Get your notebooks ready because today’s episode is the one you’ve all been waiting for! If you’ve heard me talking about nervous system regulation and just have no idea what I’m talking about - this episode was designed especially for you. I’m doing a comprehensive overview of everything from the nervous system and polyvagal theory, to what regulation and dysregulation actually look like, and tools and techniques that you can easily start to implement to begin regulating.
A big chunk of this episode is dedicated to explaining polyvagal theory as this forms the basis of how I help people to heal themselves. In a nutshell, polyvagal theory explains the role that the autonomic nervous system (that’s all out automatic processes, like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, etc) plays in regulating our daily behaviour as well as our problems that can arise with our wellness and mental health. While this all happens without our say so (thankfully we don’t have to think about making our heart beat, our body just does it!), there are a lot of things we can do to influence what state we’re in. This is how we regulate our nervous system to allow our body to heal and be able to stand up to challenges with more resilience.
A lot of our future episodes will be building off of this one, so it’s definitely an important listen!
In this episode, I'm chatting about:
Polyvagal theory and the three states (dorsal, sympathetic and ventral)
How we know when we’re dysregulated and what regulation looks like
The impact of dysregulation on chronic illnesses
Overcoming stress cycles and our window of tolerance
Safety and tools to use to move between states
Skip ahead to what you need…
[02:44] The topics we’ll be covering in today’s episode
[03:41] What is the autonomic nervous system?
[04:53] A polyvagal theory overview
[06:19] Dorsal state
[07:39] Sympathetic state
[10:52] Ventral state
[13:33] How do we know when we’re dysregulated?
[16:11] Stress cycles and stress buckets
[20:58] What does regulated mean?
[23:26] An example!
[25:20] Your window of tolerance
[28:00] Things we can do to regulate
[34:18] Tools we can use to shift between states
Mentioned in today’s episode:
Connect with Jenny, Chronic Illness Coach:
DISCLAIMER: Everything mentioned in this podcast is only my/my guests’ opinion and should not be a substitute for seeing a medical professional. Please seek advice from your doctor and confirm with them that they are happy for you to implement something you heard on the podcast.
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