Decoding The Nervous System For Health Pros
This week on the Unreal Results podcast, its all about understanding (or at least trying to) the nervous system. I’m currently going through my online LTAP level 1 course with a new cohort and thought that making an episode regarding the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology would be helpful for them, but also for you. In this episode, I do a deep dive on the interplay between the central nervous system, autonomic nervous system, and enteric nervous system and their impact on the visceral organs and the immune system. You’ll also hear me talk about neuroception, polyvagal theory, and practical applications for treating the nervous system. This episode is a big one and goes in-depth, so if you have to listen to it a few times, I get it. But I promise it will be worth your time!
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
Regen Session: Reset Your Nervous System + Clinical Reasoning
Episode 28: The Power Of The Trigeminal Nerve
Episode 32: Using The LTAP™ To Guide Treatment Of Costovertebral Joint Dysfunction
Episode 38: Accessing The Parasympathetic Nervous System Without Focusing On Breath!
Episode 41: 3 Powerful Nerves
Episode 60: LTAP™ Core Beliefs
Episode 70: How The Trigeminal Nerve Could Supercharge Your Practice
Considering the viscera as a source of musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction is a great way to ensure a more true whole body approach to care, however it can be a bit overwhelming on where to start, which is exactly why I created the Visceral Referral Cheat Sheet. This FREE download will help you to learn the most common visceral referral patterns affecting the musculoskeletal system. Download it at www.unrealresultspod.com
=================================================
Watch the podcast on YouTube and subscribe!
Join the MovementREV email list to stay up to date on the Unreal Results Podcast and MovementREV education.
Be social and follow me:
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube
-
Hey there, and welcome. I'm Anna Hartman, and this is Unreal Results, a podcast where I help you get better outcomes and gain the confidence that you can help anyone, even the most complex cases. Join me as I teach about the influence of the visceral organs and the nervous system on movement, pain, and injuries, all while shifting the paradigm of what whole body assessment and treatment really looks like.
I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Anna Hartman: Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Unreal Results Podcast. Um, I, I was doing a call at some point last week. It might've been the, um, might've just been the first call of the new LTAP level one online cohort. Cohort. I think it might've been. I think, I think it was, and I was tired. I already told you last week when I recorded that podcast episode that your girl was tired and.
I recorded that on Tuesday. Must have been Tuesday. And then Wednesday, I had a long morning of meetings and then that rolled right into the, um, call. First call. And I was still pretty tired. And, uh, Why am I telling you this? Because I did, I've been like doing my calls and my podcast standing. Um, just to have a little better energy and just, I don't know, for something, like mix it up something different.
And I also have a walking pad in my office and the call I did the other day, the way the spot my computer was had me like half on the walking pad, a half off. So I was shifting back and forth like this a lot, which is not like, it's not like I, it's not like I can't do that. But for 90 minutes of that, um, my SI joint was very unhappy afterwards.
I think my back was a little irritated. I've been, um, not the best at eating foods. Well, I've been the best at eating foods. I've not been the best at avoiding foods that I know tend to flare me up. And usually if my back flares up, that's almost always driven by some sort of like gut thing. On top of like a month ago, I had a bladder infection.
And so I think it's just like the perfect storm of like a visceral protective pattern. Probably jamming up my SI joint and then doing 90 minutes of like, SI joint mobility, basically. Uh, lateral shifting, um, yeah, I jacked myself up. I've been having a lot of pain for almost a week now. It's finally, today's like the first day, so not almost a week since Wednesday night.
So, I don't even know. Half a week and it's finally today much better last night sleeping was much better. It's been an interesting feeling and Whenever I'm hurt or like not feeling great in my body people are like well, you know who takes care of you Well one I take care of myself Sometimes not very well Sometimes it falls into the category of like do what I say not what I do A lot of times it's like that.
And then also, um, shout out Julie Arriola. She's um, massage therapist here in the San Diego area that's taking my courses. I go to see her and I have an appointment with her this week. I've been patiently waiting to get on her schedule because she's super popular because she does a really good job. And, uh, finally it is here and I cannot come soon enough.
Um, I've also been, I, I think I shared on the last podcast. I have also just had some like in general, like create more cranial tension than normal. My eye was bothering me, my like ears pressure. I feel like pressure things often and so I'm sure that didn't help. So yeah, just the perfect storm, but I'm feeling better.
