I'm working with this person who has maybe lost touch with their internal sensing ability within self, which is called interoception, that is not there for them to mind and to tend and to be able to drop out of that so they they're kind of perpetually in this, and it becomes a tax on the system. Hello everyone, thank you for listening. Today. We have an exciting podcast planned for you with a wonderful guest. Susan McLaughlin is here. Thank you so much for coming. Oh, thank you. I'm excited. I am so excited to talk about this. I think this topic is going to be fascinating for a lot of people. So thank you for bringing it up, and thank you for being willing to educate us about it. We are talking about the nervous system today, and specifically with how our nervous system interacts with our muscles and our bodies. And this can sound a little sciency, but we are going to break it down, and it's going to be really fascinating for people. So hang in there with us. Susan, first, will you tell us a little bit about what you do? What is your day job? Sure. So I am a physical therapist that specializes in pelvic health, and a lot of times when I say that, I kind of get the deer in the headlights look like, what's pelvic health? And basically, who I work with is men and women who have issues with maybe leaking urine, who are having pain of any kind in the pelvic area, who are having maybe digestive issues, even reproductive issues, maybe endometriosis,
also working with people who are maybe having discomfort during pregnancy and then in the postpartum time period, being able to work with health and integrity of healing the pelvic floor in the abdominal wall. And I have to say, that's really quite a big, big area of focus that I specialize in is working with the pregnant body and postpartum body. Oh, it's so complicated. It's very involved. You know, we were talking about this earlier, that that pelvis sits right in the middle of everything. So it's what's holding together our legs and our upper body, and if those things are out of alignment, that it all is reflected in the pelvis. So as an OB GYN, we love our pelvic floor physical therapists, because they're so essential. Yes, yes. So if you have had a baby and you're having any pain or you're leaking urine, I think the message is briefly, it's not completely normal. You should see a pelvic floor. That's exactly right. Well, wonderful. Well, I had kind of envisioned talking about pelvic floor physical therapy, but when Susan and I were having a conversation, we started getting into the nervous system a little bit more, and so we're going to diverge a little bit and focus more on our nervous system and how it integrates with the pelvic floor and the pelvis and the muscles there. So break it down for us to start with. When we say nervous system, what? What does that mean? Well, I think most people have an understanding that we have a brain and we have a spinal cord, and then we have the nerves, and they're going out to the body. So that's called the peripheral nervous system, where the where the brain and the spinal cord, is called our central nervous system. And then we also have a part of the peripheral nervous system that is going to our smooth muscle and going to our organs. This part is called the autonomic nervous system. And I think it's really serves to become acquainted with the autonomic nervous system, because just as its name applies, which is autonomic, automatic, this is the part of our engine, so to speak, that we're not really even thinking about, right? We eat a meal and we digest our food. We are hungry, so we eat. We are tired, so we go to sleep. So it's these basic metabolic functions that we're not really thinking about, our heart rate, our blood pressure, how and when we breathe. But also, you know, for me, I really like to share that this is also, you know, our metabolism, you know, it's kind of that the beginning of metabolism and our hormone regulation and immune function, and being able to have an understanding of it. It's like, Yeah, that's great. I get it. But really, like it's so so subtle and intricate in a way that it's really nice to kind of break it down. And I do like to spend when I'm working with people, I do like to give some of this information, because I think it really helps people
understand the why.
