Today's quote says, "It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it" by Lou Holtz. Join me as we explore how to regulate our nervous system! We look at our Autonomic Nervous System and two of its branches the Sympathetic Nervous System and the Parasympathetic Nervous System. Our fight, flight or freeze response and our rest and digest response. We look at ways to manage our stress by purposely activating or parasympathetic response through our vagus nerve while strengthening our vagal tone. This is important to our overall health and longevity. The more often we are in a parasympathetic state the healthier we are. Remember, the breath goes deeper than the mind. We look at the bottom up approach of healing our bodies inorder to better manage and heal our minds. The truth is stress emotions are just as much in our body as they are in our mind. It's not just all in your head as some may say; it's all in your body to! Lucas Rockwood's Ted Talk https://youtu.be/_QTJOAI0UoU called Change your Breath, Change your life walks us through three practical breathing techniques to help activate our nervous system and have our bodies work for us. The breath is the best way to create mind-body coherence and to heal your nervous system. We briefly talk about other ways to purposely activate our parasympathetic system such as Tapping, Grounding and Cortices techniques. When we are operating from our rest and digest system we are better able to make clear decisions and connect with our intuition bringing us into the present moment where we are safe and in control. Stress and fear have a way of pulling us into an unknown future. I want you to know you are safe to feel everything that you are feeling today. "When you choose to view your stress response as helpful you create the biology of courage." Start creating that biology and learn to regulate your nervous system so you can choose to carry your stress with dignity, strength and courage! I believe in you.