But now I have like, A little post traumatic stress from standing on this walking pad because I'm like, do not shift off of it. I'm such a like, uh, fidgetor. I don't know if you've ever noticed, if you watch the podcast, maybe you notice that like, I'm always like, Pulling my hair out of my ponytail and putting it back in or like, twirling my hair or like, fixing my clothes.
I'm always like, just like, uh. fidgeter like that. Always have been. Um, so it's hard for me to just stand here and talk. well first of all, I can't even believe I didn't lead the podcast for this, but can we get a second to celebrate the big Oregon win this weekend? It's past Saturday, Oregon played Ohio State at home, it was a big game, number three versus number two.
We were three at the time, now we're not, now we're number two, because we beat them. And it was such a phenomenal, like, ESPN Classic game. Uh, the crowd noise at Odson Stadium just crushed Ohio State. And, um, lots of false starts, lots of sort of like miscommunications on their part. You could tell that they were a little rattled.
And man, that's fun, and I had, speaking of FOMO, so much FOMO. I was so sad I wasn't there. Those big games are so much fun. Um, but congrats to my Oregon family. I know a few of you listened, so, uh, I hope you enjoyed that win. I talked to one of them today on the phone and they got a short turnaround and a travel week to Indiana?
Is that where Purdue is? The Boilermakers? We play Purdue on Friday. So, um, big huge game on a Saturday. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a not playing so well on a Friday, uh, travel game. So, hopefully we can, like, keep the momentum going and, like, hopefully national championships in our sights again this year.
Um, but yeah, it's just, you know, first year in the Big Ten, so it's really fun to be here. Doing all those kind of games, new games, new opponents, new locations. Um, and college football is just unpredictable. Week to week. It's very different. It's part of why I love college football so much. It's like, you never know.
Uh, I told somebody, I was like, my podcast lately is like, Dear Diary, this is what I've been doing. I hope you enjoy it. Um, I hope it files under, like, just get to know me better. Um, but also if you don't, sorry, that's why we put chapters on the YouTube video and I think there's also chapters on the podcast app.
So you can always just skip to where the podcast actually starts. With that said, I will start the actual podcast. Um, I wanted to talk, so we're in week two of the online LTAP level one course. And so, uh, the way the course is set up is like each week is one of the tests of the LTAP. And so, oftentimes, like, that's just the way my brain works.
Like, I tend to get fixated on one topic at a time. And then I like, that's, I can't think of like talking about other things besides that. So, because it's week two of the online LTAP level one, I, my brain is on the central nervous system and the central nervous system tension locator test and so, just sort of like I was updating some of the content for the course and like, um, I'm always, every time I update course content, um, or prepare the live training for the week in the courses because every time I do the live training, it's not like week two live training of the LTAP level one in this fall cohort will be similar, but different to the last one because I am always refining and always trying to like make things make more sense, um, make things more clear.
I take, um, I, I take a little bit of like, um, I don't know if feedback's the right word, but like I see how people are processing the information, both online with the questions people give me on Voxer and in the Facebook group, as well as during the in person courses, being able to see how they're like absorbing things.
And I get a chance to be like, Oh, okay. I need to be more clear about, you know, X, Y, Z. And so, so it's really great. Actually, this is part of the reason why I like, I love the teaching process so much is, um, this interaction with the participants and this, like seeing them instantly do practical application.
It really highlights. where I need to be more clear and what I need to emphasize and like how people interpret sometimes what I say. And, um, also just where the confusing parts are because like some of it's just flat out confusing because it's not like necessarily a, uh, uh, anatomy we're used to dealing with a lot.
So, um, so the central nervous system. The biggest, I'd say the biggest sort of thing is, and I've alluded this to this before, I had um, I, one of the things I tell people with LTAP level one, like one of the core beliefs of the LTAP level one that I am, that the participants are proving by, um, sort of working through the material.
And I'll have, I have a whole podcast episode on the LTAP core beliefs. I'll have Joe link that. Um, so if you haven't listened to it, that might be helpful or interesting. Um, but. One of the core beliefs is that the treatment tool you use is not as important at, uh, not as important as the location of which you're applying it and figuring out where the body wants you to do treatment.
you're going to get a good result no matter what tool you use. Right. So I always give the Jean Pierre sort of, uh, interpreted quote, which is, you know, the crappiest treatment in the area where the body wants is way more powerful, way more beneficial for the patient than the best, most precise technique clinician wants.
And so, um, I'm always encouraging people to use the tools that they already have in their toolbox for treatment. Don't feel like you can't get good results because you don't know visceral stuff. Like, I'm trying to get people to see that the exercises you already know and choose in the manual therapy, you already know and choose in the trunk area.
