Turn off Anxiety in your Nervous System: Four Ways to Turn on the Parasympathetic Response

Nov 19, 2020

Discover how your body combats stress with the powerful parasympathetic response, which promotes calm and healing after a danger has passed. Learn about the vagus nerve's role in calming both mind and body, and explore techniques to enhance vagal tone, like deep breathing and relaxing your gaze. Master the art of the Valsalva maneuver and the calming benefits of yawning. Each technique helps turn off anxiety and restore balance, allowing you to tap into your body's natural ability to relax and recover.

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INSIGHT

Body Has An Automatic Calm Switch

The autonomic nervous system balances stress (sympathetic) and calm (parasympathetic) automatically.
With training, you can learn to activate the parasympathetic response and influence your body's stress state.

INSIGHT

Vagus Nerve Sends Two-Way Calm Signals

The vagus nerve both triggers the parasympathetic response and transmits signals bidirectionally.
Body changes can send calming signals up the vagus nerve to the brain and reduce anxiety.

ADVICE

Practice Deep Breathing To Build Vagal Tone

Strengthen vagal tone by practicing slow, deep breathing with long out-breaths.
Higher vagal tone improves emotional resilience and multiple aspects of physical health.

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Your brilliant, wise, beautiful body and has a counterbalancing force to combat stress and anxiety called the parasympathetic response. 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 you're in a dangerous situation, your body triggers Flight, Fight, Freeze response. But, when the dangerous situation is resolved and your brain knows 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 transitions from that Fight, Flight Freeze response, other systems in your body which had temporarily been switched off, like digestion, come back online and start functioning normally again. 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.

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