¶ Nervous System Hygiene for Wellness
Welcome to Talking All Things , cardiopalm . I am your host , Dr Rachele Burriesci , physical therapist and board certified cardiopulmonary clinical specialist . This podcast is designed to discuss heart and lung conditions , treatment interventions , research , current trends , expert opinions and patient experiences .
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And today I brought in with us JPB , Jessica Patching Bunch from Brain Body Resilience , to really take a different look and a different approach at how we can utilize breathing to sort of incorporate into our daily practice and help us navigate stressors in our everyday life . I've always said that PT school is an interesting concept .
We take healthy young adults who are really interested in health and wellness and then we put them in a room , have them sit for hours on end and basically give stressors upon stressors upon stressors for long periods of time on end .
Being in faculty , being in academia , I saw what happens to those students , to their confidence , to their system , when they're constantly being combated with stress , and myself personally have had multiple health issues related to burnout and literally pushing yourself to that brink . So I think this is so important .
I really am so excited to have JPB with us today and dive into this concept of nervous system hygiene . So , without further ado , let's jump in . Welcome to Talking All Things , cardiopalm . I am your host , dr Rachel Barisi , and today we have with us Jessica Paching Bunch , better known as JPB , from Brain Body Resilience , jpb welcome .
Hello , thank you so much for having me .
It's a pleasure having you here . I think you and the work that you do is so powerful and your background is so unique and I would like to kind of dive into that a little bit and talk about the practicality that you bring to nervous system hygiene and what that actually looks like .
But before we jump in , I want to just say that I think you're the missing link to health and wellness . I feel like you are . I feel like the things that you do , the things that you teach , how you teach it , should be incorporated into schools programs .
I feel like every PT school should have a class from JPB to basically help regulate throughout , because we live in a stressful world . And the things that you do , I think , bring so much value and can be used in so many different situations . So if you can , please just give a little background about you .
Yes , a little background . I always . This part's always difficult for me because it is such a winding road that brought me to where I am , as life is a lot of the time . But I brain , body resilience was born out of a need for myself . I went through multiple types of significant developmental traumas and that affects our nervous system and how that works on .
Later on in life and in my 20s I went to the doctor several times , just frequently for what they would tell me were stress related illnesses and they would just literally tell me oh , this is you know , it's just from high stress , this is stress related . So just have less stress . Yes , lower your stress . Somebody said to me have less stress .
I'm going to lie .
How'd that work out for you ?
It didn't . I at that time I was not . I was working two jobs . I was , you know , I worked in accounting and I bartended on the weekends and I also was going to school during the week . And I was like look , look , maybe you don't know like my life is just stressful , there's nothing I can do . And I didn't understand .
I hadn't learned about physiology and the interventions that we have and how stress actually works and all of that . And so I just , and so I was kind of I was mad . I was like I'm coming to you for help and like you just like have less . I left just feeling like I was pissed and I just felt like hopeless . I was like okay , there's nothing I can do .
Then this is just what it is . And that kind of went on for another 10 years or so and I just was like this is life , nothing I can do about it . I went on . You know my my education continued . I went into . I was always very interested in psychology , your behavior , like why , why do we do the things that we do ?
And like , how do , why do we justify that ? How do we justify that ? And I kind of stumbled on a neuroscience class because I had told myself a story for a really long time that I wasn't good at science , and so I was definitely not trying to take a science class . And I took this class called perception , and I was like perception is super fascinating .
And then it was the neuroscience of sensation . Perception was was the class , and I was like , oh my God , what am I doing ? I fell in love with it . I was like , oh , this makes so much sense because here are the underlying neural mechanisms that have you know , some insight into these behaviors that I'm interested in . And so then I dove in .
I took every neuroscience class I could take neurobiology , neuropsychology , neurophysiology , whatever I could get my hands on at the state college that I was at and and then I was like , you know what I want ? To be a researcher . I love neuroscience and I like research .
It's like it's a hard pivot from no science . Yeah , yeah , yeah .
But it just made sense to me . I was like , oh , okay , all this brain stuff , like it gives me something tangible , like to explain . And I was . You know , you come out of undergrad with all these , all these great ideas of what you're going to do and how the world works .
And I was like you know , neuroscience research is like has answers , and like this is where we get , we get this information , and anyway . So I went into research , got a peek behind that curtain of what that actually is and what that looks like , and I was like , oh , this is not , this is not actually for me . There's so much research is amazing .
It does so much good and there's so much , and it is built on foundations that are steeped in supremacist , supremacist culture , and academia has a lot of problems . Science has a lot of problems because of that . Who is studied , how we are studying things , who gets published .
You know , we've had some of these conversations before , and so I just kind of saw all of these things where I thought neuroscience was like . I was like it's science , it's like facts , even though I knew what you know it wasn't , but it's like , oh , we're just making shit up and like , with some parameters , but we're just trying to figure it out .
Right , we're just trying to figure it out and being in that environment and seeing that , and I realized I've gone on this tangent but seeing I'm going to bring it back around .
Seeing that it's more about trying to you know , get through your program , even to like a dissertation , to your research , to your own projects , and then doing the right things according to the structures and system in place , according to whoever your mentors are and their opinions about it , their biases .