It's treating the viscera, whether you realize it or not. And when you realize it is, now you have a new perspective and it opens up all these new opportunities for using these old tools. So the same goes for the central nervous system. However, if I were to recommend where people could probably improve the amount of tools they have to pick from, it would probably be around both.
All of the above, the nervous system, the central nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, and the peripheral nervous system. Um, in general, the nervous system seems to be the thing that people are less, the least familiar with from an anatomy standpoint, least familiar with from a physiology standpoint.
Um, maybe they've learned along the way, but they don't understand the complexity of it. And because they don't understand the complexity of it, they try to like oversimplify it and miss some key pieces. Um, and then also not just the neurophysiology and the anatomy piece, but just also don't have treatment tools around it.
But part of it is if they understand the anatomy and the neurophysiology a little bit better, They could kind of understand how they could use their tools they currently have, extrapolate them to the central nervous system. Um, but again, it's like, if I'm like, I tell people, I'm like, well, like if you were to gain more tools, maybe it would be helpful to take craniosacral therapy or take neuromanipulation or take Jill Miller's, um, body by breath course and learn a little bit more about the polyvagal theory or, or things like that.
So, um, that's really what I wanted to talk about on this podcast episode today is sort of like, let's break down a little bit, um, the differences between the central nervous system and the autonomic nervous system and the peripheral neural nervous system and neurophysiology and just neuroanatomy. And like make a little bit more sense of it.
So hopefully this episode is supportive to the people who are currently in the fall 2024 cohort of the online LTAP level one. But also, even if you've taken it in the past or you haven't taken it yet, hopefully it will just kind of like clear up. Even just clearing up the nomenclature, I think is helpful.
Because then when you hear me talking about it, you're not Superimposing things that I know are different, but you think are the same. So, and it's interesting because when I was thinking about this topic, I was like, have I done a podcast episode on this before? I feel like I've talked about this before.
And I'm not 100 percent sure. I'm not 100 percent sure if I have. I know I've done similar ones and I'm going to have Joe link those in the show notes too. Uh, one that's going to be related to this. There's a couple, um, The first one I can think of is the accessing the power, no that's the book, um, no I think I named it that, accessing the parasympathetic nervous system without using breathing.
So that's a real banger of an episode that's going to be helpful in this. And then probably the episode about, um, the trigeminal nerve. I think I have multiple episodes about the trigeminal nerve. That's going to be a really powerful one too. Um, I think that's probably the biggest one for now. I'm going to open the door.
It got really hot in here. You can see my face getting red.
We're still in that time of year where it's like, second summer, and it still kind of gets hot. Like, I still have to have the air conditioning on. My house has terrible, um, insulation, so. Shut a door and you block the air flow and things get hot really quick unless it's winter time it gets cold really quick.
So
All right, so let's talk about it central nervous system the central nervous system is the brain The spinal cord and its containers. So the containers of the brain and the spinal cord would be the cranium and the meninges or the thickening of the dura that sort of holds it into place and then the spinal column and its associated dura and the ligaments that hold the dura into place.
That is the spinal cord. central nervous system. As soon as the nerve roots come out of the spinal cord, those are the peripheral nervous system. There's ventral and dorsal roots and they go outside the container of the central nervous system into The periphery, right? So it makes sense that it's called the central nervous system because it's a part of your nervous system that is central to the body, right?
Centered in the body. The axial skeleton and its viscera. That's the central nervous system.
Essentially, those are the two parts of the nervous system from an anatomy standpoint. Then we have some divisions of the nervous system that we refer to, and when we're referring to these divisions, now we're kind of looking more at the neurophysiology components of it. And the neurophysiology is not separate to a location always, and so that's what I want to sort out.
help you see and understand. So the neurophysiology components would be the autonomic nervous system and the enteric nervous system. Those are those two parts. The autonomic nervous system is further divided into parts called the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system are probably the most famous things of the nervous system.
And I think too, why I wanted to like organize this all for your heads is because nowadays there's a lot of talk about regulating the nervous system and nervous system that and nervous system that. This and, and then I'm saying like nervous system tension and then we're talking about like nerve tension and like adverse nerve tension and nerve glides and nerve, nerve compression and like all right, there's just like all these words thrown around with nerves.
You're trying to organize it. So then the enteric nervous system, it's its own separate nervous system and our gut, but it also interacts with. the autonomic nervous system. So the autonomic nervous system is part of the enteric nervous system. And the enteric nervous system also is part of the autonomic nervous system.
