Ep 39: Managing Pain & Injuries via Nervous System Regulation Pt. 2

Learning various strategies on how to target and influence this complex system of pain can be essential for how you might speak with students and teach students who are managing pain and injuries.

In the last episode, I shared specific exercises and techniques, including diaphragmatic breathing, mindfulness, meditation, guided imagery, and more. These are designed to engage and regulate your nervous system and can assist in calming the body's pain responses, promote healing, and provide a powerful set of tools for pain reduction. You can use these practices in your group classes and with your private clients, offering different approaches to managing pain via nervous system regulation.

In this episode we'll continue to discuss ways to manage and reduce pain, reminding ourselves that the nervous system plays a pivotal role.

Yoga for Injury Management: 8-week Mentorship
https://www.enhanced-body.com/yoga-for-injury-management

Transcript

0:00

Let us continue to discuss ways to manage and reduce pain. Knowing that the nervous system plays a pivotal role. Learning various strategies on how to target and influence this complex system of pain. Can be essential for how you might speak with students and teach students. Who are managing pain and injuries. And for those dealing with chronic acute or persistent pain, In the last episode I shared specific exercises and techniques, including diaphragmatic breathing, mindfulness, meditation, guided imagery, and more. Which are designed to engage and regulate your nervous system. These practices rooted in both science and holistic approaches can help calm the body's pain responses, promote healing. And provide a powerful tool set. For pain reduction. In this episode. I will share more teachings you can use in your classes and with your private clients. These techniques offer different approaches to managing pain through the nervous system. Either in a group or private setting. Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright, and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you if you're a yoga teacher, you're looking for support, you love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you My life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned, my process for building my business, and helpful ideas, tools, strategies, and systems I use and you can use so that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you want to dive deep and set yourself up for success. I'm so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously, so expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now, let's do this together. Welcome back to the podcast. This episode is a continuation from the last, and I'm going to explain a few more ways you can easily work with students or your private clients who are in pain. It's always good for you to remember that physical exercises are just one piece of the puzzle. And oftentimes there are many other pieces. We should be putting into place either before we think about movement or as a compliment. To a movement practice. These are techniques you can add to your classes. And even if students aren't currently in pain or have an injury, these will help you teach them how to pay attention to and regulate their nervous systems. A lot of yoga teachers teach the idea that what a student learns on the mat, they will take into their daily lives. I know I teach these lessons. Do you. Well, if we can teach students to deepen their awareness on their mat. Via these examples I'm sharing with you. I know that you can teach them how to incorporate these exercises throughout their daily lives as well. All right. Let's get straight to it. The first practice is yoga, nidra or yoga sleep. It's a deep relaxation and meditative practice that guides students into a state between wakefulness and sleep. It's a form of conscious relaxation that systematically takes a person through different layers of awareness, promoting complete. Physical mental and emotional relaxation. Yoga nidra typically involves lying down in Shavasana corpse pose. While following a guided meditation. This practice uses techniques such as body scanning, breath, awareness, visualization, and setting an intention known as sung culpa to induce a deeply restorative state. It is said that one session of guided meditation is equal to a four hour nap. That sounds amazing to me. And every time I've taught yoga nidra, the students needed it. Those classes and workshops sold out every single time. Now, how does yoga nidra help with nervous system regulation through a few ways? The first is it activates the parasympathetic nervous system and encourages the body to shift from a state of high alert. Or sympathetic dominance. To a state of relaxation or parasympathetic activation. This helps lower heart rate. Blood pressure and stress hormones like cortisol, promoting healing and recovery. Yoga nidra also helps to reduce stress and anxiety by guiding the body and mind into deep relaxation. It reduces chronic stress and anxiety and promotes emotional regulation by reducing the overactivity of the amygdala. Your brain's fear center. Yoga nidra improves, sleep quality through improving both the quality and quantity of sleep by calming the nervous system. It is often used as a therapeutic tool for those suffering from insomnia. Or sleep disorders. The fourth way yoga nidra helps soothe. The nervous system is it enhances emotional resilience through visualization. Sensation awareness and setting positive intentions. Yoga nidra can help in processing and releasing stored emotions and trauma, which can lead to improved emotional resilience. And mental clarity. And number five, yoga