When some of the work that I'm going to be doing with them is actually really subtle, and I think if without that foundation, some of it doesn't make sense, like, why are you doing that? Aren't you supposed to be just helping my pain? Yeah, and, and, you know, for a lot of people, you know, they'll, they'll come up from this session and they'll say, Well, that's not what I expected at all, you know, I thought I would just get a bunch of strengthening exercises, some stretching, and I'm walking out of here feeling very centered and very calm for my system to be in that healing mode that's so wonderful, the way that I explained it to my patients, and they've probably heard it over and over, because I talk about it all day, every day. But is this idea of, if we're a cave woman, right? We go way back in time. We're very simple. Our job is to stay alive, and we live in a threatened environment, right? And so the job of our nervous system is to take in information, like you said, your brain, and to have an output from that. So it takes an information and it makes a judgment call. And if you are a cave woman, then mostly what you're doing is looking for predators, right? You're looking for saber tooth tigers. And so we are constantly looking for fear, threat, risks to our safety. If there's a saber tooth tiger back there, we trigger one half of our autonomic nervous system, which is that sympathetic branch, that fight or flight is maybe what people are more familiar with, and that fight or flight kicks into gear to keep us alive. That's its main job. So it starts breaking down glycogen into glucose. It gives us it gives us calories, it gives us sugar so we can run it speeds up our heart rate. It dilates our blood vessels so we can get more blood going to our muscles. And it slows down digestion, because no one cares about digestion. When you're trying to run from a tiger, it turns off, essentially our female hormones, because no one cares about having a baby if there's a saber toothed Tiger back there. So that is our sympathetic branch. Now our parasympathetic branch is the opposite of that. That's our rest and digest. So when we feel safe, then our parasympathetic branch comes in and digestion turns back on. Our female hormones get balanced, we can store we can start metabolizing differently, because we don't need immediate sugar to sprint, right? So it's all about safety and and our perception of safety and so when, when we're when we're cave women, that is what's supposed to happen. We are looking for saber tooth tigers. And if we live in an in a space surrounded by saber tooth tigers, then we are constantly going to be in that sympathetic mode. Now, speaking more to women today, if we live in a state of chronic stress, our body isn't very good at differentiating between saber tooth tiger and I forgot my cookies for the my class birthday celebration. That's right, that's right. So our sympathetic activators are, you know, our alerts on the phones, our to do lists, and, you know, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, work family, it's all very activating. And the, you know, the sympathetic nervous system, I think having this polarity, I kind of, as I've started learning more about the autonomic nervous system and kind of that balance of homeostasis, I like to be looking at it kind of like dials, rather than a balancing act, because we're going through, you know, getting out of bed so we have sympathetic is also, it's mobilize and also fight flight, right? So it's not all bad, right? Exactly. It's, it's getting us, you know, it's getting us to the gym, it's getting us to get up and be prepared for the day, so it's allowing us to play and to have fun. And I think the thing that you were, you know, you're saying about the sympathetic nervous system is, you know, it's, it's kind of prepping us to move or to fight. And so what that means is we're getting those muscles. We're prepping those muscles to tense. So what that means is the muscles are ready to move. So the muscles become in this, potentially in a chronic holding state of, I am ready, almost. It's like I'm at rest talking to you, but my body could be completely in more of a hyper vigilance. I think the tricky thing that happens is, as we go through our day and we're maybe deferring some of these internal signals that really kind of are maybe telling us to slow down. We are not feeling them. We're not hearing them, because we're we're continuing to go on the mobilize right. And so a lot of times, like for me, I work a lot with pain, so So I'm, I'm working with this person who has maybe lost.