They influence each other. Okay. And I'll break that down a little bit more, but I could see how that piece isn't a little confusing. Good news though, you don't hear people talk about the enteric nervous system a ton unless they're talking about the gut microbiome. Maybe you've heard it in that realm.
But part of the reason people don't talk about the enteric nervous system very much is because we don't know a whole lot about it. Um, it's a fairly new layer of nervous system, uh, new knowledge about how the gut sort of just, um, operates on its own sometimes. Like it has its own sort of nervous system to itself, influenced by our other nervous system, but like also can act independently.
So there's there, whoever, whoever they are, are still researching it and we're still learning about it and we're still understanding of how it all fits. So. I wish I was smart enough to like give you like all the information on the enteric nervous system, but I, I'm not that person. I'm not part of there.
So I'm going to just tell you how I understand it to this point and hopefully that changes throughout my career and hopefully I learn a little more about it too. All right, so those are pretty much the parts. So, if we go back to the anatomy of the central nervous system, so the central nervous system again is the brain, the spinal cord and its containers.
We understand that anatomically it is all connected to the peripheral nervous system. It's all one continuous line of nerves. There is no like Stop in beginning. It's all like they're all sort of like jumbled together as part of the nervous system So oftentimes when I'm talking about nerve tension or nerve compression I'm talking about things that are manipulating the mechanics of how that entire nervous system lives in the body, within the container, within the fascial containers, through the muscles, to the skin, around the joints, everything, right?
So when we have nerve tension in the container of the central nervous system or within the central nervous system itself. That tension will be reflected in the peripheral nervous system and vice versa. If we have compression or tension or lack of movement in the containers of the peripheral nervous system, that tension can be reflected in the central nervous system.
They influence each other.
Now. So, central nervous system tension can be because of changes of pressure of this container, that cranial container. The cranial container is a very closed container. Because it's a closed container, it's very susceptible to changes in pressure creating tension issues. The spinal column And the spinal cord have a little bit more ability to regulate pressures and movement, right?
There's just like more space available to a point. Like I am like making, trying to make it very simple. It's kind of not true, but it is true. Um, most of the pressure, even within the spinal dura, the dural space of the spinal cord, it has to do with a lot of what is happening in the cranium. So maybe that's a better way of what I was trying to say.
Now, um, When, in the LTAP specifically, the second test of the LTAP is identifying if we have a central nervous system tension. These central nervous system tensions that we see is often because of that change in intracranial pressure. Change in intracranial pressure can be from stuff going on on the inside or the outside or a combination of the two.
It can be from the container on the inside tightening up on its own reflexively. Um, I always tell people so it's like, you know, if, if, um, Something in our trunk or our limbs don't feel very good. The muscles around those bones and joints tighten up to limit mobility. Well, we don't have a ton of muscles up around our cranium that's going to limit mobility of the brain.
The thing that limits mobility of the brain is the, the dural stiffness, the dural tension. Um, of those, you know, the meninges. And so even though the meninges are not muscular, they have a ability to like, you know, create some stiffness or tone, um, and the bones shift a little bit. And so this is where a lot of it comes from in the cranium.
So, the interesting thing is, I talk about this relationship between container and contents. The container is there to protect the contents, but when the contents are not functioning optimally, then the body feels like it's a little threatened, so it goes to protect the contents even more. And then sometimes that change in pressure, The compression of the entrapment can, like, make function go down even, even more, right?
So it's this, like, nasty cycle that we can get in. Maybe not, I don't want to call it nasty, but the cycle that we can get in that is not necessarily always, um, to our advantage. And um, So, what can this look like, uh, from a practical standpoint? This can be like when someone, let's say someone who has eye issues, right, vision issues or vision is like decreasing or their muscles that coordinate their eye are a little fatigued.
That is a decrease in function of the, of the contents, a decrease in function of the brain. Um, and so the container tightens up and so oftentimes what do we see? We see like headaches, um, neck tightness, brain fog, just like a over, not feeling very good and you can get reflexive tension in your peripheral nerve, neurovascular system, peripheral, peripheral nervous system.
And so you can have like sciatica issues, you can have like upper limb. radiculopathy, right? Because we're changing the tension here and the, the body accommodates for that. So typically when the body has tension in the cranium, it side bends to the side of the tension to try to relieve the tension, relieve the tension in the cranium.
But what that does is it puts the rest of the nerves in the periphery on more stretch and creates more peripheral nerve tension.