nidra balances, the autonomic nervous system via the rotation of consciousness, breath, awareness, and teaching opposites sensations. I'll explain all of these in a bit, but these techniques help regulate the autonomic nervous system by calming hyper arousal. And balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses. Yoga nidra is more than visual imagery. It actually involves multiple stages. After helping students get comfortable and setting an intention or what we call a song culpa. The next and very important step. Is to implement the body scan or rotation of consciousness. Here is where you guide students to systematically move their awareness through different parts of the body. Starting from the right hand, thumb. And moving sequentially through each part. Right side of the body left side. Back front head, et cetera. This helps to relax the body and focus the mind and it can take some time at least. 10 minutes at least. Next is breath awareness. Guiding students to shift their focus to their breath and observe the natural rhythm of breathing without trying to control it. You might count the breaths or ask them to feel the breath moving through different areas of their body. One of my favorite parts of yoga nidra is guiding the awareness of opposites sensations. Here you introduced, contrasting experiences like warmth versus cold. Heaviness versus lightness. Or tension versus relaxation. This technique also helps to balance the nervous system and promote emotional release. Then there's the visualization part of the practice. Where you guide students through calming. Positive imagery such as a serene beach. Forest or a light-filled space. There are tons of visualizations you can describe here. Honestly, your creativity and imagination can go wild. However, I will say always be mindful of the intention of the visualization. What do you want the outcome to be? What type of journey do you want to take students on. Can you use specific symbolic imagery to invoke deeper states of consciousness? You bring your yoga nidra session to an end with sankalpa or intention repetition and a slow return to wakefulness. If you're not already teaching yoga nidra, you definitely should look into it. It's one of the most powerful practices I use with students and clients. Who are experiencing pain? Discomfort or an ease in their bodies and in their lives. A full and completely nourishing yoga nidra session takes time. Typically around one to two hours. If you don't have that much time, consider slimming down the meditation practice and teach this next technique. The body scan meditation. Not only does body scan meditation activate the parasympathetic nervous system. But it also reduces stress and anxiety and enhances interoceptive awareness. Interoception is the sense of the internal state of the body by practicing body scan meditation, you helped students develop greater interoceptive awareness, meaning they become more attuned to how their body feels and can recognize early signs of tension, stress, or discomfort. This can lead to better self regulation of emotions and stress responses. Body scan meditation involves mentally scanning the body for areas of tension or discomfort. It encourages awareness of bodily sensations without necessarily trying to change them. Promoting relaxation and reducing the perception of pain. To teach body scan meditation. After students get comfortable, you can begin the scan at their toes. And help them focus their attention. On the sensations there. Gradually moved their attention up their body from their feet. To their head noticing any areas of tension. Or pain. Ask students to breathe through those areas and give them the time they need to soften. And relax. You can teach a body scan meditation in as little as five to 10 minutes. So you could easily add it to the end of your classes while you ease students into a relaxed state for a Shavasana. Of course you need to account for the time that it will take you to help students settle and reawaken afterwards. Okay. The third practice is Vegas nerve stimulation exercises. Before explaining the practices. Let's talk about the vagus nerve for a moment. Your Vegas nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body. It plays a crucial role in the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls rest relaxation and recovery processes. Vegas nerve stimulation offers. Techniques and exercises designed to activate or tone the vagus nerve, which can help shift the body from a state of sympathetic dominance. Fight or flight into parasympathetic activation that's rest and digest. Vagus nerve stimulation exercises can assist in regulating the nervous system, reduce stress and improve overall emotional and physical health by enhancing the body's ability to relax and recover from stress. Vega tone refers to the health. And functioning of the vagus nerve and its ability to regulate the body's parasympathetic nervous system. Which is responsible again for rest relaxation and recovery. In essence, Vago tone is a measure of how efficiently the vagus nerve can help the body return to a calm. Balanced state. After stress. The Vegas nerve is the primary nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system. And it influences various bodily functions, such as heart rate, digestion and inflammation. Hi, they go. Tone means the Vegas nerve is functioning well. Leading to better regulation of the body's stress responses. Whereas low vagal tone indicates a reduced ability to manage stress and maintain. Physiological balance. There are ways to assess Vago tone though. It's usually measured indirectly rather than through a single specific test. The most common way to evaluate vagal tone is by measuring