Touch with their internal sensing ability within self, which is called interoception, that is not there for them to to mind and to tend and to be able to drop out of that. So they they're kind of perpetually in this, and it becomes a tax on the system. And it's not, it's not a flaw, per se. I mean, our bodies, I think the important thing is that our bodies are doing what they're supposed to do. They are taking in information and they are preparing a response, and they are taking in a threat or a risk, and they're getting ready to run. But our bodies, our autonomic nervous system, is very primitive. It's very much based on stay alive, Saber toothed tire, right? If I feel a threat, then I'm going to be ready to run and still today, those responses are good. If I'm walking through a dark parking lot and a guy in a hoodie, you know, starts approaching me, I want to have my pupils dilate. I want to be hyper alert. I want my respiratory rate to speed up so I have oxygen to my muscles so I can run. Our bodies are intricately programmed to keep us safe and to keep us alive. So that threatening guy, I want all those things to happen. I forgot to, you know, wash my daughter's ballerina costume, not quite the same response. But our bodies aren't very good at interpreting those. Our brains aren't very good at separating life threatening, threat versus stress, right? So when we're when we're taking this into now, the women that you're seeing or men and taking care of, what are some of the ways that you see this manifesting in the actual physical body, well, so pain is, is a manifestation, but what I feel in the in the musculature is a higher tone or hardness, you know, I think, you know, I just now, I just touched my upper traps right because these, these areas for me, are kind of in that go state, right? So what happens is there's just more more holding. There's not as fluid movement and the connective tissue that wraps around our muscles called fascia. It's wrapping around our organs and our bone and our nerves. We want to be able to have this, this, you know, watery fluid structure that's supporting our system. And a lot of times, what's happening is it's, it's maybe just kind of stuck or held, or adhesed is a term that we use a lot and so it can, you know, if you have a little bunch, you know, a lot of times I'll go to my shirt and I'll bunch it up, and I'll say, you know, I may have some holding here, but you can see in the fabric of me bunching my shirt that,
you know, I may be Having some shoulder pain, and I go get my massage, and it feels good for an hour, whatever, but then it comes back. It's because we haven't addressed maybe that holding pattern. What I'm really interested in is, how can we even shift the state of the autonomic nervous system to really bring in more of this restore for the healing to happen. So more of that fluid, fluid nature, back from the movement, but also being able to come into more of this resting state. And I think that is so important, because if we're seeing physical effects like our our traps are all tense and tight, which is also where mine gets, but also in the pelvic floor. If we're just looking at those muscles and saying, Oh, you're having pain because your muscles are tense, I can rub out that muscle. I can help that muscle relax. But what caused it to get tense to begin with, you know, sometimes it's because we did a different workout, right? And, you know, our muscles are sore because we work them out differently. Okay, well, then a massage might help, because you've got to the problem. But for these states of chronic pain and chronic tensing, it seems like if you just keep rubbing it out and rubbing it out, it's not really getting to the root problem. So it's just going to keep coming back. Is that right? That's right. So one example that I've seen and chime in here is actually with pain related to sex. So when I have a patient who comes to me and says, I'm having a lot of pain with sex, one of the exams we do is to put our fingers right inside the vaginal opening, and you feel some of those muscles of the pelvic floor get super tense and they're very tender. And can you explain a little bit why those muscles get tender and how that relates to sort of what we're talking about? Sure,
maybe with that, I'd like to backtrack a little bit, because when we're talking about the sympathetic response and the parasympathetic response.