It's less about learning and for me , that was my idea was like aren't we here to learn things ?
And then like , spread that knowledge , and so I had learned through this whole process , so much about neurophysiology and then how that doesn't stop there and our brain and body are not actually separate , and how physiology just flows , continues , and how the stress response works , because I , you know my elevated stress issues revisited me .
You know they never went anywhere because I didn't do anything about them , and we're supposed to just have less stress at that time .
Yeah , and that didn't . That's not how that goes , so . So it was still there and I was like , okay , but now I have this understanding like what is ? What is the stress cycle , what is the like , what is the process in your body ? And I really just started delving into like what is that ?
What are the mechanisms that are responsible for it , what are like interventions ? And through that I , just kind of that , I spent the next I don't know . Until now . I'm still just so interested and so fascinated by how we have the ability to affect change on our internal environment Absolutely , and most of the time we are not taught these things .
No , and that's that was my point of the things that you teach should be common knowledge . It should be taught to students , people in the workplace . This should be accessible to everyone because we're not taught how to deal with our body .
No .
The conversation that we're having may sound very far removed from cardiopulmonary , but it's . It's definitely not , and this is the exact reason why I wanted to bring you on here , because the systems are connected and the autonomic nervous system is this wonderful connection between brain , body , breath and the cardiovascular system .
Yeah ,
¶ Understanding Nervous System Hygiene
and that's .
And once I realized that and once I started playing around with that in you know my own needs of getting out of these just just a chronic stress state , that was you know I have digestive issues and all kinds of things , right , you know the long list of things that that stress affects in our brain and our body and I started seeing that my ability to feel
more calm , to create a little space , to navigate my internal environment in a different way , which gave me then the opportunity to navigate my external environment in a different way and I was like , why is nobody talking about this ?
And now , because I'm further into the space , there are a lot of people , but still , I think I'm so immersed in it , I think that more people are talking about it than they are .
That's correct . That is correct .
And then being in academia and seeing that , just like , why are we not sharing the information that we have , like on a mass level ? Why are we not telling everybody , every human person who lives in this world , that is increasingly stressful , correct and in some ways , just we have the availability of that understanding that there is more stress out there .
We see so much more right now . Right , why don't we all know about this ? And it is , and that's bringing it back to the cardio poem .
Your breath is , that is your pause button , that is your navigation between your brain and body , where you help navigate your internal state Absolutely , and you have the capacity to manage that , not control it , because I think if we were in charge of our own breath , I don't think the human brain have survived at all that is absolutely true .
But I do like to tell patients that they're in control to an extent right , because you can think about your breath and you can say I'm going to breathe fast , I'm going to breathe slow , and actually make a difference in that moment where you're consciously thinking about it versus like the unconscious thought , yeah .
So my question , jpb , is could you give me a quick and dirty definition of what nervous system hygiene means to you ?
Just paying attention to your nervous system and like but I'm like quick and dirty , I don't know . I don't do that , that's fair . Give me the long version . What is that ? Well , I think because we don't have a foundational understanding of even like what is your nervous system , what's the function of it ? How does it work ? What does it do for me ?
There has to be a little bit of understanding before that Like . Information does not change a thing , but it gives you the ability to change a thing , because if you don't know , if you don't know what something is , you cannot manage it , you cannot navigate it .
Like , if I get in a car and I don't know what the steering wheel is and what the pedals are , like it's not useful to me . And so nervous system hygiene is just paying some intentional attention to the things that affect your nervous system , like your breath and your other senses , just like you do your oral hygiene daily .
We have this tendency to address these things . When we're in crisis mode , when we're in high sympathetic state , when we're just so stressed out , we have no choice but to stop and pay attention to ourselves , and with nervous system hygiene , it's just something you do daily .
I love that I'm going to back up , because I think we need to back up , and you said something very important in that you have to understand the knowledge , you have to understand the system in order to acknowledge what's happening .
So let's talk a little bit about nervous system and let's talk a little bit about our autonomic response , because I love to , and I would love to nerd out with you about this . So just let's just talk about it .
¶ Understanding the Autonomic Nervous System
What is the autonomic nervous system ? Why is it so important ? How does it affect us ? What is sympathetic and parasympathetic and like ?
yeah , thank you , because I do , and that's another thing . I think that comes from academia as well . The way you talk changes , and I heard a quick , quick aside . I was walking down the hallway at my job and I was like something . The hallway stinks , smells . I was walking with someone that said I don't , my ol factory sense must not be functioning .
I'm like , who talks like that ? Like what ? It's so weird . So so yeah , our nervous system is this network of , like informational connection that we have from top to bottom , and we have our central nervous system , which is the brain and the spinal cord , which I think we pay a lot of attention to .
We have a lot of importance on thinking , like use your head , think about it , and the autonomic system is part of the peripheral system , so it's in your body and it's what does all the automatic responses , digestion , breathing , heart rate , like the things that you don't think about that keep you alive , right ?
So it's pretty important and yet we don't pay any attention to it . We barely even know what it is on , like in the general public , like .
So it's incredibly important and I think it's so interesting just kind of looking at those two , because we play so much importance on thinking and our brain , but really our autonomic system , our sensory system , delivers that information from the body , through those nerve innervations in the body , to the brain , about what's even going on .
