you know that feeling you get when you're anxious or scared or angry and you can feel your
body start to spiral out of control almost like you're falling out of a plane without a parachute
well stick around because I want to tell you about the built-in
emotional parachute that your body has and how you can deploy it whenever you feel the need
this video is sponsored by better help where you can get professional affordable online counseling
for around 65 a week so check out the link in the description for 10 off your first month i'm
Emma mcadam i'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and in today's episode I want to talk
to you about your body's natural and trainable counteracting response to the fight flight or
freeze response now hopefully you've seen my video on the fight flight or freeze response it was
actually the first video I ever made for this channel and in that video I explained that those
fight flight freeze reactions are the body's natural stress response and how anxiety isn't just
in our mind but it's also very much manifested in our body now there are a lot of things you can
do to help pull yourself out of the fight flight freeze response but in this video i'm just going
to cover four simple ways that I feel work best to calm you down and to soothe that anxiety response
so in this video we're going to cover deep breathing and vagal tone peripheral vision and
softening the eyes the valsalva maneuver and the yawn but first let's talk about a little biology
for context so our bodies have what's called the autonomic nervous system this part of our nervous
system automatically regulates breathing heart rate blood pressure and a whole bunch of other
stuff when we experience a stressful situation the autonomic nervous system kicks on that fight
flight freeze response which is also known as the sympathetic response this response is automatic
and it controls how much cortisol and adrenaline are released into our system it increases our
blood pressure and our breathing rate your hands may start to sweat your stomach may clench up
or your voice may start to shake just a little bit these are the physical manifestations of anxiety
however our brilliant wise beautiful body has a counterbalancing force called the parasympathetic
response and that's para as in parachute and this is the body's natural way of slowing down
and creating a sense of calm and safety so it works like this if your brain thinks that
you're in a dangerous situation whether that's a tiger attacking you or just public speaking your
body may trigger the fight flight freeze response but when the dangerous situation is resolved and
your brain knows that you're safe your body then triggers this parasympathetic response which is
also sometimes called rest and digest it's called this because as your body starts to relax and
transition from that fight flight freeze response other systems in your body which had temporarily
been switched off like digestion these come back online and they start functioning normally again
so your breathing automatically slows down your immune system turns back on
and you're able to relax calm down and your body has time to heal now this is how your
body naturally transitions between these two states and as i've said it's all automatic so it
may feel like this is all out of your control but with some training you can actually teach yourself
to kick on that parasympathetic response and to do that you first need to know about your vagus
nerve the vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the autonomic nervous system and this nerve
does two really important things so first it can trigger that parasympathetic response that we want
and second it transmits signals in both directions so that means it can send information from your
brain to your body about whether to be stressed or calm and then it sends information from your body
to your brain about whether to be stressed or calm so when we practice these bodily calming
techniques we actually send a message along the vagus nerve from our body to our brain saying
that things are okay that we're safe and that in turn calms our stress and our anxiety so now
let's go over these four body calming techniques that will help you send these calming signals
from your body to your brain and better help you regulate your emotions in stressful situations
so first let's talk about vagal tone bagel tone is a measure of how strong your parasympathetic
response is it indicates how good your autonomic nervous system is at calming down
and just like muscle tone in your arm would indicate how much you exercise your arm
bagel tone is a measure of how much you use your parasympathetic nervous system
and how strong it is so to start first i'm going to just show you how to feel your bagel tone and
you'll be doing this by noticing your heart rate variability so first find your pulse on your wrist
or if you hold really still you should be able to feel your heart beating
now close your eyes so you can focus and breathe in and breathe out very slowly
and pay attention to what happens to your heart rate when you breathe in and when you breathe
out
okay did you notice that when you breathe in your heart rate increases and when you
breathe out slowly your heart slows down that is heart rate variability
for people who have a stronger vagal tone their heart rate slows down even more on the out breath
than people who have a weaker vagal tone and just like exercising your arm muscles you can exercise
with deep breathing to strengthen your vehicle tongue higher vagal tone is associated with better
general health it leads to better blood sugar regulation better heart health improved digestion
and a reduction in migraines most importantly it improves emotional stability and resilience
lower vagal tone is associated with mood instability depression ptsd diabetes chronic
fatigue syndrome cognitive impairment and inflammation so you've probably heard that
deep breathing helps with stress and anxiety and this is why deep slow breathing helps
to increase your vagal tone and trigger that parasympathetic response through the vagus nerve
you may feel yourself relax when you do it you may notice that you start to salivate or that your
eyes may soften and that's all thanks to how deep breathing and vagal tone affect that vagus nerve
so practicing deep breathing and especially those long slow out breaths can help you soothe that