It's like, this is a lot, right, this is a big topic. So this is what I'm trying to identify if it's present because when we have tension in our central nervous system, it affects the whole body because of that relationship of the peripheral nerves to the central nervous system. Now, the autonomic nervous system, is autonomic, meaning it's happening like on a subconscious level, right?
We're not like, it's like doing the thing. The autonomic nervous system is basically like, when I say your body, the organism is wired for survival, it is the autonomic nervous system that is doing all the things and monitoring whether we are safe or not. The way it's monitoring whether we're safe or not, and the way it is wired for maintaining our survival is its influence on all of the visceral organs, their function, the sensory information coming from it, and the sensory information coming from outside of our body.
And so this is where it starts to get a little confused. And this is why I linked that episode about the parasympathetic nervous system, because this is, this is where it starts to get confusing a little bit. Our more primitive nervous system is the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system, you know, you can think like higher heart rate, faster respiratory rate, like fight or flight mode, right?
Our parasympathetic nervous system puts a brake on that. It's, it's what decreases our heart rate. It's what slows our breath down. It's what shifts us into a more rest state. All of the organs in our body, their functions rely on the messages from both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system.
The sympathetic nervous system inherently in the society these days gets labeled as the bad guy. It is not the bad guy. That nervous system is associated with survival or stress or threat. And so that's why it gets labeled as the bad guy. But we need a sympathetic information going to our organs.
Because that's the information that often, like, gets it to secrete hormones and different chemicals that then help to maintain the healthy function of the organ. With that said, same thing with the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system, like I said, is a break. It slows the heart rate down, it slows the respiratory rate down, but it's also communicating to some of the other organs in our body of like, secreting other chemicals.
Right? So there's some chemicals that like ramp things up and there's some chemicals that ramp things down and there's some chemicals that are needed for digestion and some for removal of waste and some for maintaining our blood pressure and some for like reproduction, right? There's like so many intricate things going on in the physiology of our body and that is always being adjusted by our nervous system, by our autonomic nervous system.
And of course, there's this relationship between the autonomic nervous system, the chemicals, the hormones, and the immune system. The immune system is also what's talking to the body. autonomic nervous system. Now, remember I said there was an enteric nervous system. More than likely, this influence from the immune system is the connection, one of the, one of the connections of the enteric nervous system's relationship to the autonomic nervous system.
So the, because 80 percent of your immune system or something, some crazy fact like that is in your gut. So when we talk about this relationship between autonomic nervous system hormones and immune system, we can't not ignore that the majority of the immune system is in our gut, which is interesting. Um, and it's interesting to me because we often think of like also our parasympathetic nervous system being an influence on our gut to make our gut feel better.
good at digestion, but, but it goes both ways. Sometimes the health of our gut can be influencing the autonomic nervous system and then therefore like not getting the messages from the parasympathetic nervous system. So again, it can be caught in a negative feedback loop. So this is also why it's so important to look at health from many different directions.
But the other part of the influence on this safety is not just the parasympathetic nerves and parasympathetic ganglia because there's not very, like, there's limited amount of parasympathetic ganglia. We have way more sympathetic ganglia than we do parasympathetic, parasympathetic ganglia. And so that's an interesting thing.
Our parasympathetic nerves are going to be ocular motor nerve, so medial Looking, like, converging. Convergence. Cranial nerve, three. Cranial nerve, ten. Cranial nerve, five. Three, five, ten. There's one more. Please pause.
Okay. I just wrote these all down the other day. I was just laughing because some of you think I don't ever use notes and I don't ever use resources, but I often do. Alright, so parasympathetic nerves. Yeah, cranial nerve 3, so ocular motor, cranial nerve 7, facial nerve, cranial nerve 9, glossopharyngeal, and cranial nerve 10.
So, four. One, two, three, four. The other parasympathetic nerves are our pelvic splanchnic, splanchnic nerves. And, um, So that's important to know, right? So I'm talking about, and then sympathetic ganglia, like we got one on every single thoracic. Fun fact, On that note, one of the reasons why I am so big on people restoring their thoracic curve, because we're supposed to have a curve there, it's supposed to be flexed about 30 degrees, like look at the shape of the bones, but there lives sympathetic ganglion right on the inside.
sort of right in front of the costovertebral joint. And so sometimes when we lose our thoracic curve, our costovertebral joint presses on those sympathetic ganglia and like stimulates this very sympathetic response. Not ideal all the time. Not ideal when you're trying to not be in a sympathetic state.
when you're trying to be in a balanced autonomic, autonomic nervous system state. So food for thought. I think I also talk about that in the costovertebral joint episode. So I'll have Joe link that in the, in the show notes, because often what happens is people all, I've had people complain of like, even like atrial fibrillation or like feeling like they're having a heart attack, definitely feeling like they're having a heart attack, but even, Like documented a fib and then oftentimes if you get a, you know, it can be from costovertebral joint irritation Because of that sympathetic input then back to the heart at that level.
