Vagus Nerve stress & anxiety
2. Spanning loslaten
The vagus nerve (cranial nerve X) directly innervates the majority of the muscles associated with the larynx and pharynx and is a contributor to the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius which are directly innervated by the accossory nerve (cranial nerve XI)
Your vagus nerve tells most of the muscles in your body when to constrict, release, move and relax and settle. Because your nervous system is autonomic, much of this action happens outside your deliberate or conscious control.
Your vagus nerve has a special muscular function, it innervates the trapezius and the sternocleidomastoid (SCM), two large muscles in the neck and shoulder. These are the only skeletal muscles below the face and head that are not innervated by spinal nerves.
It's no wonder that when we are stressed, our shoulders seem to sneak up to our ears. And if we decide to treat that tension with massage or movement training, these muscles seem to repsond differently than muscles in the rest of your body.
Utilizing the basis exercise from lesson one, you may noticed a decrease in shoulder pain and an increase in mobility. Dysfunction through the cranial nerves contributing to a lack of proper tonus in the trapezius and SCM muscles are often involved in more than pain and stiffness and have been found to contribute to migraine headaches, forward head posture, breating difficulties, chronic fight, flee of freeze activation, and a shortened life expectancy.
This means that dysfunction in either of these two muscles leads to dysregulation and disconnection.
The trapezius muscles are a pair of thin, flat, trapezoid-shaped, superficial muscles covering a large area of the bak of the neck, shoulders, and torso. They originate on the occipital bone, at the base of the back of the skull, and attach to the spinous processess of the shoulder blades and the spinous process of each vertebra of the cervical and thoracic spine (in the neck and torso).
The sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscles attach to the tip of the mastoid process of the temporal bones along the sides of the skull just behind the ears. Then the muscle splits into two bellies that wrap diagonally forward and down, with one part attaching to the top of the sternum (breastbone) and de other part to the medial section of the clavicle (collarbone).
Because the two muscles' bellies attach at slightly different places on the skull, they pull the head at slightly different angles. Also, because the sternal and clavicular bellies of the SCM attach in different locations on the torso, they also contribute to the rotation of the head.
The compicated coordination of tension and relaxation of the muscles that turn our heads requires precise muscle control. This is programmed into our nervous system in such a way that we do not have to think about the mechanics of it. When something catches our attention, we automatically focus our eyes on it. The movement of our head follows the direction of our eyes, and then the movement of our body follows the movement of our head.
Turning the head to either side should be an even, well-coordinated movement, without stops or jerks and without deviation from a smooth curve. Ideally, the head should be able to turn ninety degrees or slightly more.
Let's give it a try together.
Turn your head to the right and note any tightness or tension. Now notice if ther is a well-coordinated movement without stops or jerky movements turning your head to the left, and note any tightness of tension. If you have pain on the opposite side your head is turning the problem is likely your cranial nerve and the trapezius and SCM.
If we have pain in our neck on the same side our head is turning toward, it is most likely coming from another muscle, the levator scapulae (shoulderblade lifter). The levator scapulae is appropriately nicknamed the stiff neck muscle and reaches down from the top vertebra to the shouder blade along either side of the neck.
Turning the head is one of the most important and complex movements of the body. As babies, it is one of the first movements we make. Control and coordination of the tensing and relaxation of these muscles depend on well-functioning cranial nerves.
With chronic tension or flaccidness of these muscles, we obtain a forward head posture whick reduces our breathing capacity. Reducing breathing capacity means increasing anxiety, general fatigue, and low energy levels. Forward head posture also puts pressure on the heart and crowds the blood vessels that go to and froms the heart while compressing the vertebral arteries that carry blood up to the head, diminishing blood supply to the face, parts of the brain, and the brainstem.
Lesson 2. Exercises and homework.
Viewed from the side, our ear should be directly above the midline of our shoulder.
The following 'salamander exercises' progressively increase your breathing capacity, help reduce a forward head posture by bringing your head back into better alignment, and tone your trapezius, SCM, and nervous system.
Level 1
The Half-Salamander Exercise
To do the first part of the salamander exercise to the right, sit or stand in a comfortable position.
1. Without turning your head, let your eyes look to the right.
2. Continuing to face forward, tilt your head to the right so that your right ear moves closer to your right shoulder without lifting the shoulder to meet it.
3. Hold your head in this position for thirty to sixty seconds.
4. Then let your head come back up to neutral and shift your eyes to look forward again.
5. Now do the same on the other side. Let your eyes look to the left, and then side-bend your head to the left. After thirty to sixty seconds, return your head to an upright position and your eyes to a forward direction.