So, you know, we have the these spinal segments that are innervated and and in the nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the kind of that that oppositional where we're moving into that Rest Digest. But also, you know, thinking about that, that nervous system as like a break almost. So we can kind of have our foot on the brake a little bit, which is, which is considered like a low tone parasympathetic state, which is allowing us to go into the Rest Digest. But then there's a higher tone of that, that parasympathetic state, where it's like full foots on the pedal, and we kind of go into more of a freeze mode. So you hear the autonomic nervous system as Fight, Flight freeze. So that's where the freeze comes in, is it's and that's a survival mechanism too. It's like we faint, we're in shock, we're numb, we're just kind of out of it, because it's almost like we don't really feel anything as a protection for death, right? And so that the nerve that is carrying some of this autonomic nervous system information is a nerve that is going through the spinal levels, the sacrum, the pudendal nerve, so it's having its activity right there. The state of the nervous system is right there in the pelvic floor. So that's why I wanted to kind of circle back to that, because we're getting this feedback of the state of the system, and it's there's such a central connection right between our pelvic floor, our breathing, right? That's autonomic nervous system I'm talking to you right now. And it's innervated by one of our primary cranial nerves, vagus nerve, and so it's really innervating and having this conversation centrally. So any sort of tension, and this is typically what I see, and you probably see this too in your exam, is that holding of the musculature, intention of the pelvic floor, and also there's some holding maybe, maybe in the jaw, they may be complaining of some jaw pain and even tension in the diaphragm. So maybe this person is coming in with, you know, maybe anxiety. They're having a hard time sleeping. Maybe having, especially right now with with covid, there is more anxiety and just worry. So, yeah, absolutely. And I do think it manifests in these muscles directly. I think going along with that example, it's one of the simplest ways that I see it is people who have pain or who have had traumatic experiences around intimacy, and the way that I explain it to them is that your muscles say, Oh, you trained me that when that sex is painful or stressful or emotionally painful. And so the muscles are saying, You trained me to flex. You trained me to get ready. So anytime sex is approaching, I should flex. And suddenly these muscles are now flexing non stop. You've retrained them to kind of do the opposite of what they're trying to do. So there can be, I guess, my point in that is there can be an emotional response to these muscles. They're responding to input. And if there's a stressful emotional input, then the muscles learn how to respond to that, right? And I think that can happen in other parts of our body if we have stress that are. I don't know what function our traps serve in getting stressed or straining, but I think that does happen if we carry stress, then our body says, Oh, I know what to do when you feel stress. I should, I should tighten these muscles. Is that an is that an okay explanation of kind of why those muscles are can be be in a chronic state of tension. Well, it's, it's that perpetual state of defend, protect, and so a lot of times, what I'm really expressing is, just as you were saying in the beginning of this that you have this sensory input that's going to the brain, and then from the brain, there's a motor output. So what we want to do is we want to provide a different sensory experience to the brain for a different motor output. And for most people, they're like, I get that. Let's, let's do that. Can you give a specific example of that, a patient that you've had that comes in thinking, Oh, I have this pain or this discomfort or this issue that then you you can kind of help reprogram that a little bit. Well, I think the the first thing that I'm really, I really love to have people anchor into is, is the breath.
Because the breath is word we're breathing,
you know, usually automatically, right over 20,000 times a day. So, so when I can can phrase that as a workload, we go to the gym and we do how many reps of this or that? Well, in the day, we're doing over 20,000 reps of a movement where, when it comes to our core, our pelvic floor, our abs, our diaphragm and the muscles that support the rib cage are moving.
But the fact of of the matter is, most of us are restricting and maybe holding our abs for various reasons. We may be unknowingly kind of holding and gripping in the pelvic floor. So we're really not getting that movement, and we're really not even getting good full, full movement into the lungs. It may just be a very superficial up and down, which is actually signaling that, hey, your body is running and off to do something. And so that is actually triggering this sympathetic loop. So I could be at my computer with this breath cycle that's saying I'm running, but I'm here at my computer doing work. So what I really like to do that sensory input or that change, is going to be using the breath as a way to bring in that focus and the movement now, so for a lot of people, when I'm when I'm assessing the pelvic floor and we're doing an internal assessment, I'm really big at Having people notice a before and then notice an after. So just, just a palpation to the musculature, saying, Can you, can you feel this? It's not, doesn't really have much of a give. What's that sensation like for you? We do some round of breathing during the exam, really, you know, kind of cueing to lengthen the muscles on the inhale and the exhale, just to let it let it go, and after maybe five breath cycles, so I can feel when the muscles start to let