When The Call Hits Home

The Vagus Nerve and First Responder Wellness

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Jennifer [00:00:05]:

Hi. I'm Jennifer Woosley Saylor. I'm a licensed professional clinical counselor and the kid of a cop. And this is the podcast when the call hits home.

Ashlee [00:00:14]:

Hey, everyone. It's Ashlee Gethner. I'm a licensed clinical social worker, and I'm also a child of a police officer.

Jennifer [00:00:21]:

Welcome back to when the call hits home. I'm Jennifer.

Ashlee [00:00:24]:

And I'm Ashlee. And today, we have, I have to say it, a special guest

Jennifer [00:00:29]:

Always special.

Ashlee [00:00:30]:

Always special. With you know, people can, like, make a game out of our podcast every time Ashlee does that. But it's always true. I mean, hey. Everyone who comes on here is super incredible, and we're always thankful. So I'm gonna hand it over to her now to introduce herself and get you guys a little bit of information about what we're gonna be talking about today.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:00:48]:

I'm Jamie Lynn. I'm actually a long term friend of Ashlee's, and I am a licensed social worker, hopefully soon to be a licensed clinical social worker. Yeah. I'm licensed in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Ashlee [00:01:00]:

Yes. That's awesome. And so can you give us a little bit about what it tell us a little bit about the population you work with because this is different than what we're used to bringing on guest wise.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:01:12]:

Sure. So currently, I actually work with, children's, teens, young adults. I mean, a little bit of everything, but my primary caseload right now is, yeah, children and adolescents.

Ashlee [00:01:22]:

Children and have folks? Children and adolescents. Let me tell you something. I couldn't do it. I do do it a little bit. I do do it a little bit.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:01:31]:

It's fun. They're so fun. If I have to laugh because I always say this in, like, everything. Anytime I talk to somebody when I first started this career, I never thought I was gonna work with kids or teenagers, especially teenagers, because I had this mindset of like, oh, god. No way.

Jennifer [00:01:45]:

They're the worst.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:01:46]:

And then I yes. Like, that was what I literally thought. I was like, I hated being a teenager, and there's no way I'm gonna work with them. And now I work with them, now that I've started, like, they're actually, like, one of my favorite populations to work with.

Ashlee [00:01:59]:

I love that. I love that. Actually, in my head, this is so bad, dad. Sorry. But, like, in my head, I'm like, oh my gosh. Same. You know, I actually grew up being like, gosh. These police officers.

Ashlee [00:02:08]:

I swear. I'm good. And now I'm like, give me more. Like, this is who I work with. So just I think

Jennifer [00:02:14]:

there is a little bit of, like, when you're start like, in school, if you say, I'm not going to work, that actually means you will will be working. I can remember being young and dumb and being like, I'm not gonna work with anybody with substance use problems and then cut to I'm running an IOP. Like, yeah.

Ashlee [00:02:33]:

Of course. Of course. Forward. I guess I thought

Jennifer [00:02:36]:

I wasn't gonna work with humans. Like, what do you mean you're not gonna be working with people with substance abuse problems? Yeah. This profession has a way of finding where things are. But, you know, this podcast is for first responders, and, Ashlee, I was really excited to have you on because some of the things you talk about with your clients, I think we think would be great for talking about with our awesome listeners. And that is tell us a little bit about kinda what you kinda hone in with with some of your clients.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:03:09]:

Sure. So I really focus in on the connection of the body with the mind. And so, specifically, I work and use different aspects of, like, the polyvagal theory, which brings in this idea of the vagus nerve that actually has so much to do with the physiological response that our body has to our emotions. So that vagus nerve is actually, like, the longest cranial nerve in our system, and it touches every single organ in our body. And so then when that gets activated, what happens is oftentimes, like, maybe there's a stressor, and we have a big emotional response to that. But it's not just the emotions that we feel. It's the physical response to it. You know? So, like, our heart rate might increase.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:03:55]:

Our digestive system slows down because it can't be in the way when we're, you know, feeling stressed. So it's things like that. It's building that connection, building that awareness of what is the physiological response that I have, and can I connect it to the emotions that I'm experiencing?