Right , it's a two way street .
And yet we don't pay any attention , right ? So the autonomic system has two sides the parasympathetic side , which is your rest , digest , learn , repair , kind of that calming side , and then the pathetic side , which is kind of the red alert .
I got you .
I was trying to say alert and alarm .
Come on , no worries , I'm all about them .
It's and that's your fight . Flight , freeze , fon , we're discovering all kinds of different ones , but or acknowledging but that's the side that goes into action when we're in survival mode and we are meant to use both sides and just kind of flow back and forth between them when needed , because it's not just your sympathetic side , isn't ?
I think it gets a bad rap , like stress gets a bad rap , cortisol gets a bad rap , but it's like oh , these are the things that are bad for you , and that's not the case . They also help us learn , they also help us in physical activity . We , you know there's so many things .
Life isn't good , it's not bad , it's complex and we are incredibly complex creatures and so it wouldn't be fair or accurate to just be like this side's good and this side's bad , which I think sometimes is the idea . But they're meant to work and flow in and out of all of the states of being human , right From adversity back to calm excitement .
The problem is balance , yeah , I think . Balancing I heard that somewhere , I think .
Oh , I like that .
I think it introduced that to me . But because there's never a balance where it's totally even , but we're constantly just balancing back and forth .
Back and forth , yeah .
And in cases where , I mean , there's so many reasons but just modern life keeps us in a stimulated sympathetic state , in that kind of high alert threat state which our brain has a tendency to look for harm and danger and threat , because the whole job of this organism is to survive , and so that is of utmost importance .
And if we are not intentional in a space , in environments like we live in , where there is constant activation of the sympathetic stress response , if we're not intentional about taking the agency that we have to then activate that parasympathetic system , we don't have that balance , we are thrown out of balance and that just wreaks havoc on our system .
And our autonomic system is in constant communication with the rest of our body . Our endocrine system , our immune system , our stress response system , they're all always in communication , and so when we are in this lopsided , constantly stimulated state , all of our other systems are affected by that . We don't have these like nice partitions .
There's no silo in the body . No , no , zero silo . So I think that's a wonderful description , because when I think about the autonomic system , I kind of sort of think primal , it's base core , it's going to keep you alive , and then what we are exposed to on a daily basis , hourly basis , sort of , has this impact right . It's a two-way street .
We absorb information and it's received back to the brain and the brain delivers out . But we live in this chaotic , stressful world . We're in school , we have exams , we sit in traffic , we have this phone that lights up every two seconds , that's constantly giving a dopamine hit . How can we regulate that ?
How can we then become I wanna use the word control again how can we be in the driver's seat of regulating the system ? Because we can't change the world that we're living to an extent . So how do we regulate ourselves in that moment , in the moment oh , let me be careful about my words how do we learn how to regulate ourselves ?
Period first , and then we'll talk about what happens when you're in the moment .
Yeah , well , I think in the moment is that's such an important space , but when we to be .
How do we prepare for that moment ?
Yes , yes , that's the point of nervous system hygiene . And when we think about it because so many I started thinking about nervous system hygiene . And what would it be like if we just cared for ourselves on a regular basis ?
And I don't mean , like you have your like one hour meditation class that you go to once a week , or yoga , or whatever it is you do for , like to walk in nature or whatever . Those are all incredible . Don't stop doing those . Do those . They're great . But when it comes to how our physiology works , it's more about frequency than duration of time .
Right , it's how many times that pattern is firing . And so , having the ability most of us don't have , and some of us don't even have time for that hour long something in the day , Because they're just .
It always gets pushed off . It's the next time .
But the care for ourselves tends to be the thing that we are quickest to drop , and it should be the very last thing , because all of the cliche things like you can't pour from an empty cup , blah , blah , blah . You cannot live in this life if you're not taking care of yourself .
You are just surviving , and I don't wanna be here just to survive , and I don't want that for other people either , and so we have to be intentional about it , and so we can take two minutes in a moment in our day when we wake up to regulate our breath . I'm gonna come back to breath , because that is the anchor .
There's so much more involved , but that is the one anchor activity that I feel like is the most important , and it is the start for anything else . I think it's the introduction to being able to do any of the other practices .
And regulating and I wanna make this really clear like self-regulation does not mean self-suppression , it does not mean ignoring your feelings , it does not mean pretending like they're not there , and I hear that so much when I give talks or work with people and they're like but I'm so exhausted after self-regulating all day .
Self-regulating versus self- .
Like self-monitoring , self-suppressing , because those are different things . We're not trying to not feel the things . Stress exists , All the feelings , the whole spectrum exists and we're supposed to feel them . So like how do we navigate ? That is what we're looking at .
How do we build a better relationship with our physiology to be able to navigate those things better ?
I really like that Because we can't push a button and control physiology , like we can't say blood pressure go down , heart rate go down but we can incorporate .
Yes , so that's the way . Thank you , I need you to bring me back . I trail off , I know that , but we can interact , say , with our breath , throughout the day multiple times . You have two minutes . Is it super easy when you're not in a space where you're accustomed to taking that time ?