go, everyone's at a different place. But sometimes, even just with three breath cycles, five breath cycles, will go check, and the person will say, Wow, I'm not really feeling that tension anymore. It's so important because it is our nervous system. It's our nervous system saying it so to simplify it, just like what we said before we take input in, which is, there's a threat, saber tooth tiger, right there, right and so our muscles flex. They get ready to sprint, they get ready to bolt, and we can also then trigger the opposite of that, which is, I'm safe. Everything's okay, and slow breathing is directly what stimulates the vagus nerve to to signal that parasympathetic response so we can physically switch over into our parasympathetic response that says, I'm safe. Everything's okay. My breathing is so slow, there couldn't possibly be a saber tooth tiger there. And as we do that, then physiologically, our nerves can tell our muscles, Oh, it's okay. It's okay to relax. And this is why I think it's so important to have different types of body movement. I think this is this can be a perceived stress, like pain with sex, right? So I'm going to have sex, and I know it hurt last time, so I should flex those muscles. It can be with another stressful situation, like I'm going to give a public talk somewhere. I'm going to give a speech, and so my upper, you know, musculature flexes, but it can also be in it can also perceive stresses differently, like an aggressive exercise. So for people who are doing CrossFit or orange theory, 567, days a week, if they're never switching over into that restorative mode, then those muscles just learn correct me if I'm wrong, those muscles can learn to be tight, and they need an opportunity to say, I'm safe. It's okay for my muscles to lengthen and to relax and to slide on each other. Is that a fair statement? It is. In fact, there's quite a few people that that that come in, and they are, you know, they're, they're, they're using exercise as, you know, a stress reliever, but they're, they're, they're over exercising, and they're not allowing their system to to transition into that restore, and that is something that we're bringing in, that re education. And so, you know, it's, it's something about, you know, we meet in the middle there of of what they're, what they feel like they're, they're able to, really, to bring into the day. So a lot of times, I'm sending people home with very mindful movements, lots of risk.
Positions, bolstered positions that's giving that feedback to the nervous system, that I'm able to drop in and settle and honestly, sometimes that could take up to 20 minutes, sometimes that could take hours. So, you know, being able to have consistency with that can really make a big shift, you know, and that practice of breathing then is so important, but I love that you are actually capable of doing it with that direct feedback. You know, if I feel stressed and I take some deep breaths and I feel like, Oh, that feels better. Like, that's good, but you're actually able to feel with your hands palpate, to actually feel those muscles and to guide them through the breath work and then to actually feel the muscles switch over. That's the best bio bio feedback ever. It's honestly Yes, yes. And so many people have said that that is just really valuable, because when the muscles are maybe, say, in that perpetual holding position, or maybe someone has just totally, you know, numbed out, and they're shut down. They can't feel. They can't feel, you know, if you're in a hyper holding, you can't feel the movement, because it's very limited. And if you're in the kind of the numbed out, shut down, you know, there's a part inside the brain that that's not is is dysregulated, it's not connected, and so, so being able to start to tap into that. It's very empowering. So is that something that you train patients to do when they are having tension in the pelvis or otherwise, and you teach them how to have that response? You know, you do the breathing exercises. You feel the muscles let go. You feel them lengthen. Is that something that they then learn to self regulate? Is, can they then appreciate that themselves? Yes, that's so powerful, because they can take it into any situation and say, oh, here I go. Okay, now I know what this feels like to be in a steady state. I really think that that lack of feedback is probably one of the issues that keeps us in this state of chronic stress, is because we don't feel like we're stressed. And I hear this from patients all the time, like, Well, I'm not really that stressed. Like, what does a daily day look like for you? Well, I have to get up at six and I get my kids ready, and then I do this, and then I do this, and and suddenly I'm overwhelmed just listening to their day and they feel like they're not stress causing stress to their psyche and their body. And so get being able to learn that feedback of what stress feels like to me, and then physically saying, like, Oh, I feel it. I need to let that go. That is huge. And usually I give an example of, like, you know, when you go into a bakery and it just smells so good, like cinnamon rolls or something, right?
