- Whether you have a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder, or you're just feeling
stressed and overwhelmed, here's what you need to know
about how to rewire your brain from anxiety. Anxiety is really just
a nervous system state. Under normal circumstances, anxiety is essential to
protect you, to keep you safe, and ensure your survival. But unfortunately, your
body can become frozen in a state of anxiety, even
when you're totally safe. In these instances, your brain
believes you're in danger when you're not. And lots of things can
cause this to happen. It can result from accidents
and injuries, surgeries, physical pain, chronic
stress, emotional shock, not having your needs met or even trauma. The thing is most of us can't
pinpoint the exact cause of our chronic anxiety. And we actually don't need to, because we can reprogram your brain to reduce anxiety through
the magic of neuroplasticity. In this video, I'm going to show you
three vagus nerve exercises that you can use any time to rewire your brain from anxiety. (energizing music) ♪ Aha ♪ - Hey, beautiful humans, I'm Sukie Baxter, founder of Whole Body Revolution, where I help you to rewire yourself for greater health,
happiness, and success. If you're new here, make sure you click that subscribe button and hit the bell to get notified every time I release a new video, and anything that I mention in this video, you can find linked in
the description box below. Let's get into it. Okay, so I'm going to
give you a few exercises that you can use to reprogram
your brain and reduce anxiety. But before we get into that, I want to take a quick
second to talk about what anxiety actually is
and what causes anxiety. Most people that I talk to
believe their anxiety is coming from their thoughts, and most therapies geared
toward anxiety relief focus on changing your thoughts
to reduce anxiety symptoms. Here's the thing. Anxiety is an emotion. And emotions are not thoughts. Even though most of us have
been taught that this is true. Emotions are actually the
subjective interpretations of sensory data sent to the
brain from inside your body. And this is called interoception. Interoception tells your
brain when you're safe and when you're not. And here's a key point. Thoughts do not directly cause emotions. They cause shifts in the
internal state of your body that then change the sensory
data sent to your brain, which in turn shifts your emotional state. However, there are parts of your biology that are so ancient, they predate human language, and they don't respond to
thought-based therapies. This is where anxiety often persists even when you've tried mindfulness
training, affirmations, or other brain-based self-help practices. It's not that these
therapies don't work at all, it's that they can only affect
so much of your biology. I'm gonna tell you what to do
about that in just a second. But first let's talk about
what does anxiety feel like. Most of the time when doctors
describe symptoms of anxiety, they focus on what's
going on in your mind. They talk about anxiety
symptoms such as hypervigilance, an inability to concentrate,
maybe racing thoughts, or a sense of impending doom. However, anxiety produces
physical symptoms as well. In fact, all emotions do. This is how you know what
emotion you're feeling, by how your body feels. Typically, the feeling of
anxiety in your body consists of tightness in your
chest, a racing heart, inability to take a deep
breath, maybe sweating, shaking, trembling, tension in your
feet or lower legs, tight hips, or maybe a clenched jaw. And the posture of anxiety can vary. But I've observed in my clients that often they have a tendency to
lean their weight back to their heels, as though they were pulling
away from something. Many people lift their toes off the ground and clench the muscles of their lower legs as though they were stopping
themselves from running away from a real or perceived threat. It's very common to see anxious
people express tightness around their eyes and
a forward head posture with rigid neck muscles. Clenched fists are
another frequent symptom. If these symptoms are
chronic and habitual, we tend to not notice them. They just become our
default posture, how we are, and how we move through the world. We don't know we're tight
until we try to move in a way that our bodies don't allow. And even then we don't
typically relate muscle tension and poor mobility to chronic and habituated
emotional states like anxiety. We stretch more. We get massages. And when our muscles don't let go, after much physical practice, we give up and we just assume
we're getting old, not true. Muscle tension is dictated
by your nervous system, by your brain. If we've put you under
anesthesia, you'd be so limber that we could tuck your feet
behind your head easily. Doctors would have to be
super careful when moving you so as not to dislocate a joint. But when you wake up again, that tension returns
just as it was before. So if you're wondering, "What
do I do when I feel anxiety?" I'm going to explain that now. Plus walk you through three exercises to reduce anxiety symptoms. Life is full of challenges,
threats, and dangers. To expect that we'll never have to rise up to meet these demands is just unrealistic. And anxiety is a normal part
of your stress response. It tells you when you're
safe and when you're not so that you can mobilize
to protect yourself. But we don't want to get stuck there. And the way to not get stuck in anxiety is by helping your autonomic nervous system to become better at regulating. One of the ways that we can do this is through body-based practices that discharge stress
from your nervous system by sending signals of safety to your brain through the proprioceptive system. So that's what we're gonna do right now. Click like if you're ready to
try some vagus nerve exercises for anxiety relief. Inspiration for these
exercises comes from the book "Accessing the Healing
Power of the Vagus Nerve" by Stanley Rosenberg,
which is a great book if you want to learn more
about polyvagal theory and anxiety. So let's get started. For this first exercise, you can sit in a comfortable position, either on the floor or in a
chair, if that's better for you. And all you're going to do is
simply bring your right hand to the top of your head, and tip your right ear
towards your right shoulder. So you're going to be