No , it takes intention , it takes effort and it takes you being like , okay , I'm gonna put my phone down instead of scrolling here and just like I'm gonna just be in this space with my breath . That being said , that can also be really difficult depending on the relationship you have with your internal state .
If there is significant trauma and things like that , that can be very different for somebody Depending on what your environment internally is like . But we do have the capacity to navigate our autonomic system to turn those switches off and on on the sympathetic and parasympathetic sides of our nervous system through how we breathe .
Love that .
It's so simple and yet leads into much complexity . Totally , but that part is so simple . We have the ability to interact with our nervous system . We have the ability to change our state of being just by paying attention and maybe changing our breath .
Breathing is just so powerful . It's one of the things that I try to incorporate with every client , every patient , because even if you just spend one or two minutes to intentionally think about your breath , it's going to make a difference period . But people don't know to do this .
Yeah , and I think it's also become a thing like I've heard people that are just like dude , if you tell me to take a deep breath one more time , like I'm gonna lose my shit , and I get it . Because what is that ? Because that's like just have less stress , just take a deep breath and calm down . Right , yes ?
That tone was it . That tone hit yes and calm down .
That is so unhelpful that's not what I want to hear . When I am not calm , when my system is like freaking out and telling me that there is threat and there is danger , and like how do I need to be attentive to all these things and like my focus , like physiology , is responding to something Right , and I need to know how to interact with that .
And so just like take a deep breath and calm down Like it's such trash advice because why ? Why am I doing this ? Like what's the point ? Probably not going to , because it doesn't seem helpful , right .
But if we know that when you inhale , you stimulate your sympathetic side of your nervous system , that kind of red alert fight flight thing and if you , when you exhale , it's the parasympathetic , calm , rest , digest , so then if we're focusing on our exhale , if we're extending our exhale a little bit longer , it's doing something , and then we know what we're doing
and then we can feel that it is a tangible shift .
And if you wanna get like technical with it , if you were on a heart rate monitor , if you had some sort of oxygen reader like you can visually watch the physiology change during that moment . Yes , it is so powerful .
Yeah , and that's what I have in a lot of workshops and things . I'll have people just like find their pulse . If you can't , I don't know . For a long time that was very hard for me , I think because of the state of my nervous system . I was like I don't feel anything , I don't know what's happening . I wanna make a work like that ?
Yeah , but you can feel when you inhale your pulse rises and when you exhale it slows a little bit . You can feel that and like I'm all for like biofeedback gadgets and like in the clinic . Obviously there are different physiology monitors but like you can just do that on yourself , you can monitor yourself .
And I think that's the thing too is our like outsourcing of all of these things , like , tell me what I feel , tell me how I'm doing , tell me all these things , which technology is great , and we also have to know that for ourselves . Right , how am I feeling ? Is my breath elevated ? Am I like ?
Is it audible , cause that's a sign that there is some dysfunction and that it's heavy and it might be quick . Is it in my chest ? What is just what is happening ? And that's a big part of nervous system . Hygiene is just taking the space before there's any like manipulation of the breath and changing anything . What is it currently ? What is my baseline ?
Where am I at so that I know what is needed ?
Just the awareness of paying attention to you for a moment . Yeah , and check in , self check in .
Yes , and it seems so simple , and I think that's a big part why we dismiss it Right . Okay , I don't have time for that , but like , that simple practice of checking in really can literally change your life because it changes your capacity to navigate .
I like that . So we're going to take a moment and we're going to check in with ourselves how we feel . We're going to think about our breath . We're going to think about the fact that my shoulders are up towards my ears and my stomach is actually growling . So , if that comes through , I'm checking in .
There is a growl happening Once we take some space for us . How do we start incorporating breath into our day ? Is there a specific routine ? Is there just taking a breath and extending our exhale , Like ? What's your advice on starting as a daily practice when we're not in the threat position ?
I think , and it is really important to address it when we're not in the threat position , this is a fantastic tool to get us out of that elevated state , and when we're practicing it as a hygiene practice , our stress response system is a biologically adaptive tool .
¶ Understanding and Implementing Nervous System Hygiene
So what we do in this stressful state translates to like oh okay , I'm going to just do that later on , habitually , so you don't have to spend the energy . So that's the purpose of nervous system . Hygiene is to do it while we're not in that state , and I'm always really aware of , I think , be aware of anybody that's like do it exactly .
Like this , do what I do , I did it and so can you . Like those are all terrible because it depends on where you're at , it depends on what your current state is and what your breath is like , what is tolerable for your system . And then kind of titrating that , doing small bits of expanding that , your personal zone of comfort in that .
But after taking just a couple of minutes to even pay attention , like , oh okay , I'm clenching my jaw , my shoulders are way up here , my stomach is in knots , like what is happening , while noticing , yes , I'm breathing in and out of my nose . It can be useful , especially when starting this , to pick a point where you feel , where you notice your breath .
I think that's really important too , because when you're not used to paying attention to your internal state , your body yourself , what does that even mean ? How do you do that ? So the cue of like , just pay attention to your breath , it's like , okay , but what ? How do you do that ? What does that mean ?
And so , like you can feel your breath as it goes into your nostrils For me , I can feel it , you know , as it hits the back of my throat and then as it goes down into my chest and into my diaphragm . Pick a space where you can feel it . Start with your nostrils , because you can feel the air entering your body . And just what is that ?