Ashlee [00:04:11]:

So I love this because every single one of my sheriffs who I know they all listen to me on this podcast. Right? Like, I'm gonna take token. Did I call y'all out or not and see how many of you know? Should know a little bit about the vagus nerve, but I don't go too far into it. So in my training, I talk about it. I just literally have one slide on it, and it's I give them the whole thing about the brain and how the brain reacts to this high stress job. But then I brought up the vagus nerve, and that's why I'm so pumped to have you on because I am the first to tell them, like, I'm I don't I haven't done my research on this much. I know the basics, and that's it. But they should all know, which makes me excited, what we are talking about.

Ashlee [00:04:51]:

And the further elaboration, I think, for me, is gonna be incredible to help all of my first responders who have listened to me train them now, get a little bit more insight on it because they definitely don't spend enough time on it.

Jennifer [00:05:02]:

And that cranial nerve is just we're talking about the base of our brain, and it goes all the way down our spine. Yep. So that is feel it everywhere. Massive.

Ashlee [00:05:13]:

I always think about it like touching. It's so creepy, but, like, touching everything inside of you. Right?

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:05:19]:

I do too. Like so when I think of, like, for whatever reason, I like to think of, like, the skeleton. Yeah. And then I think of the nerves that come through it, and I just imagine it touching every single part of our body. And so, yeah, it's it's that.

Ashlee [00:05:33]:

Kinda pumped because I felt the same way, and then I'm like, am I being silly? But I'm actually excited that our brains thought the same thing.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:05:40]:

So I think it's just a I think it's a therapist thing. Maybe it's a nerd thing. I don't know.

Ashlee [00:05:44]:

I don't know. It's definitely a nerd thing. So tell us a little bit more about the importance of tapping into the vagus nerve and what that can do for us.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:05:56]:

Sure. So the vagus nerve, it carries signals from our brain to different parts of our body. So that means our brain, our heart, our digestive system, our immune system is affected by the vagus nerve. And it's just the importance of that is building that connection of, like, yes. This is the response that I'm having to the stressor that I'm having and, you know, building that bridge there.

Jennifer [00:06:20]:

So I just I'm I'm gonna actually take one step back, which is just a little bit of the body mind connection. And, obviously, we're talking about this vagus nerve and, well, it connects. But can we talk just a little bit about how we experience our world and our bodies and then how our minds are a part of that? Like, that's a real loosey goosey therapy question there for you, Jamie Lynn, but

Ashlee [00:06:52]:

I'm gonna ask it.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:06:54]:

Goodness. I mean, I might go on off on a whole different kind of tangent then with that. So I'm gonna kind of go back even to, like, early experiences, you know, early childhood experiences and how we view the world and its safety and our our felt safeness in that. And so built based on those early experiences even with, like, our caregivers, you know, having that safe, supportive, nurturing environment will often lead us to understanding the physiological responses in our body and trusting those responses. If we have kind of a hyperactive kind of nervous system, maybe because of trauma or maybe some insecure kind of attachments, like, we're gonna view the world differently. We might feel our emotions and the physiological responses with those differently than those in, like, a safe, secure, and nurturing environment.

Jennifer [00:07:46]:

Absolutely. I think that's important to talk about, so thank you for breaking that up.