side bent to the right. And then what you're gonna do
is just shift your eyes only. So your head's gonna
stay in this position, and your eyes only are going
to go up and towards the left. So they're going to move
towards the left side of your vision. And we're just gonna
hold this for 30 seconds. And just keep your head
in that same position. There's no need to strain. You may notice a sigh
or a swallow or a breath that's a little bit deeper
than your other ones. And go ahead and release that. And now we're just gonna
do exactly the same thing on the other side. So take a quick break if you need to. And then when you're ready, you're gonna bring your left
hand to the top of your head, bring your left ear
towards your left shoulder. Get a little side bend in there, and then move your eyes
upward and towards the right. And we're just gonna hold
this again for 30 seconds. And this is helping us to break up these habitual patterns of tension and to shift out of an activated state when we're a little bit more calm, a little bit more present. And then go ahead and release that. Now if you don't notice
a sigh or a swallow, you can certainly hold that for longer. 30 seconds is the minimum, but you can definitely do a
minute or even longer than that. For the next exercise, we're gonna do a very similar movement, but we're gonna take
it a little bit deeper. So that was really focused
on breaking up any tension in your neck and relaxing
all the neck muscles. We're gonna bring it
down into your rib cage. So your vagus nerve actually
goes, it's a cranial nerve, and it goes down your
neck and into your torso and comes all the way
down into your viscera. So we're gonna do a little bit
of movement in your rib cage to help break up the tension there. So you're going to do a
similar thing with your hands. So right hand to the top of your head, but then you're gonna take your left hand and reach around to put it on your side on your rib cage here. And then what you're gonna do is as you bring your head down, so your right ear goes
towards your right shoulder. You're gonna make that
bend a little bit deeper. So you're gonna bend
through your rib cage. You're using your left hand
to pull your ribs away. So you should feel them
closing underneath your hand and your whole spine
will bend into a C shape. And then we're just gonna do
the same thing with our eyes. You're gonna bring them up into the left. And again, we'll hold this for 30 seconds. Again, don't strain. There's no reason to be an overachiever. So if this is uncomfortable for you, make the movement smaller. And then go ahead and release that. And you may notice your
breathing is a little bit easier. You might feel a little more calm. If you have some emotions come
up, sometimes that'll happen. If you need to take a
break, go ahead and do that. With these exercises,
less is actually more. I really base a lot of my work on a concept called titration, which is a word that comes from chemistry. It's something that chemists
will use to mix two substances that when you pour them
together in large quantities, you have maybe half a cup of this one and half a cup of that one, and you just pour them
together, they don't mix. But if you do it drop by drop by drop, then they'll start to
blend and mix together. So the same is true for these exercises. Large doses can be hard for
your system to integrate. Whereas little drops can
help make cumulative changes that over time are much more impactful. So if you need to take
a break, take a break. If that was enough for
you, that's totally fine. If you're ready to continue,
we're gonna do the other side. So you're gonna bring your left hand up to the top of your head. Side bend your left ear
to your left shoulder. Your right hand goes onto the
left side of your rib cage. And you're going to
create that nice C shape through your ribs. And then your vision is going
to go up and to the right. Your eyes are going to go up to the right. Remembering that it's okay to
make this a small movement. Particularly if you have had
any injuries to your ribs. If you've had surgeries, heart surgeries where
ribs have been cracked, abdominal surgeries, any kind of trauma, physical trauma to your torso. And of course any emotional trauma. If this needs to be a smaller
movement, that's totally fine. Go ahead and release that. And really, when I'm doing
exercises for myself, I don't count repetitions,
and I don't count time. I wait until I feel a shift in my body, but it's great when you're starting out to have a set amount of time
so that you kind of know when you're starting and
when you're gonna end. That can make it feel a bit safer, especially if it's unfamiliar. But if you want to just hang out there until you feel like your body
has a shift, that's also fine. For this next exercise, you're
going to want to find a place where you can lie face down comfortably. So a yoga mat is a great thing to use, or if you have a carpet
that's comfortable, you can lie on that. So on your stomach, what you're gonna do is you're going to bring your
elbows under your shoulders, hands flat on the floor. And your shoulders should
be supported by your elbows. And what you're going to do is turn and look over your shoulder,
and you're lifting your head using the muscles along
the side of your neck here. And we're just gonna hold
this one again for 30 seconds. And this will really help
to reset your SCM muscle, or your sternocleidomastoid, which is that thick muscle
along the side of your neck. That can get really tight. A lot of people who have migraines have a lot of tension in this muscle, so it can be helpful for
migraines or tension headaches. And then go ahead and release that. And then we're just
gonna do the same thing to the other side. So go ahead and come up with your elbows under your shoulders. You're gonna turn your head to the right. You're gonna lift your head and look over your right shoulder. And we're gonna hold it for 30 seconds. And go ahead and release. Thanks for watching this video on how to reprogram
your brain from anxiety. If you found these exercises helpful, please click the like button and let me know in the comments below. Remember to subscribe and
hit the bell to get notified so you never miss a video, and I will see you in the next one. (energizing music)
♪ Aha aha ♪ ♪ Aha aha ♪ ♪ Ahh ♪