Put your attention there . There are so many different types of breathing techniques that do different things , so I'm not gonna say one is better than another or because it depends on what . Your goal is Right , I think , for that and for the awareness and for building some balancing in your systems .
Just kind of an initial one-to-one ratio Breathe in , take a pause , breathe out for the same count , say three . Breathe in for a count of three , pause for just a moment , breathe out for a count of three , pause again at the bottom and continue that for at least five breaths for a minute .
If we're looking to , if we're feeling like we need to calm down a little bit , then , after we've taken that initial kind of awareness and check , and then , like balance , like maybe I need to extend my exhale , we know that the extended exhale is going to help us activate that parasympathetic system . So then we do a one-to-two ratio .
So breathe in for three , breathe out for six , breathe in for four , breathe out for eight .
Whatever your comfort level is and I think that's a thing too I used to do this number of counts , this type of breath , and that's not accessible to everybody , and if it doesn't work for you , then it doesn't work and that's the opposite of what I've seen people holding breath work sessions and giving these techniques , where one it was not in accordance with ,
like physiology .
So I'm like , when you're having these people hyperventilate and then asking if they can like feel their pleasure center , I'm like no , because that's not how we work and I think that is one of the most frustrating parts and why the understanding , like the base level of understanding of like what happens as you breathe in and as you breathe out , is so important ,
because otherwise people are like well , I tried that it doesn't work for me , it made it worse or whatever it is . It's like well , it does work because it is just how we function as humans and how we approach it matters .
And if you're trying to force a thing that isn't within your , isn't accessible to you , because of dysfunctional breathing , because of whatever else , because of your nervous system state , then no , it's not going to work for you and then it's not useful .
I think that's an important piece and you said something just very nicely about meeting your person where they're at , because if you try to do the same exact count for every single person , it's just not gonna work . And we know that if we push breathing in a certain way , it can actually make us more anxious .
And then , when we get more anxious , guess what's tapping back in right . We're firing sympathetic to just take over and drive , and so of course , you'd be like I'm not doing that again . Last time I did , I felt awful . So how do you counterbalance that as you're working with your clients ?
As you're saying , that someone in particular popped into my head and they were like I've always like I feel like I can't breathe when I'm anxious which is super common and so I'm just focused on trying to get that air in . And so instead I have people focus on their exhale , don't even worry about the inhale , that's gonna happen , it just is .
So you focus all of your attention and energy on the exhale , making it smooth and long and deep , and then the inhale will come in and that will be fine . But when you are in that anxious state , that's the one that's going to help , and being able to just focus on that instead of like how am I gonna breathe , how am I gonna get this air in ?
Oh my God , I can't breathe , right , you know .
The brain takes over .
Yeah , well , and it does , and that's it does .
And this , you know , the autonomic functions , like you said , are very primal and so when that part of you know , in conjunction with the primal parts of our brain , when that is highly activated , we've seen through neuroimaging studies that , like the amygdala , that kind of emotional center that we associate with fear , a lot increases in volume when we have that
chronically elevated fear , threat state Right , and then we literally don't have access . As you know , I'm like it's still there , we don't have the capacity to access our frontal lobe as well , right , which is where our thinking , our rational thought , our planning , our empathy and compassion , both for ourselves and others , all resides in our frontal lobe .
And when that access to that is blunted , then we are in this primal state .
Absolutely .
Where we're then not able to like come back and be like okay , what do I need in this moment ?
Right Cause you're no longer I don't even want to say rationally thinking , but you are in survival mode at that point .
Yeah , and so you're yeah . So then your brain and body are like what do I need immediately to survive and , to you know , conserve all the resources for , you know , physical explosion of energy in case I need to run away from something or fight something I don't need to digest .
I need to see , like , immediately what's here , yeah , and that happens unintentionally . It's not like we decide like I'm going to be in threat state right now where I need to defend , like your body just does it , which is brilliant , and we need to be able to recognize when is that not useful ? Because it's not needed .
And how to regulate that threat state at certain points .
Yeah , and that's , and that's what I mean . It is over activated because of all the things we mentioned earlier and increasing availability of not just the phone , dean , and like giving you your candy crush updates , or whatever . But we see tragedy , yes , every day .
And you're not all day .
If you're looking on the internet all day , it's there , it is . All of it is there , from local national around the world . There's a lot of bad shit going on Right and a lot of suffering , and your nervous system is not meant to be connected to all of the suffering in the world .
At the speed and amount and volume that we have it .
Yeah , and so there is that constant activation and so , again , we have to be intentional about how we , how we navigate . And part of that is being intentional with , like , what am I doing with my day ? And even just pressing pause on , like okay , I've taken my two minutes to notice my breath , maybe do a breathing exercise if I needed to .
And now and now , what am I choosing to do ? Am I just going to get back on my phone and , like stare at all these things again ?
Right , right back in .
Not entirely useful either . Right , which you know , coping mechanisms are complex and that's a whole other whole of their episode .
But Right , Definitely Okay . So we're going to do this breath control hygiene and we're going to incorporate it into our day and we're going to purposely , intentionally set some time aside to do short bouts of breathing , whether that's a one to one ratio or one to two ratio or really what feels good for us in that moment .