heart rate variability. Which reflects the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system. Since the Vegas nerve is the main component of the parasympathetic system. A higher heart rate. Variability is an indicator of high vagal tone. How would someone know if their Vegas. Tone is high or low. Well, without clinical testing, people can gauge their vagal tone by observing certain signs in their everyday life. Maybe you could do this with yourself. So remember you want a high Vega tone? Some indicators of a high vagal tone are fast to recovery from stress. If you can calm down quickly after a stressful event or experience, it's a sign of good vagal tone. Hi, emotional resilience. Are you able to manage emotions well and feel less overwhelmed by stressors. Good digestion, a healthy regular digestive system suggest proper parasympathetic regulation. Which involves the Vegas nerve. Better sleep quality. If you fall asleep easily and wake up feeling rested. That is an indicator of good vagal tone. And finally low resting heart rate. A lower resting heart rate often indicates better vagal tone and a well-functioning parasympathetic system. Some indicators of low vagal tone include difficulty calming down after stress. If you tend to stay in a heightened state of stress or anxiety for long periods, it could mean. That your vagal tone is low. Emotional dysregulation, you might experience frequent mood swings, irritability, or difficulty managing emotions. Digestive issues. Digestive problems like constipation irritable bowel syndrome or bloating can be linked to low vagal tone as the vagus nerve influences gut function. Poor sleep struggling with insomnia frequent waking or unrestful sleep may be signs of low vagal tone. And finally a high resting heart rate. A consistently high resting heart rate. Is an indicator of lower Vegas. Activity. How do you improve Vago tone? If you suspect low vagal tone practices, such as deep breathing exercises, yoga. Cold exposure and meditation can help increase your vagal tone over time. These activities, promote parasympathetic activity, enhancing your body's ability to relax and recover from stress. You could help students observe their own body's responses to stress and relaxation, to get an idea of their Vegas health. So why is this important for you to know as a teacher? If you teach high intensity classes, it is important for you to remind students that they need to balance out their workouts. Right? I always find it interesting when people come to yoga from their highly stressful jobs and go straight into a high intensity yoga class. I understand that need sometimes, but I often questioned whether these students know how to slow down or if slowing down is challenging. And so they don't do it. You should be encouraging your students to include slower practices into their lives. If you teach slower paced classes, you can easily incorporate techniques to improve vagal tone, including breathing exercises. slow. Deep diaphragmatic breathing, which was stimulate the vagus nerve and help increase the vagal tone. You can teach humming or singing or chanting these vibrations in the throat. Will stimulate the vagus nerve. Teaches slower yoga classes and meditation. Encourage physical exercise outside of yoga, and finally suggest cold exposure. Such as cold showers, ice baths, Or a splashing cold water on the face to activate the vagus nerve. Finally, let us talk about so MADEC experiencing, so MADEC experiencing is a gentle. Body focused approach to trauma healing that works by releasing stored energy in the body. Regulating the nervous system. And restoring balance by teaching students to track their sensations, work with their body's natural responses and focus on areas of safety. So Maddock experiencing. Help students learn to discharge trauma, activate the parasympathetic nervous system and build emotional and physical resilience. The key principles of somatic experiencing art titration. Pendulation And grounding, which makes, so MADEC experiencing a safe and effective way. To address trauma at the bodily level. Teaching or guiding someone through somatic experiencing involves creating a safe and supportive environment where they can connect with and observe their bodily sensations. First you have to create a safe space by establishing a sense of safety, inviting students to get into a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down in a quiet, calm space. Then help them feel grounded by encouraging them to notice their environment and feel supported by the ground. Or the chair beneath them. Remember safety is a central for trauma healing, emphasize that they are in control of the process and they can pause at any time if they feel overwhelmed. Next is grounding and resourcing. Begin with grounding exercises that help students feel safe in the present moment. You can ask them to notice sensations in their bodies, such as their feet on the floor. Or the support of their chair. Introduce resources that bring comfort or ease. Ask the students to focus on a body part that feels good or that feels neutral or feels safe. They could also think of a pleasant memory. Or an image that brings a sense of calm and security. I Help students continue to focus on areas of comfort. And neutral sensations, which helps create balance and prevent overwhelm. While working with trauma related sensations. Pendulation teaches students to move between activation and safety. You guide students to become more curious about sensations of tension. Discomfort or arousal in their body without forcing them to confront them head on. For example, ask them to notice tightness in their shoulders, clinching in their stomach or shallow breathing. After bringing