By Renée R Fletcher
What are you doing for self-care outside of the Nourish treatment rooms? Would you like to learn practices to maintain Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual health in between appointments?
Vagus Nerve
Many self-care techniques involve accessing the Vagus Nerve. This nerve, the 12th cranial nerve, is the longest nerve in the body. It is also called the “wandering nerve” as it wanders from the base of the brain to the large intestine. As it wanders it innervates (affects) many body parts and organs in between. The body parts and organs include muscles of the neck, heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidney, stomach, small intestine and large intestine. When the Vagus nerve is accessed we are able to turn OFF Fight or Flight and turn ON Rest and Digest. As we learn self-care techniques we learn to take control of our ability to self-regulate, to choose Rest and Digest. We teach ourselves to become Resilient to whatever life throws our way. In 2020 we learned just how much that can be!
We can access the Vagus nerve with diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing involves breathing deeply enough so that the abdomen and lower rib cages expands during inhalation. During exhalation the belly softens, slightly contracts, and the rib cage goes back to neutral. We can also access the Vagus nerve by humming, singing, and gargling! Diaphragmatic breathing, one of the steps taught during Focused Awareness Meditation (FAM), FAM is a five step process for establishing a meditation practice and is taught at Nourish Healing Collective.
Energy Work
There are also self-care practices for our energy bodies. Self Chakra Connection as well as Mind Clearing are two such techniques. Self Chakra
Connection helps us keep our energy powerhouses functioning optimally, Mind Clearing is helpful for optimal decision making as well as for clearing a headache. They are taught during a Healing Touch and/or Ortho-bionomy session.https://discover.healingtouchprogram.com/htp-home
Other practices that may be beneficial to learn are Emotional Freedom Techniques, https://www.energypsych.org/, also known as tapping, and HeartMath https://www.heartmath.org. Both are taught at Nourish Healing Collective
We are honored to take care of you at Nourish Healing Collective.
Renée R Fletcher MSN, RN