Is there anything else in the nervous hygiene space that sort of helps the time where you're in the moment ? Is there anything else connected ? I know you promote exercise quite a bit . Is there anything else in that hygiene picture that we should be thinking about ?
Yeah , so I think and again thank you for coming on my all my rabbit holes that I'm jumping down . But if there were one piece of advice for the , for nervous system hygiene and the breath specifically , I would say make it slow down . Make it slow , long and deep , and that is going to take you , regardless of you know what , what technique you choose .
Make it a little bit slower , a little bit longer and a little bit deeper into your body and that's going to work wonders Outside of that . So that's , you know , helping us kind of create that , that baseline of balancing pattern . And then with movement , I mean there's , there's .
We are created to move , our brains evolved with movement and movement helps us complete that stress cycle , move the arousal energy . There's so much benefit to movement when we're talking about stress and anxiety . It can also be a very purposeful tool outside of taking a walk every day .
Walking is such , such , just like the benefits from walking are incredible , and I think it's one of those simple things that we just miss , like man . It doesn't do enough and I think a lot of that is because we place so much importance on for movement and exercise . It's like , well , how are you going to ?
You know , make your butt bigger and your waist smaller or whatever , whatever your goals are , that's great and there's so much more like your body and it's like you're rewarded for movement in your physiology , in your brain , in your cognitive function , like so that's it . If you can go for a five minute , five minute walk , do that .
If you have 20 minutes , even better , great . And with movement we as a as a hygiene exercise , we can practice stress . We can practice getting our heart rate up , elevating that , and then intentionally practice bringing it back down .
And we can do that with different movements , being more kind of high intensity exercise , even just like jumping jacks , and then moving to a calming , like a restorative movements .
It doesn't have to be complex , but getting your heart rate up and then bringing it back down , both with intention , is such an incredible tool for nervous system hygiene , because then you're practicing the stress in a controlled environment that you control , and certainty and and familiarity with the two of the key pieces of you know , feeling safe in your nervous
system that your brain's like okay , I know what this is . And back to that , you know the stress response being a biologically adaptive tool and what we do in those state , in those times of stress we're teaching our body to do more of at all times .
And so when we are practicing like oh and the same thing with cold showers and there's all kinds of like I don't know cold therapies , the whole thing , now I think it's great . Some people hate it , whatever . Whatever . I keep .
I keep trying to get into it . I haven't fully committed . My autonomic nervous systems a little whacked , so I have a different response .
Yeah , I was just . We've had that conversation where again , just because somebody's like , this is the tool if it doesn't work for you ? One for you and that's fine because there's so many we can try .
But practicing that stress and elevating our state and then intentionally bringing it back down in a safe , calm , controlled environment that we are of our choosing , there's so much benefit to that and movements one of the easiest ways to do that .
I love that . I think there's so much just positive in that . So number one exercise is tapping into that sympathetic nervous system . Yeah but it's also almost I don't know how to put this in a certain ways like tapping into that positive side of the sympathetic nervous system . It's not all bad .
I'm just going to quote unquote right , like you are literally provoking good stress in your body . That has tons of health benefits . Yeah , period , but the key is that , coming back down from it , right , get the heart rate up , bring it down and so that's giving you that .
¶ Nervous System Hygiene Benefits and Practices
It's like reps for your autonomic nervous system .
Yes , and I think again , I have so much , I have so much trouble stating . Anything is like fact .
I'm like there's no complexity , especially when we're dealing with how we work , is incredibly complex , but yes , it is reps for your , for your autonomic system , and activating the sympathetic response is super beneficial at times , again like we wouldn't be able to learn without it , we wouldn't be able to accomplish physical tasks without it .
There's so much more , but I don't want . I immediately my head is like people who were like running my , my therapy or whatever . I'm like no , number one , no , it's just not . It's very different .
I feel strongly about running check .
No , I love running . Running is great .
I don't like long runs the whole thing , I know this because I used to do it when I felt really shitty and I had so much like internal turmoil I would go try and run it away or high intensity exercise it away or whatever kind of physical expression of this like internal chaos , and in that there might be some benefit at a point .
But there you reach a point where there's diminishing returns and then you are just activating , chronically chronic activation of that . She had something to say , that stress response . So I want people to know that , like , while exercise and movement are beneficial , we also have to be intentional and aware of how we're doing that and how we're using those tools .
It's always a tipping point and I think that was a smart catch because I feel like the good bad is a like you have to be so careful with using it and then you also have to be careful with the over , really tipping that scale to the too much side .
Yeah , the other really big important thing that you said I just really want to highlight it is that it's not an all or nothing . Some is better than nothing . So even doing a five minute walk , 10 minute walk , bouts of time throughout the day are equally beneficial to the physiology , from a health perspective as well as the nervous system .
Right , I think there's many people , including myself , who have always felt like , well , if I can't make it to the gym and do my full two hour workout with my warm up , stretching all of the things and my cool down , well , then it's not worth it .
And I think that's that's the part that needs to be educated more that those little bouts make huge impact and change and can help stress and anxiety or whatever you're dealing with in the moment , and also just like a good health practice .
