Feeling frazzled? Something about the heatwave, the end of term, pre-holiday deadlines and political chaos has got us all jittery and running on adrenaline and fumes.
We often talk about our nervous system, from ‘my nerves are fried’ to ‘I’m having a nervo’. But how much do we actually know about the incredibly complex web of neurons and bundles of fibres that transmit signals all around your body?
Most people know the central nervous system is the brain and spinal cord. And I learnt about the peripheral nervous system (PNS) when chemo gave me a (thankfully temporary) condition called peripheral neuropathy, causing tingly pain and numbness. The PNS can be further broken down into the somatic, autonomic, and enteric nervous systems. Wait… come back! This honestly gets interesting.
Like everything, it’s an evolving field, but the nervous system is increasingly buzzed-about in wellness circles, and ensuring its smooth running is said to be key to good health.
‘Your nervous system’s job is to decide what to do next and it does that with all the experiences that you feed it,’ explains Nahid de Belgeonne, known as the ‘nervous system whisperer’ and founder of The Human Method. ‘If you perceive life as stressful, your nervous system’s responses to all things might be anxiety, worry and sleeplessness. If you use stressful situations as a galvanising force you will feel energised.’
So how do you teach your system to see a stressful moment as something that can be galvanising? Well, it’s totally doable, because your nervous system learns about your current situation (ie. whether you’re actually in mortal danger, or you’ve just been reading the news) by interpreting everything from how you move your body to how you breathe.
This weekend, I tried qigong for first time, which I thought was very cool and modern of me until a friend pointed out that Helen Daniels used to practise qigong in Neighbours in the 1980s. Anyway, it’s kind of like a cross between yoga and reiki and, while I can’t help feeling cynical about cleansing my ‘energy’, I do think anything that relaxes your body and makes you feel good can only be beneficial for your nervous system.
If you don’t fancy that, there are simpler ways to calm your body quickly. At which point, I am going to use a lot of long words and probably make this more complicated than it needs to be, but here we go.
One of the nervous system’s key players is the vagus nerve, which runs from your brain stem to your colon, and forms part of what scientists call the gut-brain axis. Stimulating the vagus nerve is understood to be so good for general wellbeing that, in the US, it has been approved for treating drug-resistant cases of clinical depression.
And what happens in vagus doesn’t stay in vagus: it carries signals to your brain, heart, lungs and digestive system. There is a medical procedure for artificially stimulating it, but you can do your own natural vagus nerve stimulation with cold water immersion (yes, all those outdoor swimmers are on to something) and humming or singing - apparently it’s the vibrations, man.
This is why a sound bath makes you feel so good. Jasmin Harsono of Emerald and Tiger tells me that the automatic nervous system comprises two parts: the sympathetic (for when you’re on high alert) and parasympathetic (for when you’re calm, known as ‘rest and digest’). ‘The sympathetic part of the nervous system dominates our body because we are constantly stressed, and therefore it thinks that the body is on high alert,’ she says. She recommends simple things like walks in nature, breathwork and journalling to regulate it, as well as sound baths.
‘Sound therapy requires no effort on your behalf,’ explains sound therapist Farzana Ali, ‘you simply have to listen. But it’s incredibly effective in reducing your breath rate, your heart rate and improving sleep quality and length. It activates our parasympathetic nervous system and doing so frequently helps reduce our stress levels and increase resilience.’
So, basically, I’m talking to you if you gave up on meditation because ‘10 minutes a day makes no difference’, or if you stopped yoga because it felt like a waste of time because you’re not working up a sweat. Or if you think a sound bath is woo-woo nonsense. Simple daily tweaks to slow your breathing or calm your thoughts actually make a huge difference to your overall wellbeing.
‘Ultimately, the best thing you can give your nervous system is space around stimulus and response,’ says Nadid. ‘The easiest way to do that is to pay attention to your breath, which acts as a remote control to your brain. To change your emotions, feelings and thoughts, change your breath. Close your eyes now and breathe in and out for six seconds and repeat that five times. Slowly open your eyes, now... how do you feel?’
This week I’m…
Laughing out loud at Munya Chawawa’s response to Boris leaving
Listening to SAULT after hearing them all over Instagram soundtracking Chanel’s recent couture show
Snapping up some Teva midforms after hearing they’re the shoe of the summer
Wondering if I should watch Persuasion at the cinema this week, or wait until it’s on Netflix from Friday
As someone who lives with a condition that is characterised by autonomic nervous system dysfunction, I've become really interested in learning about the vagus nerve. I got sent this little vibrating pebble thing in PR and honestly, I was so shocked when it actually helped me chill out and (with their music) was the first time I was able to just sit there for half an hour and chill. I've been too high strung and lazy to do it properly over the last few weeks, so I've just been sticking it on while I watch telly 😂