Vagus Nerve stress & anxiety
3. Instant Face-Lift
Your have likely heard lots of talk about fight, flee, freeze and even the resting states of the nervous system.
Polyvagal theory identifies social engagement as a type of nervous system response. Social engagement is a playful mixture of activation and calming that operates out of unique nerve influence.
Social engagement is the human neurobiological network that is accessed when you feel safe, which facilitates connection/affiliation with others and your surrounding environment through eye contact, facial expressions, vocalization and orienting of the body/face toward others.
The social engagement system is a two-way interaction system (receptive and expressive) baised mainly in the eyes, ears, larynx and mouth but incorporating the entire face and torso above the diaphragm. All twelve cranial nerves participate in the social and expressive functions.
The social engagement system helps us navigate relationships. Social engagement forms the basis of social relationships by providing a sense of belonging, social identity and fulfillment. Spending more time in the social engagement state of the nervous system is associated with positive health behaviors, and improved communication and social skills.
Social engagement is not a fixed or permanent state. If you have experienced an imbalance of time spent not in this state, then repeat balancing techniques should be done frequently or at least as needed. Since ther is no such thing as a fixed state of balance, it is more useful to think of balance as an ongoing process.
Benefits of this gentle and pleasant treatment include relaxing the facial muscles and leaving a morer natural smile in place by improving the function of cranial nerves X and XII. You can do it for yourself and share it with others.
This exercise improves the ciruculation to your skin and puts life into the muscles of expression of the middle third of your face, in the area between the corners of the mouth and the corners of the eyes. It also i proves blood circulation to the skin of your face, which brings a liveliness that your can feel and others can see. It helps you smile more naturally and more often and makes your face more responsive to interactions with others and therby increases your sense of empathy.
Before you do this technique, look at your face in a mirror.
If you are doing the technique on someone else, give them a handlheld mirror so they can watch their face and follow the changes. Look especially at the area of the skin around the cheekbones. Do one side of the face first. Then check whether you can see or feel a difference between the two sides.
The differences are usually obvious when you talk or smile. Then do the other side. There should be more symmetry again.
There is a point on the face that is the endpoint of the large intestine acupunture meridian, called LI 20. It is a beauty point in Chinese, Japanese and Thai massage. This point is called "Golden Bamboo". In traditional Chinese medicine, this point is called "Welcoming Frangrance". It opens the nostrils, improving breathing. This point in Chinese Medicine is interesting in terms of Western anatomy; it lies directly over a joint between two bones of the face: the maxilla and the premaxilla.
The two bones were separate entities long ago in the evolutionary development of our species, but they calcified together into a single bone at an early stage. In modern anatomy, the maxilla/premaxilla is one bone called the maxilla. The endpoint of the large intestine meridian is easy to find. Just lightly touch the skin about an eighth of an inch to the side on the top of the supra-alar crease (the folf between the cheek and upper lip) near the outer edge of the nostril. If you explore the area with your finger, you will find this point easily because it is more sensitive than the rest of the surrounding skin.
This massage helps the face to be more expressive, communicative and responsive - more socially engaged. Our faces should be flexible and able to express different emotional responses in various situations. Facial expressions are a vital part of our communication with other people. In addition to expressing our own emotions, facial flexibility is important for social engagement.
When our face is relaxed, and we look at someone else's face, our own face automatically makes micromovements that mirror the other's facial expression These movements are very small and change very quickly. These changes in tension in our skin and our facial muscles give feedback to the brain via the afferent pathways of cranial nerves X and XII, to give us immediate subconscious informationn about what others are feeling This is a prerequisite for us to have empathy for another person.
If facial muscles under the skin are generally relaxed, a person usually has a smooth, pleasant face. Unfortunately, many peaple get stuck in the same emotional and facial pattern for years. In addition to this technique, a light stroking of the skin of the face stimulates the vagus nerve and reduces tension in all the facial muscles.
Polyvagal theory identifies social engagement as a type of nervous system response. Social engagement is a playful mixture of activation and calming that operates out of unique nerve influence.
Social engagement is the human neurobiological network that is accessed when you feel safe, which facilitates connection/affiliation with others and your surrounding environment through eye contact, facial expressions, vocalization and orienting of the body/face toward others.
The social engagement system is a two-way interaction system (receptive and expressive) baised mainly in the eyes, ears, larynx and mouth but incorporating the entire face and torso above the diaphragm. All twelve cranial nerves participate in the social and expressive functions.
The social engagement system helps us navigate relationships. Social engagement forms the basis of social relationships by providing a sense of belonging, social identity and fulfillment. Spending more time in the social engagement state of the nervous system is associated with positive health behaviors, and improved communication and social skills.
Social engagement is not a fixed or permanent state. If you have experienced an imbalance of time spent not in this state, then repeat balancing techniques should be done frequently or at least as needed. Since ther is no such thing as a fixed state of balance, it is more useful to think of balance as an ongoing process.
Benefits of this gentle and pleasant treatment include relaxing the facial muscles and leaving a morer natural smile in place by improving the function of cranial nerves X and XII. You can do it for yourself and share it with others.
This exercise improves the ciruculation to your skin and puts life into the muscles of expression of the middle third of your face, in the area between the corners of the mouth and the corners of the eyes. It also i proves blood circulation to the skin of your face, which brings a liveliness that your can feel and others can see. It helps you smile more naturally and more often and makes your face more responsive to interactions with others and therby increases your sense of empathy.
Before you do this technique, look at your face in a mirror.
If you are doing the technique on someone else, give them a handlheld mirror so they can watch their face and follow the changes. Look especially at the area of the skin around the cheekbones. Do one side of the face first. Then check whether you can see or feel a difference between the two sides.
The differences are usually obvious when you talk or smile. Then do the other side. There should be more symmetry again.
There is a point on the face that is the endpoint of the large intestine acupunture meridian, called LI 20. It is a beauty point in Chinese, Japanese and Thai massage. This point is called "Golden Bamboo". In traditional Chinese medicine, this point is called "Welcoming Frangrance". It opens the nostrils, improving breathing. This point in Chinese Medicine is interesting in terms of Western anatomy; it lies directly over a joint between two bones of the face: the maxilla and the premaxilla.
The two bones were separate entities long ago in the evolutionary development of our species, but they calcified together into a single bone at an early stage. In modern anatomy, the maxilla/premaxilla is one bone called the maxilla. The endpoint of the large intestine meridian is easy to find. Just lightly touch the skin about an eighth of an inch to the side on the top of the supra-alar crease (the folf between the cheek and upper lip) near the outer edge of the nostril. If you explore the area with your finger, you will find this point easily because it is more sensitive than the rest of the surrounding skin.
This massage helps the face to be more expressive, communicative and responsive - more socially engaged. Our faces should be flexible and able to express different emotional responses in various situations. Facial expressions are a vital part of our communication with other people. In addition to expressing our own emotions, facial flexibility is important for social engagement.
When our face is relaxed, and we look at someone else's face, our own face automatically makes micromovements that mirror the other's facial expression These movements are very small and change very quickly. These changes in tension in our skin and our facial muscles give feedback to the brain via the afferent pathways of cranial nerves X and XII, to give us immediate subconscious informationn about what others are feeling This is a prerequisite for us to have empathy for another person.
If facial muscles under the skin are generally relaxed, a person usually has a smooth, pleasant face. Unfortunately, many peaple get stuck in the same emotional and facial pattern for years. In addition to this technique, a light stroking of the skin of the face stimulates the vagus nerve and reduces tension in all the facial muscles.