Well , and that's what I think about my , my nerdy brain goes to , goes to brain things Exactly , but I think about , you know , long term presentation , so like , which is how we learn , and that's just like repetitive neuronal firing .
So , basically , practice , which just means you're practicing something , and that is literally how physiological changes are made , is through practice , through that pattern being activated over and over and over again .
So , again , like , I think the teeth brushing example is so powerful because we all do that Right , frequently , I hope , but like , if you brush your teeth for an hour a week , that is not going to be as beneficial as brushing your teeth for two minutes , Right , or you know , and try to put whatever's accessible , but , but I mean you get the point and that
it's the same thing with your nervous system , those little bits of practicing , checking in with yourself how is my breath , where are my thoughts ? Because when we're having , you know , and that's that's a good metric to if I am having these like doom and gloom thoughts and I am feeling like , oftentimes I will have these like defensive conversations in my head .
I know them well and that's such a good sign that like okay , my nervous system needs a little attention because I feel I'm in a threat space and just checking in and making those little adjustments and even just building the awareness , because we can't make the adjustments until we're aware and we're talking about being in the moment , and we're in that moment where
we're just so worked up or we're super anxious , or we're just stressed out or fed up or whatever it is where our nervous system is like we are going to go to the habits that we currently have . That's what your system is going to pull from , like okay , what do we do in this time ? Oh , we freak out . Okay , cool , just going with that .
Or if we're practicing these little pauses throughout our day to balance our breath , to have some movement , right , then that is what is going to come , you know , to the front of our head when we are in those spaces , like oh , okay , I need to check my breath , I need to shake this off , I need to get some movement , I need to go for a walk , and it's
going to be more accessible if we're already practicing it throughout the day .
Right , but maybe not the best time to start . When it's that moment and someone tells you breathe and calm down please .
Yeah , no , then just breathe and remove yourself from that person .
But I think that's a good point , because I think you almost unconsciously start to do it as well .
Yeah , because your body is that smart , exactly because you're building those patterns and your brain efficiency is really far up there with importance , next to survival , and so what you're practicing , your body's going to be like okay . Well , let's not expend words , have just escaped me , which is always important Cognitive energy .
Thank you , I felt it , I felt the words come out yeah , we're not going to take the time to have this cognitive energy spent when it can be used for something else . So we're going to habituate this . It's just going to be the go-to thing .
So that's where our agency over ourselves and decisions about what do I want my go-to thing to be and it sounds very simple in some ways it is . By no means is changing patterns that exist in your body , in your brain , easy . So I want to make that really clear .
It is possible and it is beneficial , and it takes a lot of effort and it doesn't always feel great .
Habits are hard to create bad habits are hard to break , but there is the possibility of making that change and I think that's where the control comes in . Yeah , yeah , once you build the habit , well , now you can be in control of that situation or maybe even prep your body for it .
Yeah , because you know you're going to walk into a big stressful situation a test , an exam , a practical family stressors that you know you're walking into . Whatever it might be your work , you can do that practice .
Yeah , and that's exactly what nervous system hygiene is about . Like , what's the point ? The point is , none of those things are going away , right , none of the life stresses , like there's no such thing as a stress-free life . There's a lot of it . And so how can ? What can I do to help myself through this ? What is it that I have control over ?
And that is how I manage myself through that , absolutely .
I think , being also an academia for a time and working with students and seeing the level of stressors that are placed on a daily basis and just watching that sympathetic drive sort of take over , this is where I truly feel like this needs to be accessible to students , to employees , because you're exactly right , the stress around us and our life isn't changing .
The only thing that we can control , typically , is our response to it . Yeah , and we can only do that if we're preparing in advance .
Yeah , and I think about care providers and how I recently took a trauma-informed care class provided by the institution that I work for , and I was really shocked at how many care providers did not have a foundational understanding of what stress does to you .
And so , again , it needs to be common knowledge , it needs to be accessible and within those professions and we've had these conversations there is a benefit to being able to compartmentalize your feelings for a moment and deal with whatever the situation is with your patient or person that you're providing care for , especially in urgent or immediate care settings .
¶ Building Resilience Through Nervous System Hygiene
And because we compartmentalize that , it doesn't go away . So then we have to know how to care for ourselves after that . Yes , and looking at , especially like because I work in a research institution , I work in a school , there's a university attached and looking at the students , the residents , but like the what ?
was I saying .
All of the people that I see in my days . It is a lot . It is a lot to be on , it is a lot to navigate , and if you're gonna make it out the other side , you have to know how to do as much for yourself as you can .
Right , I agree , I think , and it also catches up to you too , right , like you do these things , you do these like before , you're doing this practice and you're just living life . You're dealing with the stressors , whatever's coming at you , you're doing all the things and then there might be that moment that something changes .
So , instead of waiting for that moment to happen , to make a change , making it part of practice , I think , it's so important .
I think it's super hard . I think you know , if we because so many of us do need that pivotal moment where something has to change before we are willing to address it , because change takes energy and it takes effort and it's hard and you're exhausted anyways it's difficult .
And if we are addressing it as a daily practice , as something that we are implementing , so we don't get to that burnout point , so that we don't get to a point where our health is telling us like you have to change , because this is not sustainable in so many different ways that a lot of us have experienced . And that's cool too .