But you're in there for five minutes and you don't smell that yumminess that you smelled when you first came in, because your nervous system knows that you have stuff to do, and so you know it's going to accommodate. It's you're not going to you're not going to feel that if you're bombarded by that all the time. It takes up too much energy, and that's the same with stress. So we we learn. We teach ourselves, we learn how not to to feel and have that sensing and the inside. So part of the practice to be able to sense inside and to sense outside can be very powerful, because when our nervous system is wound up, or our brain is has now, you know, there are certain areas of the brain that usually they get dysregulated, and so to be able to have present moment experience is very powerful. Because you know that that base of our brain, the brain stem, which is under autonomic nervous system control, it doesn't have a timeline. It doesn't have words. So it's, it's, it needs to have an orientation
of present moment experience, and that's a way to bring in regulation. So one of the things that I've been suggesting to people is to just with covid, we're a little more aware of hand washing, yeah, and so I will say, Let your hand wash after toileting be acute. You're already doing it anyway. Yeah, we're usually on to whatever we're going to be doing next. So use that as a time to take a little inventory, do a body scan. Am I holding tension? Let it go, and then follow it with the breath. That's That's optimizing the movement of the pelvic floor, the ABS and the diaphragm. And for some people who have, you know, they're busy moms, I've had people who that's all they did, and they really just focused on their mindfulness and their movements. And they came back and they said, my my anxiety levels and my pain level.
Cells are less, you know, 50% better, if not more. And in me, that's, that's huge, because what we're doing is we're changing that. They are changing that sensory input that is so cool. I just love that so much. I think it's so life changingly powerful. I think I have, I have brought into my practice of this mantra related to this, related to tigers, of there is no tiger. I'm safe. I'm okay. And that's sort of my mantra that I've that, that I've used with patients. But it's so interesting, because I literally feel a physical response every time I say it to someone. And I talk to patients all day, and I say, you know, like, this is the mantra I use. Feel free to use it or something else. But some point in the day, you have to be able to give your body a break to say, switch over into parasympathetic, because otherwise my body is I've trained it now, because I've been stressed for years, I've trained it to stay stressed, alert, wound up. And so by bringing this practice in, I can just many times during the day say I'm safe, it's okay body. You don't need to be looking for harm right now, because I know that I'm safe, and I can feel it right now. I feel this physiologic response go through my body. But it's so fascinating talking to you, because you've actually seen hands on, like, had that feedback, and I have trained myself to do it anytime I push the elevator button. Oh, love that, because my office is on the fourth floor and delivery is on the first floor, and so every time I push the elevator, you know, you have to wait for a couple seconds, and it's triggered now to be like, Okay,
I'm safe, and I feel my I feel my shoulders lower. I feel my breath get lower and deeper into the diaphragm. I feel my belly get, you know, swell with the breath, instead of feeling that, like you talked about earlier, just that rising shoulder breath. And it's been really powerful for me. But I kind of made it up. I didn't really know that there's a physiologic you know, that those muscles that you can actually feel that. So I love that, and I love the hand washing even more, because most people aren't pushing elevator buttons all day. And I love that. But I do think we need some cue to remind ourselves until this becomes more fit, you know, until we strengthen this, this other tone, this parasympathetic tone, to have that cue to say, I'm washing my hands. Oh, I'm safe. I can, I can do that body scan. So how well? Two questions. One is, do people tend to have one place that they sort of do this? Is it? Is it do some people stay more in the shoulders or the back, and some people more in the pelvis? Or does it change based on experience? Or is there any sort of uniqueness or or anything that's unique to a person? Or is, can it be anything, anytime? That's a good question. I think what I see, I see some common patterns, and that is lower back pain, hip pain, pelvic pain. I'm kind of all lumping that together, and also having some neck and jaw connection.
