...

What is true is that it is good to "let go" what is a charge, a weight, because doing so gives room for the new, it gives you back energy too! This is the main point. Our organism is charged with a lot of work, and it has a lot to do, like repairing, it needs all our energy. Thoughts and emotions are keeping some energy away from the main jobs to do. If we suppress them by control, they can become invisible, but they still steal our energy... This energy has to go physiologically at electric level, and it can be felt in the body when it happens. Do little at a time, or else the fuses of the nerves cannot stand the charge! It is really like fire, and the image of the phoenix rising from its ashes is an allegory of something real. We need allegories to understand what happens at a level of the body that feels with no word language.

You can recognize what you have to let go through recurring thoughts and questions, and through emotions like anger. when the emotion is sadness, it often has compressed anger underneath. When you have thoughts, find the emotion, and when you get the emotion, feel where you locate it in your body, at felt level. Then step out and observe it. Give it your attention as you would to a child pulling your jacket and shouting to get your focus. It is what gives the body space to do the job to let go. It can be uncomfortable, and if you start to be in your head again, it is for escaping the job....

So you have to help the job to let go of what bothers you. One tip, that sounds nothing, is what I posted in the new year thread! (link below) Use humor, make the situation you want to process comic and ridicule until you laugh. Make the script that suits you, like the one I proposed of a cow ruminating thoughts like grass.... We all know the power of laughing, and maybe we do not know that its power is provoking and helping shifts at autonomic level, so that some sympathetic charge can be unknit, and flow away. This is what letting go means, and it will never be anything else than a natural process of the body you can trigger with tips. It will never be just a cognitive process or a control. And it is never something that you do and will be done forever. It is a daily skill that we have to get better at.

You can compare it to taking a supp, and then what do you do? You let your body do its job! You just decide the supp you take, and the rest, you have to let it happen... The tips I can give are meant to help your body have more energy to process the supp efficiently. Your body needs to concentrate its strength on one goal. When part of your energy is focused on thoughts and emotions, even if you do not feel it because they are under control, this conscious or unconscious control is precisely what wastes your precious energy.

I wish you to take the 2018 path of feeling how your body let go, and how to help it!

MERRY CHRISTMAS , EVERYONE... and happy new year!

 

[Canari]

Self test!

Autonomic Self-Health Checkup - Nemechek Autonomic Medicine

I got 7 yesses

Interresting to see all that is a sign of autonomic dysregulation, that can be due to taking prescription drugs or any damage to the body. And the body reacts and enter in a defensive mode...

 

[Canari]

Good information there, and not only about headaches! It shows the relationship between chronic illnesses and ANS...

The Autonomic Nervous System and its Relationship to Headache

 

[Sam90]

Thanks for doing this thread, very informative, I am definitely in freeze mode

 

[Canari]

Dont worry but thanks for telling! You will see by my answer over there that I am not surprised you do not get better from having knowledge and understanding is a first step for going the right way of regulating the ANS.

I know people can feel stuck and helpless about practical ways to use this knowledge! Don't believe I do not feel it too! I would love to do more! There is no quick way to do it.

The best comparison is that we learn with the sort of practise babies use for their development but that our culture did not favor enough the building of the ANS self regulation and co-regulation. I mean thus the use of the felt-sense and not the intellect.

I value Irene course as the unique self help that exist to practise. There are actualy other members of her course who do also nutritional balancing!

 

[Canari]

I just received a mail for Irene's courses... there is a promo about the 21 days course, offering some of the calls that are part of the 12 weeks course.
Check this course here:
https://irenelyon.com/tuneup/?inf_c...1ca46aa49081172a7feed955970422a030a731c3d10c2

I promise I am not an affiliate, and that 197 dollars is worth it because you get it for life with the support of mods in the facebook group. You get information, but it works at practical level only if you do the exercises and incorporate them as a normal way of living! It helps you react each time you face a challenge, a stress etc. Some exercises are easy and seem useless, and they are not. And I can see in the FB group that some people are super triggered and react a lot, and need the support to regulate how that practise. Then you start to understand how it works, how you work inside. You will see it differently in others, and you will be self conscious of your own reactions when you have them, and you will become more and more able to create the right reactions in you.

Because only when we spend part of our day in a parasympathetic state can we get our digestive and immune system to work well. That is an absolute scientific fact. And you cannot even force the relaxation, it does not work, it has to happen with an inner body confidence. But the good news is that even if it is not by controle or forcing, we HAVE WAYS to trigger that it happens. This is what the course is about.

As I am also part of this facebook group forever, I also promise I will do my best for giving support to the hackstasis members there... At the moment I am doing the exercises of the full course of the 12 weeks program. This one is much more expansive and if I compare, well the 21 days at the price it is... is well worth it.

