5 Ways To Regulate Your Nervous System | Slow Living Vlog

It is so crazy. I just remember my eye twitching on and off throughout the day 24-7 and I remember laying in bed at night and as I would lay down and close my eyes I could feel my whole body vibrating from the inside and I didn't know if I was going crazy or what was happening. when you come out of the sickness cycle, the chronic sickness cycle, and you're not in a constant state of nervous system dysregulation, how much faster you are able to pick up the signs that something isn't right. It's crazy looking back on the fact that I was so used to the symptoms that were associated with my nervous system being an absolute mess that they were just normal daily life and now that I'm out of that extreme cycle, when I'll have one little symptom creep in, I know that it is time for me to stop what I'm doing and to deal with the problem. Part of how I knew that something wasn't right last week was that I used to have eye twitching and eye twitching can definitely be a random symptom of nervous system or severe nervous system dysregulation and my eyes used to twitch and they would twitch on and off throughout the day every day and when I would lay down in bed at night, the inside of my body would feel like it was vibrating. It was like I could feel my nerves and I could feel anxiety trapped in my body. It's such a bizarre feeling. So last week, I was trying to power through and do all the things despite the fact that there was a lot going on that needed special attention and I began to feel my eye twitch and I went, oh no, we are not doing that again. Hey buddy, it's okay. I thought to myself, no, no, no, we're not, we're not going back into that cycle. You're such a good boy. Are you such a good boy? Nervous system dysregulation and chronic illness can be a vicious cycle because nervous system dysregulation, the nervous system is one of the gatekeepers of our health and so that was one of the big factors for me that I had to come to terms with when I was peeling back the layers of the sickness cycle that I was stuck in and moving into a healing cycle. I had to acknowledge the fact that my nervous system being dysregulated, being stuck in fight or flight mode was perpetuating the chronic illness and for me, without dealing with my nervous system issues, I was having a very hard time getting to a place of healing and then the same can be true where our chronic inflammation, our gut issues can simultaneously trigger more nervous system dysregulation. One of the things that helped me not to get overwhelmed when I was starting was to separate things into two categories and it was the things that I could not control, things that were contributing to my nervous system being dysregulated or had contributed to that in my life that I had no control over and then I made a column and a list of things that I was doing, decisions I was making, lifestyle choices that I had that were contributing to the problem. The things that I could not control, I realized I had to go into a space of dealing with any lack of forgiveness that I had towards anybody or even towards my body. I had to deal with some trauma that occurred and that those were huge areas that I had to surrender over to God and in the column of the things that I was contributing to, the things that I could control, I was able to go through those one by one and figure out which things I could shift and change first and then go from there. So go from the easiest things to change and kind of get in a habit and a new lifestyle of sticking with those and then as I went along going to the things that would be more challenging to change because the truth is that some things we can change quickly and more easily and some things take time. So sometimes we're in certain situations and we know it needs to change but we also know that certain things have to be put into place for us to get there and so we can start with one step and then the next step and that way we don't get completely overwhelmed by how in the world am I supposed to just fix my nervous system today. So here's a few tips on how to get started on a daily basis doing little simple things to start regulating your nervous system. One is awareness of breath. Breath is a really powerful thing. We know that God breathed into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living soul and so breath is a sacred thing and there is a technique that can really help calm the mind and the body down. It's very very simple. It's the 4-4-4 technique. So you take a four second breath in through your nose and then you hold that breath for four seconds and then you strongly exhale for four seconds. So when you start to feel that fight or flight ramping up become aware of your breath and remember 4-4-4 and if you can only do two seconds at first that's totally fine. It's better than nothing. It's about taking the senses from being all out here overwhelmed and focused on chaos and bringing them in and hyper focusing on things that are simple and are pure and are sacred and what I like to do as I can start to feel my heart rate dipping a little bit and anxiety coming down I like to meditate on a scripture a memory verse of mine as I'm breathing in holding it and breathing out. Now another big regulating tip which is something that takes a lot more time than just slipping into awareness of breath is gut wellness. I think people would be so shocked to learn how much your gut health affects the rest