in pursuit of... calming down?
accessing the parasympathetic nervous system while existing in a stressed-out world
I am in the midst of a 300 hour yoga teacher training. It is a year long program, with monthly meetings with different teachers and topics each monthly session. A few weeks ago, we had our 3rd meeting, with one session was focused on Trauma-Informed Yoga.
The session discussed at length the importance of our nervous system, namely, the balance of our nervous system. It highlighted how this day in age, with the stress of work, career, children, t.v., news, social media, etc., we are a population of people always stimulated, and spend a large majority of life caught up in stress (sympathetic nervous system,) without enough time living in a state of ease and relaxation (parasympathetic nervous system.)
We need both. Don’t get me wrong. Our sympathetic nervous system saves us. It makes us aware of potential threats. Many years ago, the sympathetics nervous system allowed us to evolve. It allows us to perform in high stress situations (like when a bear approached, and we needed to defend our family.)
Thankfully, the world has changed. We don’t have to deal with predators trying to kill us on a daily basis. Our threats look a bit different, but our sympathetic nervous system is still in place, reacting to ‘threats’ in the same way. We may see a Facebook post of our friends hanging out without us, and we have the same physiological reaction. We might watch the news and become fearful for the world, and send ourselves into another state of distress. We might have high stress jobs and perform at a high state of dis-ease and reaction for most of the work day. This means we might be existing at a similar state to one of defending ourselves against a bear — at all times. If we go home and find ourselves ‘relaxing’ with a crime documentary, we might never find our way back to relaxation. We might never get a moment of recovery.
We need to come back down to ease. We need to come back down to rest and recovery. We need to find moments of calm. When we don’t find our way back down, and access our parasympathetic nervous system, we never find our way back to homeostasis. We never ground ourselves. This can lead to acute or chronic stress, and have an intense effect on our overall health and well-being.
How do we find balance?
How to Activate Your Parasympathetic Nervous System
(((4 Things to Help You Calm The F Down)))
1-Hour Rule
Get at least 1 hour of time for yourself with no stimulation. This can be a walk. This can be a yoga class. This can be laying on your bed and doing nothing. This can be cooking. But you cannot seek your phone, you cannot try and compete with the yogi next to you, you cannot call or listen to a podcast while walking. It’s just time with yourself. This gives your body a moment to breathe. The hour allows space for ease, space for breath, space for relaxation. This allows your body to get into a state of feeling safe. Once you feel safe, you are able to relax. Once you are able to relax, the parasympathetic nervous system turns on.
Clear Boundaries
Set boundaries for yourself.
For me? I love True Crime. I find it so gosh-darn interesting. But once I listened to so many true crime podcasts, I became so overstimulated I couldn’t sleep at night. My thoughts were racing about ‘the potential bear threat’ that was after me. It created more problems and states of distress than ease. During my leisure time, I was actively choosing dis-ease. As a result, my body never came down to zero, I never found grounded-ness, and couldn’t settle. My sleep suffered.
I now have a veto on true crime. I cannot watch it, I cannot listen to it. It brings up too much in my physical body. I have replaced it with fictional reading and Rom-Coms shows and movies.
** I’ll dabble in true crime when it is a week day, day light hours, for low durations. **
Talk To Yourself.
“Where we think, is where we go.”
My favorite yoga teacher of all time, Tara Morris coined this term for me. I believe the first time I heard it out of her mouth was when I was in a warrior three struggling for my life. But she said it, and it got a bit easier.
People say this sentence in many forms… “Where attention goes, energy flows” is a common one. But for me, “where we think is where we go,” always made more sense to me. It always hit home a little stronger than the others.
I play a game sometimes when I’m in savasana or even half pigeon. It’s called ‘how relaxed can I get??’ And basically? I just start talking to myself. I say words like “ease, relax, surrender, melt, release, calm,” or any other synonym that resonates.
Find what words resonate with you. This can be ‘soft’ or ‘puppy.’ But you’ll notice, different words hit harder than others. You’ll notice, certain words that move your body into instantaneous release.
The feeling of finding that word that —simply — HITS is an invigorating experience. Sometimes we live so long in our bodies and forget to notice.
PLAY.
Oh boy. Playing. Something that comes to us so easy as kids, becomes so difficult as an adult.
Play can be hard for some people. Honestly this is difficult for me sometimes; I take things pretty seriously. Sometimes, too seriously. Sometimes, (and I am really talking to past versions of myself here) I put so much pressure on myself, and I forget to have fun. I mean, it makes sense, we live in a world that values productivity, a world that values work over play most of the time.
But, I will say, I think I’m getting better. And one thing that definitely helps? When all else fails, I look to nature. Squirrels have a way of bringing me so much joy I feel almost giddy. Dogs have the same effect. Animals have natural way about just existing, of being nothing else except what they were born to be.
We humans think too much. It’s all funny.
We just have to see the smiles through the sh*t.
Easier said than done.
Love you. Forever in pursuit,
T