And I have just noticed that today is the last day of the promo giving "3 coaching calls in 30 days". They are group calls and we get a lot of them in the longer course, so I think it is meant to give you a glimpse of getting more in the course she runs once per year. The 21 days is more a self study, so you get into it when you suscribe. For me it was a great way to test and start before being full into the 12 weeks.

 

[Canari]

This article is quite clear and explains a lot about adrenal fatigue!
The 2 Little Known Stages of Adrenal Fatigue and What You Can Do to Fix It - Irene Lyon

About neuro sensory exercises, what I shared as ideas this morning can be part of it and is even more complete that the ideas she gives. But she explains more thorougly the global context!

 

[Canari]

Here is part of what I wrote to welcome a new member of the 21 days reset group:
(who already gets sessions of both SE and Feldenkrais but wanted "homework" and the practitionner of SE did not know what to advise)

"Honestly, I am not deceived by SE and somatic work in general, and we just have to do our share of the job, and Irene's tutorial might be the only that exists. SEPs do know some exercises, but what counts is not doing the exercise, thus the difficulty for your SEP to answer and give you something to do. You just start to see the education in the course, it is not a 5 mns explanation and "do this"! "

That is why I said it was not so easy to tell what to do, and I can just give extra help to those who do the exercises, and avoid caveats. but actually in this group we all help each other.

 

[Canari]

This article is quite clear and explains a lot about adrenal fatigue!
The 2 Little Known Stages of Adrenal Fatigue and What You Can Do to Fix It - Irene Lyon

About neuro sensory exercises, what I shared as ideas this morning can be part of it and is even more complete that the ideas she gives. But she explains more thorougly the global context!

Better if I copy here.... It was written apart from the suggestions in the link, but there are common points...

Start noticing the permanent work of your nervous system and feel thankfulness for it. It will give you trust, and also a practice of feeling little things before wanting to feel the intense ones!

Examples: an object escape your hand and you catch it before it falls. Take some time to feel how it went into your body, and that you did not need to think, and even did not have time to think! Notice the feeling of activation you had, and that it settles in you. You will notice that the settling is slower than the activation, because there is no need to bequick for this, and thus the body does it slow, to save precious energy.

Feeling the settling is key, and this is what we do not do... If you learn through small things, you cannot imagine how it will help later!

Other examples... you walk and your hands and arms help the balance. You nearly fall but do not, because your body knows how to move for re-establishing balance. You can use trampoline or walking on something narrow but safe, and feel this. Track the feeling inside yourself. Can you feel the gratefulness? We take things for granted, but let's remember or watch babies, what a journey it has been, and still go on! I want to feel not only all that my body knows, and do for me, but remember to be grateful, and this will create some inner good sensation.

If a feeling exercise and noticing the effect inside, creates any discomfort, it means that there is an old activation still there. It is called over-coupling, when something good brings a memory of the same sort of event that went wrong. The best example is about being immobile. It should feel nice and a relaxed state, and be as nice as a good rest can be! But... We are veeeery immobile in anestesia, in fainting or after any shock. Not being good at resting immobile is a sure sign of activation under a freeze response. That is why some people get mad at doing the 10 days vipassana, or cannot meditate still. And insisting brings dissociation, and the belief that it was good to insist, when it is the reverse!

Also noticing startling reactions. You cross the road and you step back when seeing a car. You play football and you change direction quick, or protect yourself from the ball that was going to hit you...

- Notice autonomic signs from the body. Are you able to notice that you yawn or sigh when you do? Do you pay attention to your garglings or ignore them? Do you notice the shiverings on your skin? As you mention video games, well at least you can use them to bring awareness to your reactions! If you can put the video on pause sometimes and listen to the body, all the best... It happens anyway, it is just about stopping a little all day and nnotie all those normal waves going up fast and down slow. And learn to accompagny the slow, because this we were not given enough time to do, and this is what fucks up humans more than animals.

So let's take time to notice the effect of all the autonomic shifts. How do you feel after laughing? Comics are a good resource, comic films! So why we do not watch them everyday instead of bad news? And lets stop to increase freeze by being able to watch too active or violent stuff. It is not good to say "I know it is not real", because for your mind it is not, but for your ANS, it is. So it reinforces freeze responses...

Let's feel that bad stuff feel as contraction, and good stuffs feel like expansion in the body. It does not mean to block the contraction, as the important is to be able to have an ample movement from one state to the other. But we can favor chosing to DO what we know will help the SPONTANEOUS expantion. And we need to take time to notice the expansion. Important tip: notice small changes and not big, because all works like a pendulum. Too sudden relaxation makes the body say "good, I can send some of this stuff I want to discharge". This is what happens in vipassana when people feel bad, and are not helped but left alone to go on and insists, telling them it will go, because usually it brings dissociation as people are left alone. Increase pendulations at the pace we can handle is personal and key.