So it can like give you the visceral responses from a mechanical a mechanical stimulus. So anyways, I digress. I'm talking about the parasympathetic nervous system. So those are the pieces, not as many as we have sympathetic. So part of, you know, I talked about how the autonomic nervous system role was monitoring our environment and our body's environment, internal and external environment, um, for, for safe or not, Right.
Cause we're wired, wired for survival. So in addition to these parasympathetic nerves, we have some nerves that Steven Porges, the like founder, I don't know how do you like the person who founded the term polyvagal theory, started talking about the role of the vagus nerve as we evolved to be, um, Out of our lizard brain, sort of, into more human like co regulation, like community and reproductive type of scenario here, um, talks about polyvagal theory and there's these nerves that he refers to, um, well, he doesn't.
Well, he refers to, yeah, I guess the nerves of social engagement. So social engagement nerves are interesting because they're not necessarily parasympathetic nerves, but they're directly tied to often our messages of safety. But they can easily also be tied to messages of threat, which I think is why they're different than the parasympathetic, just the parasympathetic nerves.
Basically, they are our nerves that pick up. social cues from each other to know if this is a safe person, right? If this is a safe environment that I can be in. And so these nerves, these social engagement nerves, are cranial nerve 5, which is the trigeminal nerve. Cranial nerve 7 as well, so one of the parasympathetic ones.
Facial nerve, cranial nerve 9, so again, glossopharyngeal, another one of the parasympathetic. Cranial nerve 10, vagus nerve, another one of the parasympathetic nerves. And then also cranial nerve 11. Cranial nerve 11 is your accessory nerve, so it's shoulder. motion, right, upper trap and head movement. So what you see when you see these nerves is two things.
One, they're nerves that have to do with body language around the head and neck, vocalizing, listening, and touch of the skin around our face and neck. So big ones for when you are interacting with a human that you love and trust or even if you don't love and trust them yet, right, just vocalization and body language of the head and the face, neck, and shoulders can tell you a lot about how somebody's doing, right?
Those social cues are interpreted by our autonomic nervous system and our brain, the parts of our brain that are related to them, and they are letting us know if we're safe or not. And that is very much based on, one, the information coming in, but then also to our past experiences more cognitive things happening in our brain.
So that's why too, when I was talking, when I first talked about why I want to like flush out these differences is cause I also want you to understand that the autonomic nervous system has influence from other things than even the parasympathetic, sympathetic, The nerves of social engagement because it also is taking information from the free nerve endings of our skin and our superficial fascia.
These are interoceptive free nerve endings and especially with like light touch can be very parasympathetic like. Now it's not parasympathetic because technically. They're not, that information is being transmitted on nerves that are not technical parasympathetic nerves, but it's going to the same similar area of the brain, which then talks to those parasympathetic nerves to make us feel calm and safer.
So free nerve endings in the skin, um, in the superficial fascia as well as also, and this is where it gets like a little bit even more like esoteric, I think is the right word. Maybe not. Instantly Googles it to see if it's the right word or not. No, I'm not going to, but I will after this call. Um, anyways, so the, the other thing that's like actually really interesting to me, and I think it has a lot to do with those free nerve endings and the fascia, and I can go down a whole energy medicine rabbit hole, but We also have this piece of our autonomic nervous system that relies on this thing that Stephen Porges refers to as neuroception.
Um, and if you're familiar with the term like proprioception, enteroception, exteroception, so our exceptions is basically like the information we're getting on our receptors that are telling us where we are in space. We're, what we're feeling in our body, if we're safe or not, period. So neuroception is another form of that, that is not quite clear, that it's extero, extero.
or entero or a combination of the two. And the best way to explain what neuroception is, is like, you know, you're walking down the street and you see someone on the, across the street and like you instantly feel a vibe about them. Somebody walks, your back is to the door and somebody walks in the room and you feel them in the room.
You didn't even see them or hear them walk in. It's a vibe you're picking up. I saw this, um, and I might even have spoke about it already in the last podcast, but I saw this in the course. That I taught in this past weekend, every course I teach, I see this. When you walk into a room of strangers, you're, you gravitate towards certain people or gravitate away from certain people.