stress response and it can train your body to be better at kicking on that calming parasympathetic
response so deep breathing is a really helpful skill for people with anxiety disorders and ptsd
so I just mentioned that your eyes soften when you do deep breaths
I don't mean that they become squishy or something like that but rather that they lose
focus on any one particular thing they relax and your focus shifts from a specific visual point
to more of your peripheral vision and everything around you so you've likely
experienced eye softening when you've been lost in thought or daydreaming so your eyes are open
but they're not really looking at anything and this is what I mean when I say your eyes soften
now these nerves here three and seven from the parasympathetic system these control our eyes
uh you've maybe heard of the term tunnel vision right that's where your vision seems to get really
narrow when you're stressed and again your brain is sending signals along that vagus nerve to get
into that fight flight freeze response i've only really noticed tunnel vision happened to me once
i was rock climbing up a scary route and there was a high risk of a fall and I came to this one
spot on the route and I was you know gripping the holds of the rock as tightly as I could
and I was looking for the next hole to keep moving and I was really nervous my arms were just like
shaking you know I was running out of strength and I was just looking like so hard as hard as
I could but I just couldn't see any holds um and i'm about to fall and just then my belayer yells
up to me that there's this huge hold you know just right basically right in front of my eyes
and and yep there it was it was like right there but because I was feeling nervous
and my body was getting all stressed out it's like it shut down my ability to see around me
well it turns out that tunnel vision is a sympathetic response and again that's
part of the fight flight freeze and when we soften our eyes we can trigger a parasympathetic response
meaning we can use our body to send signals up the vagus nerve to the brain and tell it to
calm down now buddhists and yogis have known and practiced this for centuries so here's the second
way to trigger that parasympathetic response so start by softening the muscles around your eyes
so if you don't know how to consciously do that you can start by by squeezing them shut and
then consciously like relaxing them to gain more awareness or you can just gently touch
the side of your eyes right here you can gently close your eyes and then open them really softly
try to expand your awareness out to the sides of your vision while keeping your eyeballs straight
ahead so you can keep looking at the screen but then just start to notice what's out to the side
here and using that peripheral vision is a way to trigger that calming parasympathetic response
okay a third way to calm anxiety is to increase the pressure in your chest cavity
this is called the valsalva maneuver my five-year-old would love this because she
loves potty talk but basically you're gonna bear down as if you're pooping
or you can plug your nose and close your mouth and push out as if you're gonna exhale
or like you're going to you know stifle a sneeze so it's just kind of like this
the vagus nerve actually comes into contact with your pelvic floor
and you maybe you've seen this when someone's mad they're like
like that when someone breathes like that and what they're doing is they're subconsciously
increasing that pressure in their chest and then letting it out but you can also practice this by
you know bearing down when paramedics are working with someone who has tachycardia so that's like
a fast heartbeat they'll often tell them to bear down because this triggers the heart to slow down
so bearing down is another way to stimulate that nerve and to send signals to your brain
to calm down to trigger that parasympathetic response so try breathing in for five seconds
then hold it and bear down for five seconds now you don't need to push hard you just
need to create a little pressure in your chest and then finally breathe out for five seconds
and do this once or twice in a row breathing regularly in between so you don't get light headed
and this can help trigger that vagus nerve
now finally the fourth action to trigger that vagus nerve is to yawn so my favorite way to do
this is to make the r sound open your mouth really big and try to lift your soft palate
in the back of the roof of your mouth there's a decent chance that this is
going to make you yawn or you can even try a fake yawn to trigger that response
this action makes me sleepy and relaxed almost every time
um you may have seen this reaction in your fur babies have you ever noticed how
if a dog gets like super hyper they'll start doing these huge dog yawns as they calm down
my dog geneva used to do this all the time in the car she loved car trips so she would
get super excited about the car and then she'd be in the car and she would start to do these
big yawns like that um and you know how yawns are contagious well that's because yawning is actually
a herd behavior these contagious yawns keep the pack from going wild with excitement these yawns
send a message between dogs to each of these animals vagus nerves to say you know chill out
calm down you're okay so those are the four quick ways to trigger the parasympathetic response
but there are a bunch of other techniques you can try so watch for part two of this video
if you've tried these techniques before or if you have others that have worked for you
leave them down below in a comment i'd love to know about them I hope you found this video
helpful learning to turn on that parasympathetic response could be a great skill to have when
dealing with anxiety disorders ptsd depression and stress also if you know someone who could benefit
from these skills please share this video and give it a like so that others can find this content
thank you so much for watching if you'd like to learn more about how to ground your mind and body
check out my online courses in my free grounding skills course i teach about
25 skills to ground the nervous system and to develop a stronger nervous system regulation
and in my coping skills and self-care course I teach dozens of ways to cope with intense emotions
the links are in the description thank you for watching and take care