of your body including your emotions and the way that you feel mentally. If you look into the gut brain axis you realize how much of the gut and the brain are connected. A lot of people call the gut the second brain. Gut health was something that I had to really focus in on when I was peeling back those layers on the sickness cycle and if you don't know if you're new here I've created a program called Entering Your Healing Era and it puts all of this information that I have dug into for 10 years peeled back those layers on the sickness cycle and walked into a healing cycle into a wellness or healing era and I compiled that all into a program an ultimate e-guide bundle. It delves into so many different aspects of the wellness journey and so if you're interested in that I will have links for you in the description box and pinned in the comments below. Your gut can repair. It can restore. I believe with all my heart that human beings were made to heal. That was one of the revelations that I came to in my journey and once I came to that understanding it really changed everything because hope is powerful and that concept that we were made to heal is really at the heart of my Entering Your Healing Era program. While the foundation of that is diet and lifestyle the nervous system does play a very big part in gut health and so if you're really ready to get a grasp on this I cannot stress enough getting your gut health restored and repaired. Being aware of our thought and our speech cycles our thoughts and the words that we speak repeatedly they're very much correlated with our belief systems and that can have a very profound effect on us physiologically mentally emotionally and spiritually and there are different ways that work for different people on how to really take those thought and speech cycles captive and to create new thought and speech cycles. I like doing biblically-based affirmations. I actually have a biblically-based affirmation journal and I'll leave the link to that as well. For me memorizing scripture has been really key because I want to be able to pull on the truth whenever my mind starts feeding on a lie. I want to go ahead and feed it the truth over and over again and repeat it until I'm getting the proper mental nourishment. One of the things that's helped me with the words that I speak over myself sometimes I'll go to say something and I think would I say that to someone else? Truly would I just walk up to someone and say that to someone else and if not what am I doing saying it to myself? Hyper focusing our senses on things that are beautiful praiseworthy and good and this is a big part of this channel if you're new here this our channel is very much about intentional living and being present with the simple beautiful things of life even in the midst of the chaos and a very broken world being able to hyper focus on the little simple beautiful moments and things really does make life a lot more tolerable and I and I think in our modern world it's very easy to pass by the little things and not notice them not notice the that the candle flickers not be present there with our animals or our spouse or our children or our families to not notice the way that the steam comes off of our cup of tea we are our minds are so bombarded with information and images that it's become harder for us to be very present with those things but when we can begin to discipline our mind to use our senses in the way that they were designed to be used that can be very very helpful in regulating our nervous system reducing high intensity exercise high intensity exercise is not good for a dysregulated nervous system but rather doing things like like moderate strength training doing things where we are stretching and moving our bodies in ways that aren't so jarring to the body thus not so jarring to the nervous system the other thing is herbal assistance i'm a big believer in herbal medicine and i think that there's a lot of herbs i have some written down that can help of course before you take something you want to make sure that it's right for you lemon balm is wonderful for the nervous system chamomile lavender passion flower skull cap and nettle i myself take nettle every day for allergies and i know that nettle can also be helpful for the liver health for your detoxification pathways and also for the nervous system i really pray that this video was helpful for you today if you're new here and you enjoyed today's video i would love to have you stick around so that we can visit again if you have any ideas or requests for videos coming up we are coming to sweater weather it's coming and i'm so excited i am not a fan of the summer i'm really trying this year was so much better than other years because i'm physically stronger and i don't have as severe of heat intolerance but man i can i i got this sweater from thread up i'm ready i'm ready for you we'll be together soon so friends i wanted to thank you so much as always for choosing to come back to our little house in the mountain and choosing to watch our videos it's truly an honor for me i wanted to give a shout out to our members here on youtube and our patrons over on patreon if you are interested in entering your healing era go ahead and check out those links no pressure just go check out the page and see what you think i appreciate all of you from the bottom of my heart and lord willing i will see each and every one of you beautiful and precious souls right here on the next one bye friends