And some people were like, you're like, oh, that's stereotyping or you're judging. But and yes, because it can be influenced by our past stories and our past experiences, but fundamentally to our body, it's. Energy, it's electromagnetic field, is interacting with their electromagnetic field. And energy medicine studies have actually showed us that we have DNA that reaches outside of our body.
Like measurable DNA outside of our body. And so your bodies are communicating through I think probably that something is these electromagnetic forces, these DNA shares, like, I don't know. I'm not that smart of a human. I don't know the physics of it all, but all I know is like, I feel it and I see it because what happens, like, this is what happened in Boston.
Like everyone, when they sat down, like each table paired up in the profession or the location that they lived without even knowing it. And this is, this is when you say you just felt good with someone's vibe. Like to me, that's neuroception. And so neuroception really influences our autonomic nervous system and fundamentally this idea of we're safe or not.
And sometimes it does come from these nerves of social engagement and sometimes it's just vibe thingy, and that's a little bit more neuroception. But what, what is likely to happen, all of those pieces of information your body is constantly interpreting and then meshing it in with your past experiences and whatever else your body does and takes a chance, like rolls the dice, best guess, are we safe or not?
And we can like also sort of cognitively like I don't want to say sidetrack it, but we can cognitively make ourselves believe if we're safe or if we're not safe, right? You can drive yourself crazy worrying about things that haven't happened and worried about things in the future and that fundamentally will make you not feel safe.
That changes your balance of your autonomic nervous system and that's going to change how your organs function. You change how your organs function, your body. will also change. Your physical body will change in response to that. Okay, so now, like, how does it all kind of relate? And why are people getting confused?
Because, oftentimes the things that we do from a treatment standpoint to decrease central nervous system tension or peripheral nervous system tension
Our similar interventions or have a similar feeling in our body after the intervention that parasympathetic exercises do, that restful things do. This is the things that people are like, Oh, it down regulates your nervous system. What are they really saying? They're saying it feels like I just got really relaxed.
And that is actually a increase in parasympathetic activity and a, might not even be a change in sympathetic activity. Sympathetic activity is good, but again, it's not a bad or good thing. It's like it is, we need it. And then the parasympathetic, if we increase it, we get this overall feeling of relaxed activity.
Rest, safe. When we don't have that stimulus, then we feel the sympathetic stimulus more. It might not change, but as parasympathetic increases, we feel the sensation of this less because we feel this more, right? So this is this balance. And I talk about that on that. Um, podcast that I already talked about the, um, accessing the parasympathetic nervous system without using the breath.
Because then what happens too is people are like, Oh, we'll use the breathing for this. Well, breathing is also an output. And so I don't like to always relay on breathing for changing what we're feeling in our nervous system because it's not always the most reliable thing. Um, also I talked about, like, how this relates to the central nervous system, right?
So the things that change the pressures in the central nervous system containers are also those cranial nerves of the brain. social engagement and the parasympathetic nervous system. Because what I didn't tell you is cranial nerve 5, the trigeminal nerve, and this is why I had that other podcast episode linked in here, is the trigeminal nerve is such a huge cranial nerve, and even though it's not a parasympathetic nerve, there's many branches of the trigeminal nerve that anastomose With those four parasympathetic nerves and so yes, it's not a parasympathetic nerve, but it really does It really does act like it a lot of the time, but that's Oftentimes, when, when we use the trigeminal nerve, especially in the LTAP with the interventions that I introduced within the LTAP and for central nervous system tension, my goal is not necessarily to feel more rested or more parasympathetic.
That's just like an added benefit of it. My goal is to change the pressures within the intracranial space. The other reason why it gets a little confusing is because in this Model that we use. The LTAP in the low getter test assessment protocol, we talk about when, how the body is in a protection pattern.
It tends to be stuck in a more hypers sympathetic state. And when the body is stuck in a hypers sympathetic state, we're not as easily able to access our body's ability to heal itself. 'cause our body's ability to heal itself only happens when we have a good amount of degree of that parasympathetic
information, keeping the sympathetic information in check. It doesn't mean the stressor goes away. It doesn't mean all we do is parasympathetic, it means there's a balance of the two. And so, um, oftentimes what you see when you treat the area that the body's protecting, whether it's the central nervous system or whether it's like the left ankle, if it's where the body is protecting, we get a shift in the nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system, we might see their heart rate drop, we might see their respiratory rate drop, we might visually see them become more rested. Their body language starts to tell us that they feel safer. That's a great way to be to receive treatment. And again, that means that we are leveraging the self healing capacity of the body.