So so maybe the maybe the person is coming in for pelvic stuff, having that tension in the pelvic floor may not be necessarily having neck issues, but they do mark on the intake that they grind their teeth
or, you know, clench their jaw. And sometimes people notice, notice both. So I think what I also experience when it comes to and I'm doing this, because I see this a lot, is kind of a gripping almost, in the rib cage and diaphragm, and so a lot of times, especially in healing postpartum abdominal wall, is we really want to be looking managing internal pressures. So if there's gripping above and I'm extending and I'm kind of arching my back, all of the pressure is going out into the abdominal wall, or even with pelvic organ prolapse, everything is moving down. And so a lot of you know, we get kind of hyper focused in the Kegel is the answer to the health of the pelvic floor, which is not true. And then we also kind of get that that abdominal work, and the deep abdominal contraction is, is the end all be, all for, for healing, the the trend, the the diastasis, recti, or abdominal separation. And that's not true. So we really want to be looking at all the, all the parts nervous system, really, to me, is, is number one well, then it's so much simpler. I think it can be difficult if we're watching on Instagram or, you know, different sources like that that we see. Okay, don't forget to do this, this, this, this, this, and then suddenly we've got this list of 42 things that we have to do to keep our bodies and minds and soul where they need to be. And it seems very overwhelming, but really so much of it.
Does like if people could just address their nervous system and really make sure they're going through that I'm safe. My muscles can relax. I don't need to run right now. It's okay for me to digest, it's okay for me to heal and think and ponder. I think that would solve so many downstream events. So you don't need to know exactly how to flex your body perfectly, because most of our bodies already know how to do things the right way. We're just giving them input that are telling them to do it differently, right? We're giving them input that says, you know, this is painful if you do it that way. So be sure you flex these other muscles, and you're like, No, no, you don't need those other muscles, like, just do what your body is telling you to do. And so returning to a state of neutrality is really, really the power here. So with that, I wanted to share, because you're speaking of it right now, I wanted to maybe go through an awareness let's do an awareness piece to just kind of bring in what we've talked about Absolutely. So this, this is called orienting, and this is coming from a training that that I took, which is based in Peter Levine's work somatic experiencing. And as you mentioned in the beginning of our conversation today, you know, with the cave woman, it's all about survival. You're scanning the environment. You're scanning inside, like, how am I feeling? And and being able to have that conversation. So basically, that's what this is, is taking some time to bring awareness into your current environment, bringing in as many senses as as possible, so you're getting that sensory feedback, and that allows more of this present moment accuracy to down regulate the nervous system for our health and vitality. So if, if you're if you're sitting in a chair, go ahead and just settle where you feel comfortable. You can be leaning back against the chair, rest or just sitting upright, if that's comfortable for you, or if you're standing or lying down, just bring awareness initially, if you're sitting, to your your sits bones and your thighs supported on the chair. Notice your feet being supported by the floor and standing or sitting. And then if you're lying down
the floor, the bed, supporting your back. So you're sensing that support in your environment.
Start to let your eyes in your head, if you wanted to just roam your environment. So
let yourself be drawn to there might be an object in your room that draws your attention, and as you are drawn to that so you're visually taking that information in notice, a sense in your body, maybe where you took that in. And if you, as you practice this, you will be able to get a sense of that more so as I was just going through this, and I was tracking, I just kind of landed on, honestly, a Kleenex box. And for some reason, I just wanted to pause here, and as I sat with that, I felt just a grounding in my stomach, right? So it's being able to start to just notice that as you're as you as you're drawn to something in your visual field as you're turning,
and then maybe pausing and just noticing the sound like, if you're in a place where there's traffic, what draws your attention, or, you know, I can hear the hum of the lights,
and then as I as I kind of focus into that, I can hear something else, right? And then just coming back to the sense of feeling support on the chair,
and then just bringing in another sense of
bringing in, maybe what's in the air to smell. So if you've been in, say, a home where someone's cooking dinner, and you can smell the garlic, or you can smell the spices coming in really. Let that soak into your system, and you sense then in your body, does that have a response? What you may notice as you move through this, it could be a very slow process where you're going bit by bit by bit, and you're bringing in each.
Each sense,
and just, you know, pausing and just noticing how you're settling in the chair. And let's do that right now. How are you how are you finding your body meeting the chair, if you're sitting, how are your feet on the ground?