The half-salamander - a variation.
In this variation on the half-salamander exercise, follow the same instructions above, but let your eyes loook tot the right while tipping your head to the left.
This movement of your eyes in the opposite direction before you move your head increases your range of motion. You should be able to side-bend your head even farther to the left. Hold this for thirty to sixty seconds, and then reverse to do the same thing on the other side.
Level 2.
The full salamander exercise.
The full salamander exercise involves side-bending the entire spine rather than just the neck. Also, we use a different body position.
1. Get down on all fours, supporting your weight on your knees and the palms of your hands. If this is uncomfortable, you can place the palms of your hands on a desktop, a table, the seat of a chair or the pillows of a sofa. Your head should be on the same plane as your spine.
2. In this exercise, your ears should be neither lifted above nor dropped below the level of your spine. In order to find the right position, lift your head slightly above what you think is right. You should be able to sense that your head is slightly raised. Then lower your head slightly below what you think is right. You should be able to sense that your head is lower than it should be. Go back and forth between the two positions.
Take your head up a little and then take it down a little. Try to find a position in the middle where your head does not feel too far up or down. Althogh you may never find this position exactly, you can begin to zero in on it.
3. Once you have found a good position for your head relative to your spine, look to the right with your eyes, hold them in that position, and side-bend your head to the right by moving your right ear toward your right shoulder.
4. Complete the movement by letting the bend in your side continue beyond your neck, all the way down to the base of your spine
5. Hold this position for thirty to sixty seconds.
6. Bring your spine and head back to center.
7. Repeat all steps above, but on the left side.
SCM exercise for a stiff neck.
This exercise will extend your range of movements as you rotate your head, alleviate symptoms of a stiff neck, and help to prevent migraine headdaches. It is similar to the very first movements that we made as infants lying on our stomachs, propped up on our elbows, with our heads free, to move so that we could look around.
Lie on your stomach. Lift your head and bring your arms under your chest. Rest the weight of your upper body on your elbows.
2. Rotate your head to the right as far as it comfortably goes. Hold that position for sixty seconds.
3. Bring uour head back to center.
4. Now rotate your head to the left as far as it comfortably goes and hold that position for sixty seconds.
The Twist and Turn exercise.
This exercise improves the tone of a flaccid trapezius muscle and balances each of its three parts with the other two parts. It also helps to lengthen the spine, improve breathing, and correct forward head posture (FHP). This in turn often alleviates shoulder and back pain.
This exercise can benefit anyone, not just those with FHP. It takes less than one minute to do, and the feeling of positive change is immediate. It is a good idea to take a moment to do this exercise whenever you have been sitting for a while and to repeat it regularly from time to time.
The idea behind this exercise is neither to strengthen nor to stretch the trapezius muscle. The assumption is that the muscle is strong enough and just needs stimulation of the nerves to flaccid muscle fibers. You are waking them up so that they can take over their share of the work, as they did when we were babies and crawled on all fours.
There are three parts to this exercise. The difference between the three parts is the position of your arms.
1. Sit comfortable on a firm surface, such as the seat of a chair or a bench. Look forward.
2. Fold and cross your arms, with your hands resting lightly on your elbows. You will be rotating your shoulder girdle briskly, first to one side and then to the other, without stopping and without shifting the hips.
3. For the first part of the exercise, let your elbows drop and rest just in front of your body. Rotate your shoulders so that your elbows move, first to one side and then back to the other side. When you rotate your shoulders from side to side, your arms glide lightly over your stomach. This activates the fibers of your upper trapezius.
4. Do this three times. Do not strain, and do not stop your movement. Move uour shoulders without forcing them of holding them; your movements should be easy and relaxed.
5. The second part is just like the first, the only difference is that you shift your elbows and hold them in front of your chest, at the level of your heart. Rotate your elbows first to one side and then to the other. Do this three times. This activates the muscle fibers of uour middle trapezius.
6. For the third part, raise your elbows as high as your comfortably can, and repeat the exercise above. Rotate your elbows from side to side three times. This activates the muscle fibers of your lower trapezius.
Adding thes movements into your day will effectively decrease pain and tension and increase the strength of your physical body, your energy, and your nervous system. Remember, the easiest way to implement a new practice is to anchor it to an existing practice.
Practice the level of exercise that fits best for you, and add the salamander exercise to your morning routine. Perhaps before brushing your theeth or before breakfast, and then again before going to bed.