But If there's a central nervous system tension pattern, just doing parasympathetic things might not change it. This is also why we are identifying if, if we needed everyone to get parasympathetic just out of the gate, we could just start with parasympathetic exercises, but that's, it's not just
stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. It's stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, but also working with the body in the area it's protecting. So it doesn't feel like we're trying to force it somewhere because as soon as we start forcing it, even if we're doing parasympathetic nervous system exercises, parasympathetic nervous system stuff, if we're forcing it, if we're doing that when the body didn't want that.
Then that's forcing it too. And guess what the response is? It's not safety, it's threat. So, again, this is always, this is why I'm like, it always goes back to like, where is the body directing you? And what is the anatomy in that area? And how can we use our understanding of the anatomy to apply manual therapy or exercises to facilitate the An effect in that area.
Whew, that was a big episode. Oh, you're probably still confused. I mean, if I'm going to be honest, why are you so confused? Because the nervous system is confusing because we say nervous system and it can be the anatomy, it can be the physiology, or it can be a combination of the two. And really to So, leverage our tools well and make the most out of our assessment and treatment.
We need a bit of understanding of all of it, the anatomy and the neurophysiology. And so the most important thing though, and like why I wanted to do this episode is don't interchange them. Though they relate to each other. It's not the same. When I say someone has a central nervous system tension pattern, that does not mean they're hypersympathetic.
It, it can, but it doesn't always mean it. It just means they have tension in the container of the central nervous system, which may mean they have a, like, you know, something going on with the contents in the container, like either the brain or the spinal cord. Um, but. It doesn't necessarily mean, like, the autonomic nervous system is, like, really stressed out or, like, in a fight or flight or free state, right?
Like, could they happen simultaneously? Yes. And then could treatment for the central nervous system also help that? Yes. But, also, We want to make sure we're as precise and specific as possible and if we don't know the difference of what we're talking about The central nervous system or the autonomic nervous system.
We're going to get confused and we're going to not apply the optimal treatment intervention at the right time. Will you still get a response? Probably because parasympathetic work is pretty powerful. But could you get a better response if you picked it more specifically for a specific area of the central nervous system?
Absolutely.
Do you always have to start with autonomic nervous system stuff just to shift people into a rest state? No, not when you're using the LTAP because the LTAP is going to help you do that by identifying the area that the body's protecting and starting treatment there. Now, if I don't have the LTAP, now we're talking a different story.
If I don't have the LTAP to help guide me where the body is protecting, I don't know, I'm shooting in the dark, then yes, You might want to pick some autonomic nervous system based things that are facilitating the parasympathetic nervous system to find some balance there to ideally tap in the body's ability to heal itself, but you don't know, you know, you don't 100 percent know where to utilize those skills.
And if it's in an area where the body likes, not so wanting the result of the exercise might not actually be. parasympathetic inducing. It's also why it's helpful to use a heart rate monitor. and like see what you're doing and if it does change people's state.
Interesting. I could, the nervous system is wildly interesting to me and on all these different layers and we could literally talk about this forever. We, this is a whole module within the mentorship and obviously, um, the CNS tension is a whole module within the LTAP course and just all the things. So, um, maybe something helpful for you both for treating central nervous system tension and for understanding the autonomic nervous system a little bit better but understanding both.
I recently put together a new product, um, a old product with a new product. So the old product is the regen session called reset your nervous system. It's a 25 minute regen session that I had, uh, which is basically just kind of like a movement session that helps you reset your nervous system, right?
Balance the autonomic nervous system. But it also includes things for the central nervous system, um, and changing the pressures within the containers of the central nervous system. And I, So the new part of this is I put together a course where I explain my clinical reasoning for selecting each one of those exercises of the whole course.
And I talk about the way it influences the container of the central nervous system and the way it influences the autonomic nervous system, um, So that you could sort of understand my thinking and like have a resource for this information, this exact thing that I'm basically talking about on the podcast.
So if you're interested in that, I'll have Joe link it in the show notes. I forget how much I put from a product cost standpoint, like under a hundred dollars, maybe 87 or I don't remember what I put. Um, it'll be linked there though. Um, yeah. That's it. That's all I got for ya. Hopefully that was helpful.
Hopefully you're not more confused. I don't know. Sometimes, when you're talking to yourself, I have no idea. And also, just a little shout out for my shirt. It's just a bunch of hocus pocus. Tis the season. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.