Ashlee [00:07:51]:

Well, that and I think, like, just in terms of clinician world. Right? You say that, and I'm I start smiling because I'm like, this this is so true. Like and Jennifer can probably really relate to this is that when we have first responders come in our office Mhmm. A lot of the time, it is from their childhood. Right? And there is so much education that I have to give. And, Jennifer, you speak on this too, right, of, like, just exactly what you said of those early experiences shape some of this now. There's no doubt about this. Well and

Jennifer [00:08:25]:

I think we experience our world with our bodies, with how we see, hear, smell, taste, feel with our skin. Mhmm. And from that, we learn messages, especially when we're really little, like, who's safe, who's not safe. There was nobody keeping us safe, so I'm gonna work really hard to make sure I keep people safe. Or there was nobody that was protecting people, so I wanna protect people. Or there was crisis is all the time, and I had to go put out fires. And so sometimes I I mean, I'm speaking that from sitting on this side of meeting with first responders that sometimes it's I've been doing this my whole life. This isn't just started with I put on a badge or, you know, I put on the uniform.

Jennifer [00:09:14]:

So, yeah, I just think that that's exactly what you're saying there, Ashlee. And so why would it be important for first responders then to understand more? Because we don't have time machines to go back, you know, to recreate our childhoods. So what do we do in the here and now, and why would first responders be need to hear about this nerve?

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:09:38]:

I think it's about building recognition and awareness for when our bodies go into those different kinds of states based on those emotions.

Jennifer [00:09:46]:

Mhmm.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:09:47]:

And without that recognition, without that awareness, we can avoid it. We can ignore it, or we can kinda lean into it. Or the more healthy option is how can I cope with this? Right. And and recognizing those differences of my body and my safety are in danger versus, you know, I'm actually safe in this moment, and it's just a perceived danger.

Ashlee [00:10:10]:

Something that's connecting in my brain right now, and I'm kind of flying off the cuff, so I'm sorry. But it's just that notion of our first responders live in this, like, hypervigilance. Right? So I guess in our world, we always say that that that their limbic system can be a little bit hijacked and that they're always kind of living with that amygdala signaling and those negative stress hormones dumping. And so could you speak upon, like, how activating the vagus nerve like, how does the vagus nerve help in that situation? Because I think we have a lot of first responders that they just never calm down. They don't know how to

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:10:48]:

be calm.

Ashlee [00:10:49]:

And so I think that the vagus nerve plays a pretty big role, and I love that you said recognition because I always stress you cannot change anything until you actually realize what needs to be changed. Absolutely. And so I think that there's like, can you speak a little bit upon how the vagus nerve can maybe help the brain when the brain is always on go like that?

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:11:11]:

Yeah. So because that vagus nerve touches every single organ and then so everything is connected, in that stress response, our vagus nerve is actually it's got, like, that low tone to it. And so the iron the irony of that is that everything else is really heightened, so our heart rate is increased. The signals in our brain are probably super fast, and we're just kind of queued in on what it is that we're doing in that moment. Everything else on the outside doesn't matter. And so that's that intense hyperfocus.

Ashlee [00:11:43]:

Tunnel vision. That's

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:11:44]:

Tunnel vision. Yes.

Ashlee [00:11:46]:

Men and women know it as. Yeah.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:11:48]:

Yes. And so and for what I'm gonna guess is that for first responders, we they have to have that in order to do their jobs. But, yes, how do we turn that off then? And how do we find that safety in Yeah. Calmness? You know, how can we get back to that resting zone? I'm sorry. I forgot what the rest of that question was.

Ashlee [00:12:06]:

No. You're good. And I would keep going with that. Right? It's you can feed into it of, like so I guess, like, the next thing would be because it's important with that lower tone, what I think you're conveying too is that it it will help the body come back down. Yes. But we have to do we have to activate that for that to happen?

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:12:24]:

So there are yes. You do need to activate that because, otherwise, the vagus nerve is gonna do what it wants to do because it's just an automatic thing. We have actually no control over that.

Ashlee [00:12:35]:

Okay.

Jamilyn DeSanti [00:12:36]:

It's just an automatic response. But, yes, there are ways to calm that vagus nerve. Everyone's gonna probably roll their eyes at me because I always get eye rolls for this one. Deep breathing.

Ashlee [00:12:45]:

I was just about to say you're gonna say deep

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When The Call Hits HomeBy Dr. Ashlee Gethner, DSW, LCSW & Jennifer Woosley, LPCC S