Stress and the Nervous System - Part 2
So in the previous blog instalment you’ve read all about the sympathetic nervous system (“fight or flight’) dominating life. Now you’re asking what do you need to do to trick your brain into allowing the parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest”) to have it’s turn dominating?
Let’s talk posture first as this is often the easiest and cheapest (it’s fee) to correct. When sitting or standing you need to imagine you’re dropping your shoulder blades into your back pockets. This automatically straightens our spine and puts our head on top of our shoulders where it’s meant to be! A warning…. Initially you may feel like the muscles below your shoulder blades start to ache and get tired quickly, you might even experience delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). This is because they’re not used to being used. Th more you practice this upright posture, the stronger they’ll get and it will become second nature. Soon enough you won’t even have to think about good posture because you’ll automatically be doing it!
When using your mobile phone don’t have it down at your waist level, hold the phone up in front of your face. Yes your arm will get sore but it, like the muscles below your shoulder blades, will build up strength over time. This upright posture mat stop the brain activating the “fight or flight” response from body cues because our shoulders are no longer rounded and our heads to far forward (think of the defensive or ready to run posture).
If you use a laptop or tablet for work try using a stand, or get a keyboard/mouse combo so you can have your eyes level with the top of the screen. if you’re using your laptop / tablet for leisure a great option is to lean back in a seat or on the couch and relax. Use pillows under you to support your posture and on your lap to prop up your device so you’re looking level at it rather than down at it (this is also good for long gaming or social media sessions on a mobile).
Let’s talk stretching!! You want to stretch and open up the chest area, as this is all cramped for space when we have rounded shoulders. Your pecs can be stretched in a doorframe or a really good passive stretch is to lie on a beach towel rolled up lengthways (line the towel along your spine with the back of your head also resting on the towel) and let gravity do the work. We also need to stretch the back of the legs, especially if you are seated for long periods of time. You can stretch your gluts, hamstrings and calves by lying on the floor near a wall and placing your heel on the wall, then with a straight knee stretch as far as you can.
In a perfect world we would be able to watch the sun go down, have the lovely red light (which is long, slow, low frequency wave length) calm our brain, then head in doors to bed for a blissful 10hrs or so sleep till the sun came up and with it’s bright light (a short, quick, higher frequency wave length) to stimulate our brains for the day. Unfortunately there is a reality and we are often bombarded with blue light (another short, quick, higher frequency wave length) from computers, mobiles, TV’s and even fluorescent lighting for hours after the sun has set which can leave us over stimulated, irritable and unable to sleep.
There are some amazing apps available which change your device to emit a red light once the sun goes down so you are not constantly stimulating your brain with short, quick, high frequency wave lengths when it’s dark outside. These are also great if you are finding yourself sensitive to light especially once the sun has gone down! If you are an Apple person there is http://justgetflux.com (unfortunately not currently available for iPads….Boo hoo) and for Android it’s http://twilight.urbandroid.org
Lastly….. trying to take time out of your busy schedule to calm your mind and breathe is important. There are meditation apps like Smiling mind http://www.smilingmind.com.au (my personal fave) which allows you to set a timer to do short (or longer) mindfulness exercises/meditations at what ever time suits you. There is also http://www.calm.com.au which uses active meditation techniques and guided imagery (CALM found Sandy MacGregor, a retired Colonel, has a tragic yet amazing story of how he discovered then further embraced meditation).
So hopefully now your brain is thinking….. Meh what tiger?