For one who is very well acquainted with debilitating anxiety, I had to quickly learn what was happening inside my mind and body. I was inspired to understand the following:
How is the nervous system related to my anxiety?
How does the nervous system function?
Can I leverage understanding the nervous system to improve my anxiety?
You can think of the nervous system as the body’s electrical communication system. These communication systems are all over the body and transmit all types of messages. The messages I had become overwhelmed with were panic, dread, fear, and danger. These were ongoing, intense, and lasted for months and I desperately began to read and research as much as I could in hopes that I could find peace again. My educational background is engineering, but I quickly focused on the autonomic nervous system which is composed of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
The sympathetic nervous system is associated with fight or flight while the parasympathetic nervous system is associated with rest and digest. While I was very well acquainted with fight or flight, I wanted to know more about finding ways to cooperate with the parasympathetic rest and digest and came across the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is located at the brand stem and extends down to the gut and is a critical part of being able to relax. This is done by improving what is known as vagal tone or the vagus nerve activity. There are several ways to do this:
Slow breathing exercises
Cold water exposure
Gargling
Humming
Exercis
Some of these seemed silly to me at first but as I tried them, they actually worked. With consistency and practice, I began to create my own anxiety toolkit which I talk about in my book, Leaving Jupiter: Navigating Your Anxiety Recovery. There is no magic pill or quick fix when it comes to anxiety but understanding the nervous system is a crucial component. Along with therapy, diet, exercise, rest, hydration, and many other tools, practicing vagus nerve stimulation has been a game changer and a major part of having a lasting recovery. Which method would you be willing to try
Darius Fennell is a mental health and therapy advocate, published author, speaker, and coach. He recently published Leaving Jupiter: Navigating Your Anxiety Recovery and The Leaving Jupiter Daily Journal available on his website and Amazon. You can find him on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook under the profile Beyond Anxiety (@beyond.anxiety_)