Focus:
Releasing.
Repetition:
I am enough just as I am.
I do not need to be useful, I am a being that is worthy of all love and all good things in this moment.
I am human, I have limitations for my own good and I am not in control.
I release all things.
B3 and Morning Routines
You can add in a non-flush B3 at this time, niacinimide. Begin with 50 to 100 mg and increase up to 500 mg or 1,000 more, depending on your needs. You can supplement for 3 to 6 months and taper off slowly. If you have experienced schizophrenia or addiction/alcoholism, you may find 3,000 mg helpful and can stay there long term.
Add in the Donna Eden Five Minute Energy Routine.
Donna Eden — Five Minute Energy Routine
Or Tim Matz morning routine.
Or Jules Horn morning routine.
The Nervous System
The brain, brain stem and spinal cord make up our Central Nervous System (CNS) which is basically the information highway of our bodies. Our bodies can send and receive information via this amazing system. It is half of our nervous system, with the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) being the other half.
The PNS sends information to our CNS to have the information sorted out, understood and actions decided upon. The information is then sent back to the PNS which is 12 pairs of cranial nerves and spinal nerves. Information going into the CNS is sensory, and information coming from the CNS is motor.
Motor and sensory information can be divided into two categories; somatic which is having to do with the body and all sensory information coming from the body. The other category is visceral which is to do with organs, so all sensory information coming from the organs.
Organs and Systems
Here is a list of major organs and the systems they belong to.
- Respiratory System — lungs, trachea, bronchi, pharynx, larynx, and nose.
- Digestive System — Stomach, Small Intestine, Large Intestine, Oesophagus, Liver, Pancreas, Gallbladder, Rectum, and Anus.
- Cardiovascular System — heart and blood vessels.
- Urinary System — kidneys, bladder, ureters, and urethra.
- Endocrine System — Pancreas, Thyroid, Adrenal Glands, Ovaries (female), and Testes (male).
The sort of information conveyed by the PNS concerning the organs could include pressure, pain, burden, etc. and will travel through the visceral component. The somatic component will send information from the rest of the body, muscles, glands, chemicals, hormones, etc.
“Sensory” is indicative of the somatic and visceral information going into the CNS from the body. “Motor” implies movement and is indicative of information coming out of the CNS into the PNS and the rest of the body.
Skeletal, Smooth and Cardiac Muscle
Within the motor and somatic aspect of the communication system, we find information concerning skeletal, smooth and cardiac muscles. Skeletal muscle is the muscle we use when we decide to do something, so I am using skeletal muscle to type this article, which falls into the somatic division of the motor aspect of the CNS. The visceral component is smooth and cardiac muscle plus our glands.
Smooth muscle lines our hollow organs like our intestines, blood vessels, reproductive tract, urinary tract and we do not control this type of muscle. Cardiac muscle is also not controlled by us purposefully, nor are glands that release chemicals or hormones.
Autonomic Nervous System
The smooth and cardiac act automatically which leads us to our autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is the visceral aspect of the motor division of the PNS. The ANS is broken into two subclasses — the sympathetic and the parasympathetic — and we now know they control our smooth and cardiac muscle. The sympathetic is activated in times of fight, flight, freeze, fawn or protect and tells our smooth and cardiac muscles what to do. The parasympathetic is activated in times of rest (which is regenerative) and digest which tells our smooth and cardiac muscles what to do.
Consider for a moment the impact of what we have just learned. The body can ONLY heal when it is in a parasympathetic state. Most modern humans are stuck in sympathetic state. This means we are stuck in a state in which our heart rate is not regular and steady, our HRV (heart rate variability) tends to drop, our cardiac muscle is activated in a way to prepare us to literally fight a lion or a soldier at war. Also, our smooth muscle is not activated so digestion is not either, our hollow organs are not functioning properly, our hormones cannot produce properly and our nutrients are not absorbed.
This is a very abridged version of how our nervous system is a huge part of our healing journey. We can eat all the right foods and take a million supplements but if we are not attending to our nervous system we cannot assimilate all the beautiful healing nutrients. This is where our lifestyle modalities come into play!
Our Ancient Nervous System
Our ANS is considered to be the most ancient and primal parts of us, so think of the first man and woman and their environment. Our ANS protected our ancestors from true danger by switching their bodies into a state in which they could potentially fight off a lion, protect their village from attack, lift a fallen tree off their child, etc. Sympathetic state is not our enemy, it is there to help us when we need it.