Think of something you consistently do during the workday, and add the twist and turn practice to that. For example, each time I finish a session with a client, I practice the twist and turn exercise.
Your vagus nerve tells most of the muscles in your body when to constrict, release, move and relax and settle. Because your nervous system is autonomic, much of this action happens outside your deliberate or conscious control.
Your vagus nerve has a special muscular function, it innervates the trapezius and the sternocleidomastoid (SCM), two large muscles in the neck and shoulder. These are the only skeletal muscles below the face and head that are not innervated by spinal nerves.
It's no wonder that when we are stressed, our shoulders seem to sneak up to our ears. And if we decide to treat that tension with massage or movement training, these muscles seem to repsond differently than muscles in the rest of your body.
Utilizing the basis exercise from lesson one, you may noticed a decrease in shoulder pain and an increase in mobility. Dysfunction through the cranial nerves contributing to a lack of proper tonus in the trapezius and SCM muscles are often involved in more than pain and stiffness and have been found to contribute to migraine headaches, forward head posture, breating difficulties, chronic fight, flee of freeze activation, and a shortened life expectancy.
This means that dysfunction in either of these two muscles leads to dysregulation and disconnection.
The trapezius muscles are a pair of thin, flat, trapezoid-shaped, superficial muscles covering a large area of the bak of the neck, shoulders, and torso. They originate on the occipital bone, at the base of the back of the skull, and attach to the spinous processess of the shoulder blades and the spinous process of each vertebra of the cervical and thoracic spine (in the neck and torso).
The sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscles attach to the tip of the mastoid process of the temporal bones along the sides of the skull just behind the ears. Then the muscle splits into two bellies that wrap diagonally forward and down, with one part attaching to the top of the sternum (breastbone) and de other part to the medial section of the clavicle (collarbone).
Because the two muscles' bellies attach at slightly different places on the skull, they pull the head at slightly different angles. Also, because the sternal and clavicular bellies of the SCM attach in different locations on the torso, they also contribute to the rotation of the head.
The compicated coordination of tension and relaxation of the muscles that turn our heads requires precise muscle control. This is programmed into our nervous system in such a way that we do not have to think about the mechanics of it. When something catches our attention, we automatically focus our eyes on it. The movement of our head follows the direction of our eyes, and then the movement of our body follows the movement of our head.
Turning the head to either side should be an even, well-coordinated movement, without stops or jerks and without deviation from a smooth curve. Ideally, the head should be able to turn ninety degrees or slightly more.
Let's give it a try together.
Turn your head to the right and note any tightness or tension. Now notice if ther is a well-coordinated movement without stops or jerky movements turning your head to the left, and note any tightness of tension. If you have pain on the opposite side your head is turning the problem is likely your cranial nerve and the trapezius and SCM.
If we have pain in our neck on the same side our head is turning toward, it is most likely coming from another muscle, the levator scapulae (shoulderblade lifter). The levator scapulae is appropriately nicknamed the stiff neck muscle and reaches down from the top vertebra to the shouder blade along either side of the neck.
Turning the head is one of the most important and complex movements of the body. As babies, it is one of the first movements we make. Control and coordination of the tensing and relaxation of these muscles depend on well-functioning cranial nerves.
With chronic tension or flaccidness of these muscles, we obtain a forward head posture whick reduces our breathing capacity. Reducing breathing capacity means increasing anxiety, general fatigue, and low energy levels. Forward head posture also puts pressure on the heart and crowds the blood vessels that go to and froms the heart while compressing the vertebral arteries that carry blood up to the head, diminishing blood supply to the face, parts of the brain, and the brainstem.
Lesson 2. Exercises and homework.
Viewed from the side, our ear should be directly above the midline of our shoulder.
The following 'salamander exercises' progressively increase your breathing capacity, help reduce a forward head posture by bringing your head back into better alignment, and tone your trapezius, SCM, and nervous system.
Level 1
The Half-Salamander Exercise
To do the first part of the salamander exercise to the right, sit or stand in a comfortable position.
1. Without turning your head, let your eyes look to the right.
2. Continuing to face forward, tilt your head to the right so that your right ear moves closer to your right shoulder without lifting the shoulder to meet it.
3. Hold your head in this position for thirty to sixty seconds.
4. Then let your head come back up to neutral and shift your eyes to look forward again.
5. Now do the same on the other side. Let your eyes look to the left, and then side-bend your head to the left. After thirty to sixty seconds, return your head to an upright position and your eyes to a forward direction.
The half-salamander - a variation.