attention to the areas of tension or discomfort, shift their awareness back to a place of safety or ease in the body such as their hands, or maybe it's their feet or a grounding sensation. This back and forth movement between tension and safety helps release, stored energy. Gradually. Continue to emphasize that this process is slow and gentle. There's no need to dive deeply into difficult sensations right away, moving between activation and safety. Prevents overwhelm and allows the body to release stored energy at its own pace. The next technique is tracking sensations. Ask students to track or notice physical sensations in their body as they arise. They might feel heat. Tingling. Tightness or softness. Encourage them to observe these sensations with curiosity and without judgment. Ask students to track their sensations. They might notice changes such as a release of tension or a sense of lightness. These shifts often indicate that the body is discharging, stored energy. Remind students again, that they are in control of this process. If any sensation feels too intense. They can shift their awareness to something more neutral or pleasant. Allow discharge as students become more attuned to their bodily sensations, they may experience spontaneous movements such as shaking, trembling, or deep sighing. These are natural ways. The body releases stored trauma energy. Encourage students to allow these movements or discharges to happen without trying to stop them. Reassure them that this is the body's way of completing unfinished survival responses. You might even explain that these discharges are a positive sign of the body releasing trauma and restoring balance to the nervous system. After working with sensations, guide students back to a state of calm and grounding, ask them to once again, focus on safe, neutral, or pleasant sensations in their body and invite them to take deep breaths. Wiggle their fingers and toes and bring awareness back to the present moment. Allow time for students to process. What they've experienced. Ask them to notice how they feel now compared to the beginning of the session and highlight any shifts or changes. If you're interested in learning more about somatics and teaching its principles in your classes or with your private clients. I suggest looking into becoming a somatic experiencing practitioner. There are trainings available and they typically take a number of years, usually around three to four to complete. As you can tell from the examples I've given you today. Yoga nidra, body scan, meditation, Vegas nerve stimulation, exercises, and somatic experiencing. They all require slowing down. intentionality and practicing awareness in one's own self. You as their yoga teacher can help them on this path of inquiry and discovery. It is my firm belief that yoga should be taught to help students learn more about themselves, which includes mindfulness practices as well. My hope is that we can get off the spinning wheel of excessive power yoga classes. Sequences and poses that are unattainable for most people and this pumping grind mentality, where if you're not sore or sweating, like crazy after class, then you haven't even worked out. And on to more mindful yoga practice that sues and supports healthy, nervous system regulation. Whether you teach group classes or work with private clients, it's always good to have various techniques to help them manage pain. And compliment their existing treatments with their health professionals Each one of these can easily be added to your classes and private sessions. So please try them out and I'd love it if you shared with me your outcomes and if you're okay with it, if you have a question about one of these techniques or how to incorporate them, ask it, and I'll answer it on a future episode, that would be fun. And I would love to do that. I truly enjoy talking about pain, pain, science, and recovery strategies. And I want all teachers of movement to understand how a working knowledge of it can enhance your teaching. We don't talk about pain and injuries enough in the yoga world. And if we're teachers of movement, we need an understanding of it. I hope that this episode sparks some deeper thought around why understanding pain, relief strategies. Are so important as a movement educator. I've added a link in the show notes for you to send me a text message about your thoughts on this episode or any other, I won't know your phone number. It's just an addition to the platform that I use that allows for this new and easy way for you to communicate with me. Once you click on it, it will take you to your messages. Don't delete the code. That's how your message will get to me. And I would love to know your thoughts on this topic. I love diving into these conversations because there are so many important discussions to be had in the teaching world. You know that my goal is for you to love the yoga teaching life and allow it to be fulfilling and rewarding. And sometimes it takes some work and a few conversations to get there. If you love this episode, let me know. Subscribe to the podcast. So you're always in the know when a new episode drops. And share it with another yoga teacher Who you think would love to be in on these conversations? Thank you for helping to spread the word about this podcast. If you've been taking notes in your journal, as you listen to these episodes, I'm so glad you are. And I'd love to hear about it. Finally, don't forget to join my newsletter. That's just for yoga teachers. I've got some exciting teachings coming soon, and I want to tell you all about them. The link is in the show notes below, and I would love for you to join it so we can always stay. Connected. All right. That's it for now. Bye. Mhm.