The reason we are having so many issues in our modern world if we are living in modern conditions is that our ANS reads the very lives we live as threatening, 70% of our nervous system lies in the gut which is quite compromised in the modern human and until recently, we just did not understand how to attend to our ANS. It is since the industrial revolution that nervous system disorders have become so prevalent.
Speaking Safety to the ANS
What can we do to communicate with our ANS? If you are following this protocol, you are learning how! Our ANS does not speak in words, it speaks in emotions. We must learn to teach the ANS we are safe.
To the ANS, being indoors means we are at war, scrolling means we are hunting, modern lighting means it is solar noon all the time and we should be producing cortisol, blood sugar swings from modern sugar, seed oils and ultra processed foods communicate life or death warnings and being isolated from community with lack of eye contact, support, touch, singing, laughter, fun and movement all convey danger to our ANS.
Those are but a few issues that keep us in sympathetic state, not to mention trauma that the modern human cannot withstand due to compromised health and the amount inflicted also due to compromised health. Not only do we experience all these stressors, we store them in our physical bodies.
How the Protocol Supports the ANS
Parts of this protocol are multifaceted but we will now discuss some of the aspects and how we are using them to heal our ANS, which we now can understand is a very big piece of the puzzle that is potentially missing in our healing journeys.
The meat stock heals and seals the gut, restoring our smooth muscle which not only allows the body to digest nutrients but also seals the leaky gut. When our food is leaking into our blood stream, our body no longer recognises those particles as food but as toxicants and “goes to war” with them, this is where food allergies and a lot of inflammation comes from.
Being in the sunshine and outside is the only way our bodies know what time it is, that we are not hiding from danger or sick. Remember the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) from prior articles, it is our body clock and it is a part of our nervous system, telling the body when to make the proper hormones for all necessary bodily functions. If we are indoors all the time, never see the morning sun and are getting blue light in our eyes, the SCN cannot tell our body what time it truly is and our glands are producing the wrong hormones at the wrong time which are smooth muscle functions that also impact our cardiac muscle function.
Removing seed oils, ultra-processed food and modern sugar protects us from blood sugar spikes. Learning about which whole foods are inflammatory, need special preparation, we need a vacation from and which are not actually meant for human consumption protect our gut lining, our blood vessels, our organs and more from accumulation and damage. The morning routine, eating at the same exact times daily, sleep hygiene, somatic and limbic work, movement, community, laughter, mindset, gentle consistency and detox all teach our ANS we are safe.
Every part of this protocol comes from very wise and experienced practitioners who have used a combination of scientific studies and anecdotal experience that add up to millions of people who have reversed their illnesses. We want to attend to our microbiome and our nervous system here so we can love and support our bodies with everything they could possibly need.
Noticing Sympathetic Dominance
Begin to notice what it feels like to be in sympathetic dominance. Look for signs of anxiety, urgency, being disconnected from your body or your task at hand, being clumsy, being attracted to entertainment that is “dark” in nature like crime dramas, forgetfulness, desire to isolate, irritation, etc.
Some additional things you can implement to support your nervous system:
- Do tasks with your non-dominant hand once a day.
- Do at least one task in slow motion.
- Do not hurry and if you find yourself hurrying, do a 5 minute body scan lying flat on the floor or ground.
- Practise left nostril breathing for 2 minutes.
- Breathe for 8 seconds in through the nose and 8 seconds out through the mouth for 2 minutes.
- Return to 5.5 breathing throughout the day.
- Ground outside.
- Practise the art of noticing: take 5 to 10 minutes to look at the clouds, a flower, a lovely picture in a book, a small patch of your yard, a leaf, etc.
- Sing.
- Dance.
- Sway from side to side.
- Do EFT tapping for 20 minutes, The Tapping Solution on YouTube is an excellent resource.
Remove things that create a sense of hurry and if you are unsure about which activities these might be, monitor yourself before and after an activity. For example in this journey, we often want to get rid of our symptoms and research the next thing to implement, we feel a sense of urgency to stop all the discomfort. What our nervous system needs is for us to feel confident in what we are doing, KNOW that we will heal and stick to the steps we are taking. We should learn to be present with discomfort and know that a regulated nervous system gives us a sense of calm, slowness, neutrality and contentment.
A great exercise to try for a week would be to track your emotional state, your heart rate, breathing and what thoughts you were having 5 to 10 times per day. This exercise will be a great indicator of whether or not you are in a rest and digest state or not.
You are doing a beautiful job!! Keep going!