The vagus nerve…Alexander Technique as a compliment to Therapeutic Counselling
An article about the vagus nerve helped to illustrate what I feel is a vital component of our work as Alexander teachers.
I also feel that it is very relevant to and can complement therapeutic counselling work.
We are about dissolving alarm and the responses to alarm and thereby stimulating the vagus nerve to help bring balance in our response to our environment.
Vagus nerve and trauma..
The vagus nerve (cranial nerve x) innervates the diaphragm and also innervates much of our viscera – in fact all of our internal organs with the notable exception of the adrenal glands. It supplies parasympathetic fibres to these organs, meaning that the vagus nerve is a “rest and digest” nerve, not a fight or flight nerve. Van der Kolk quotes from Darwin’s work, “the heart, guts and brain communicate intimately via a nerve” – the pneumogastric or vagus nerve – “the critical nerve in the expression and management of emotions in both humans and animals…. When the mind is strongly excited it instantly affects the state of the viscera.” This is, of course, why our guts react strongly to our emotional state.
Van der Kolk continues with the following statement “what makes life unbearable is not emotions but physical sensations.”
“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gut-wrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.”
“If these sensations last long enough, your whole brain starts fighting against emotions. And what happens in the long range is that traumatised people who continuously have a state of heartbreak and gut wrenching feelings learn to shut off the sensations in their bodies. And they go through life not feeling their physical presence.
In Alexander work we help to gently bring more and more connection and integration, mind and body. This more often than not involves subtle hands on hints and guidance, combined with suggestions for how to bring thoughtful awareness to any changes that come about. In time it becomes a skill and a valuable tool that can be developed and brought into action in every day life.
We can thus become more sensitive to ourselves and draw on a wider range of possibilities.
The fight flight mechanism manifests in a variety of ways, all of which can become an ingrained way of being or holding within the body. A kind of chronic sculpture.
Rather than use the word habit, (which could be interpreted as some form of “wrong” doing that requires correction) it is kinder to look on this as a ‘spell’ and to be inquisitive about what might help us to lift that spell.
Fight….maybe a person appears a bit pushy, aggressive or feisty
Flight…shy, shrinking violet, so still they almost disappear, sits on the edge of a party
Freeze…hyper-alert, eyes bulge, a mixture of paralysis, but moving in five different directions at once!
Feint/feign..dodging, evasive, not quite presenting our authentic person, faking/fibbing
Faint…it all becomes literally too much and there is a total black out.
Usually these patterns arose out of a need for survival..a way of being that becomes so ingrained that we begin to identify ourselves with it. It feels familiar. It feels like ‘me’.
In some ways, for this reason, working to release ourselves from these ‘spells’ can be challenging or a little confronting, because if the spell lifts for a moment, it can feel unfamiliar.
“I don’t feel myself”
However, all of these reactive patterns require considerable work to maintain and can lead to many kinds of discomfort or tension. A kind of extra doing that only becomes noticeable when there is a moment of stopping. The information from the hands of a teacher is often what brings hidden tension/holding to light.
When this happens the body can free up and we can become more deeply connected with physical and emotional freedom and a natural, improved quality of coordination, focus and energy.
We begin to sense the possibility of more choice in response to the busy demands of world around us and to our inner reactions.