And if you're lying on your back, just noticing the weight of yourself in contact with the floor.
And a lot of times when people check back in, what they might notice is maybe more presence or weightedness in their in their body. Did you notice anything I was kind of interjecting? So I kind of, I didn't really give that full flow of maybe in whole orienting experience. But you can even search on on YouTube orienting Peter Levine, and you'll, you'll get different people sharing their their orienting so it's sometimes nice to be able to just have someone not be talking in the background, like I was in the orienting process, to really land into that. But what that does is that brings us into present moment experience. I love that. And I did feel heavier, especially on my sits bones. I felt I didn't recognize that until you just said, did you feel heavier? It's like, oh yeah, I did. That's, that's what it I just noticed them more. But I love that. And I think it's a very simple exercise, and simple enough that people could do it while they're trying to go to sleep at night, or, you know, kind of just checking in and sending that, that awareness to their body. And like I said, the body is pretty smart, like, it wants to go to neutral, right? It wants to let go. I think, yes. And when, when, a lot of times when, I'll say when I'm working with people, I do a lot of support work for the nervous system. So, you know, say I'm at their brain stem and I'm cradling their head, and I just let them know what we're doing. You know, this, this feedback here with my hands is, is support for your your brainstorm to relay this information that you have the time, and this holding here to allow your system to drop in
to regulation. And the nervous system knows what to do, yeah, yeah. It does. It does. It's trying to do it. It just gets confused in the messages that we're giving it. So if we retrain it to say, Oh, actually, this is my message. My message is that I'm safe, then it says, oh, okay, I'll do what I'm supposed to do when you're safe, like I don't need to perceive that as a risk. So I love this all so much, and I could keep talking for another hour, but we better, we better wrap it up, because otherwise we'll just keep talking. Thank you so much for sharing this. I think this has been so helpful for me, and I hope it's been helpful to kind of start to show people how important this idea is of awareness and of our nervous system, and that it really does our nervous system. We didn't get a chance to get into this very much, but our nervous system interacts with all of our other systems, so it's not just a matter. I mean, we do get, we could get decreased anxiety and and depression and things of that nature, which would be amazing and wonderful. But it's all of our systems. You know, it's digestion and it's, it's our reproductive organs and hormones and glucose metabolism which leads to diabetes. And you know, it's all of these different things that if we just start with something as simple as the breath of really reconnecting to our bodies and letting that breath trigger that parasympathetic response. I think I've explained this to some patients and clients before, and a couple times have gotten
I don't think it's that simple, or that seems too like, too hocus pocus for me, but I think we've gotten into the science of it, the physiology of it, a little bit today, and so I hope it really is. I hope people can understand like, this is not just hocus pocus. This is literal physiology, whether physiology, yeah, whether you use it or not, your body is doing it without you. So if you can feed it more of that, that parasympathetic input of I'm safe, the deep breath, the the being aware of where you're holding tension, then it's a place to start. Yes, exactly. Now, if someone feels like I have this tension. I wonder if it could be related. Is that something they should see a physical therapist for Yes, for sure. So we have, you know, in Salt Lake and the surrounding area, wow, pelvic health is really, like, really rocking now. We have so many amazing, amazing pelvic health pts. That's so great that are are here. And, you know, I'm in private practice. I work for myself. So there, there are a few who are in private practice, and then there are people throughout the Valley who are working for some of our major medical.
Systems, they are there, so don't, don't be discouraged. Maybe even just search pelvic health physical therapist and your your town. And hopefully, I'm sure something will come up. And if not, I mean, I'd be welcome to have people contact me, and I could send them our provider list. Yeah, that's so nice of you. Well, Susan, tell us, where do we find you so I can be found. My website is alignforhealth.com
my business name is align integration and movement, and my email is Susan at align for health.com
Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. This has been so wonderful. Yeah,
thanks for listening and come back next time for another episode, and remember this information is for education only and not intended to be medical advice. You.