In this variation on the half-salamander exercise, follow the same instructions above, but let your eyes loook tot the right while tipping your head to the left.
This movement of your eyes in the opposite direction before you move your head increases your range of motion. You should be able to side-bend your head even farther to the left. Hold this for thirty to sixty seconds, and then reverse to do the same thing on the other side.
Level 2.
The full salamander exercise.
The full salamander exercise involves side-bending the entire spine rather than just the neck. Also, we use a different body position.
1. Get down on all fours, supporting your weight on your knees and the palms of your hands. If this is uncomfortable, you can place the palms of your hands on a desktop, a table, the seat of a chair or the pillows of a sofa. Your head should be on the same plane as your spine.
2. In this exercise, your ears should be neither lifted above nor dropped below the level of your spine. In order to find the right position, lift your head slightly above what you think is right. You should be able to sense that your head is slightly raised. Then lower your head slightly below what you think is right. You should be able to sense that your head is lower than it should be. Go back and forth between the two positions.
Take your head up a little and then take it down a little. Try to find a position in the middle where your head does not feel too far up or down. Althogh you may never find this position exactly, you can begin to zero in on it.
3. Once you have found a good position for your head relative to your spine, look to the right with your eyes, hold them in that position, and side-bend your head to the right by moving your right ear toward your right shoulder.
4. Complete the movement by letting the bend in your side continue beyond your neck, all the way down to the base of your spine
5. Hold this position for thirty to sixty seconds.
6. Bring your spine and head back to center.
7. Repeat all steps above, but on the left side.
SCM exercise for a stiff neck.
This exercise will extend your range of movements as you rotate your head, alleviate symptoms of a stiff neck, and help to prevent migraine headdaches. It is similar to the very first movements that we made as infants lying on our stomachs, propped up on our elbows, with our heads free, to move so that we could look around.
Lie on your stomach. Lift your head and bring your arms under your chest. Rest the weight of your upper body on your elbows.
2. Rotate your head to the right as far as it comfortably goes. Hold that position for sixty seconds.
3. Bring uour head back to center.
4. Now rotate your head to the left as far as it comfortably goes and hold that position for sixty seconds.
The Twist and Turn exercise.
This exercise improves the tone of a flaccid trapezius muscle and balances each of its three parts with the other two parts. It also helps to lengthen the spine, improve breathing, and correct forward head posture (FHP). This in turn often alleviates shoulder and back pain.
This exercise can benefit anyone, not just those with FHP. It takes less than one minute to do, and the feeling of positive change is immediate. It is a good idea to take a moment to do this exercise whenever you have been sitting for a while and to repeat it regularly from time to time.
The idea behind this exercise is neither to strengthen nor to stretch the trapezius muscle. The assumption is that the muscle is strong enough and just needs stimulation of the nerves to flaccid muscle fibers. You are waking them up so that they can take over their share of the work, as they did when we were babies and crawled on all fours.
There are three parts to this exercise. The difference between the three parts is the position of your arms.
1. Sit comfortable on a firm surface, such as the seat of a chair or a bench. Look forward.
2. Fold and cross your arms, with your hands resting lightly on your elbows. You will be rotating your shoulder girdle briskly, first to one side and then to the other, without stopping and without shifting the hips.
3. For the first part of the exercise, let your elbows drop and rest just in front of your body. Rotate your shoulders so that your elbows move, first to one side and then back to the other side. When you rotate your shoulders from side to side, your arms glide lightly over your stomach. This activates the fibers of your upper trapezius.
4. Do this three times. Do not strain, and do not stop your movement. Move uour shoulders without forcing them of holding them; your movements should be easy and relaxed.
5. The second part is just like the first, the only difference is that you shift your elbows and hold them in front of your chest, at the level of your heart. Rotate your elbows first to one side and then to the other. Do this three times. This activates the muscle fibers of uour middle trapezius.
6. For the third part, raise your elbows as high as your comfortably can, and repeat the exercise above. Rotate your elbows from side to side three times. This activates the muscle fibers of your lower trapezius.
Adding thes movements into your day will effectively decrease pain and tension and increase the strength of your physical body, your energy, and your nervous system. Remember, the easiest way to implement a new practice is to anchor it to an existing practice.
Practice the level of exercise that fits best for you, and add the salamander exercise to your morning routine. Perhaps before brushing your theeth or before breakfast, and then again before going to bed.
Think of something you consistently do during the workday, and add the twist and turn practice to that. For example, each time I finish a session with a client, I practice the twist and turn exercise.