You get there and then you realize you don't have to continue that way . But prevention is always better than we have something after the fact and for whatever reason , it still isn't sexy . It's not sexy , it's amazing , it's amazing .
I think we want . I mean , we live in a .
We live in a very strange but we have to get there first and we have to get there first we want . I mean we live in a very strange culture . I mean , in my opinion we glamorize these like fast fixes and the challenges and the whatever overnight successes and all the things that don't show the process of how this happened .
Absolutely .
And like again , when we're talking about just like how we work as humans . It's just not how we work . There's no overnight solution . There's no big sexy magic fix . That big sexy magic fix is you showing up to practice these things and change the patterns that you have in your brain and your body .
And it doesn't have to be like a rigid like every day , all the like , but with consistency , because that is the only way that that happens .
Absolutely . I think that compounded effect is so important to just kind of hammer home because it works on both sides of the coin right . I'm just thinking about my students , like the things I've seen them experience going from like an exam into a hands-on practical and not having a second to deal with that change .
Or being in the hospital setting and someone has a single episode or a code and you're just expected to return to work . Or like law enforcement If there , like if something happens , that you just continue on with your day without ever dealing with what's happening around you , that compounded stress over time just takes over .
But if we can educate and have a tool to teach our students to do before their test , after their test , in the hospital setting , taking those moments , whatever it might be , then maybe that pre-prevention can become sexy , or maybe it's so we'll take , you know , the episode to tip you over the edge to get there .
And you know , that's what I definitely . That prevention was not anywhere in my head . I was like , but how do I just get rid of this ? And then I forgot about it and then life events created a space where I could not ignore it and that was the only way it was addressed .
And I think there's a lot of layers in what you just said in regards to how we do or don't address these things , because we're expected just to , yeah , just continue on , toughen up , just to you know , put yourself aside . And there's a long you know narrative and story behind all of that .
And again , those perspectives are not informed by scientifically sound or like reality-based facts about how we work as humans , about how our physiology works , about how our nervous system and how our brain work , because you cannot rev your engine all day long without eventually it blowing up . That's just what it is .
Absolutely Okay . Just to start wrapping up , I wanna take you back to 20-year-old JPB . Walks into the doctor's office asking for advice , looking for change . If you can go back to that person , go back to that time . What would you tell you in that moment ? Sorry , that's probably a huge answer no , that's not it . Specifically to how I'm feeling .
I think Number one there's nothing wrong with you . Your body and your systems are reacting appropriately to whatever your current environment and experiences are , and you can interact with that . You can build a relationship with your physiology .
You can learn to reduce a little bit of the stress with these breathing techniques , with learning to pay attention to yourself rather than ignoring yourself and the signals that your body is trying to give you , asking for help . I think that there's nothing wrong with you and you have more agency than you know .
I love that . Okay , JPB , how can we work with you ? How can we have more information on nervous system hygiene ? What do you have to offer ? How can we get in contact with you ? Tell me the things .
I am active on Instagram at JPBbrainbodyresilience and you can find me there . I also host a podcast , brain Body Resilience , and I do offer one-on-one client offerings . A couple of different ones .
One's more immediate , short-term , just to kind of learn some tools , and the other one is a longer , kind of deep dive into what currently exists and how can we navigate better in the future , and something that I , outside of one-on-one offerings , I can come talk to your people . I love hosting workshops and I was gonna say lectures , but they're not .
They're interactive for- .
Physically doing , breathing and all that good stuff .
Breathing and some kind of like Vegas nerve interventions through movement and some nervous system hygiene , just using our sensory systems , what that looks like . And then , along with the like , why , why are we doing this ? What is the benefit of this ? And I love giving talks , so that's also a thing .
Love that . Anything else you wanna add before we wrap up ?
I forgot completely about my website , which is also just Brain Body Resilience . See you in the sometime . Love it . I think I will just say yeah , stress doesn't go away .
You have more agency than you know , and your breath is the starting point for that , and just paying attention to what it's like , paying attention to what it is , can make a huge difference .
I love that . I totally love that
¶ The Power of Breath Control
. Jpb , thank you so much for coming here . Thank you for talking about breath control and the power and all the things that we can do to sort of help regulate us in the world that we live in .
Thank , you , Ari . Thank you for having me .
You are very welcome . It has been a pleasure . Okay , I hope that was helpful for you .
I know this is in common knowledge and even though we hear quite often that it's so important to breathe and to take a deep breath when we're in stressful situations , it's way more than that and it has to become part of our daily practice in some way , shape or form to prepare our bodies for those stressful moments . So I hope this was helpful for you .
I hope that we are able to help other students , other PTs and just people deal with the stressors that we're dealing with , because , at the end of the day , we're all human and we're all navigating this world together and our autonomic nervous system can sometimes take the lead .
So if you have any questions , please reach out to me at all things Cardiopalm on Instagram or Gmail . All things Cardiopalm at gmailcom . If you're interested in working with JPV , I'm gonna put her contact info in the show notes and reach out to her directly , because she's a wonderful resource and I think she can do great things in this world .
All right , I hope you all have a wonderful day . Whatever you have to do , get after it . Then I know there's a capture of you .