How Stress Makes Us Ill

Published: 19 July 2023
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
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Categories: Brain Function, Hacking Your Nervous System, Handling Stress, Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic

Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic Functions of the Nervous System:

Our nervous system has 2 interweaving sides: excitatory and vegetative. The excitatory side takes care of emergencies and the vegetative rest and regeneration. When we are stuck in a chronic tension pattern from a past accident or incident or a prolonged period of unremitting stress our ability to heal ourselves is seriously impaired. A new client came in for a free neuromuscular assessment/consultation. She’d been such a hard driving producer that her whole nervous system collapsed into chronic fatigue and inability to heal. The result was systemic infections that wouldn’t heal. The antibiotics further destroyed her gut biome and compromised her ability to take nutrition out of her food. She put on weight and had no energy for exercise. The end point was extreme: bed ridden for 2 years, too weak to walk, with PTSD from all the attempted interventions. This sketch of her situation (many details have been left out) is a perfect description of the failure to thrive that is marked by a fixation in the sympathetic side of the nervous system.

What the Parasympathetic side of the Autonomic Nervous System does:

  • Meditation; enables you to reach states of at oneness.
  • Relaxation; the ability to calm the mind.
  • Digestion; secretion of enzymes and moving of the bowel
  • Restoration; the efficiency and priorities of our body’s cellular metabolism are directly affected by whether we are at ease or anxious
  • Sleep; the ability to access the deep sleep states of youth.
  • Cell regeneration; all the metabolic chemistry that is used in healing and making new tissue.

What the Sympathetic Nervous System does:

  • Constricts blood vessels; raises blood pressure
  • Shortens breath and limits it to the chest muscles
  • Contracts pupils and produces focused “tunnel vision”
  • Reverts to reactive responses based on past experience
  • Inhibits higher brain functions (conceptual, integrative, problem solving and creativity)
  • Suppresses immune response
  • Disintegrates learned, refined movements and smooth muscle tone (colon)
  • Produces physical awkwardness resulting in loss of self esteem
  • Difficulty focusing and concentrating
  • Difficulty falling or staying asleep or waking up still tired

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Chronic Stress creates Sympathetic Hyper-arousal or Hyper-vigilance.  Muscles are tight constantly in an overall hypertension ready for the need to fight, flight or freeze; always “at the ready.”
Areas expressive of the “the startle reflex” such as the back of the neck and elevation of the shoulders, sub-occipitals, eyes, low back, calf muscles, psoas and iliacus maintain the most tension.
The end result:
  • Chronic tension and pain in muscles, especially those expressive of the startle reflex
  • High levels of stress hormones and tension over time create high fluid levels in the tissue.
  • Stiff, sore muscles, poor circulation, taut, pale and thick skin
  • High fluid levels produce poor cellular nutrition, sluggish energy metabolism, poor recovery time from activity, and cell wall fragility.

We teach you how to shift your clients from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic in NeuroMuscular Reprogramming. NMR is a practical tool to include in your practice including and not limited to: physical therapists, massage therapists, physical trainers or movement educators. A new 4-part series to becoming a certified NMR therapist starts September 29th. Get 16.5% off when you sign up for all 4 classes! Sign up here.

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What Can be Done About Scoliosis?

Published: 27 April 2023
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
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Categories: General Interest

Scoliosis is often thought of as ‘C’ curves or ‘S’ curves in the spine. This is a 2- dimensional representation of the 3-dimensional shape of what is really happening.

Is Scoliosis a Genetic Predisposition?

Scoliosis is thought to be a genetic predisposition. But lots of people whose parents and grandparents don’t have Scoliosis develop this problem. The predisposition is in the length of the spine plus the stability of the supporting structures of muscle tone.  One can see why the development and discovery of Scoliosis is often during the growth spurt of the early teenage years.

Many people have the neuromuscular imbalances of a person with Scoliosis but they don’t develop the distinctive twisting and collapse of the spine.  However, as we age the torques/rotations in our body result in a loss of height.  Some of that is rotations and counter rotations in the spine, and the increased lordosis and kyphosis in the neck and ribcage.    (for more information click here for what can be done)

 

What Causes Scoliosis Patterns in Childhood

Typically there has been some kind of incident or accident that impacted the spine often as a young child.  Many of these incidents occur before or during the growth spurt of increased height/length during the transition from pubescence to adulthood when the bone growth outstrips the muscular strength to support them.  An impact to the spine that contains a lateral force vector can disable one of the big muscles pulling on the T/L junction for instance. These muscles may end up in a chronic spasm on one side, resulting in predictable inhibitions in other complementary muscles.  Now the spinal column is being pulled unevenly.  Being engaged in competitive sports during this period of life has its dangers.

Torsions at One Level of the Spine Affect Other Levels.

There are some logical transition points in rotational transitions, usually where the curves reverse:  SubOccipitals, the Cervical/Thoraco junction, the Thoraco/Lumbar junction, and even the L5/S1 junction. Changing what appears to be the primary rotational injury is seldom the end of the story.  All the rotations and counter rotations must be checked against one another.  This is taught in Advanced NMR for Scoliosis, scheduled August 2023, in Dallas, TX.

These rotational preferences are stored in the Cerebellum as movement and postural support strategies and produce predictable consequences in weakness and instability in joints far from the spine.

Many years of living with these unequal tensions results in layers of compensation as the body seeks stability. The problem becomes more complicated/complex as the years go by and boney changes begin to develop.

Unraveling Scoliosis

Scoliosis requires a detailed untangling of rotational imbalances in the whole postural support system of the body.  These changes in neuromuscular function can be accomplished at any age. Much of the pain that is associated with Scoliosis is neuromuscular in origin.  The body gives us pain messages when the muscles are not coordinating well.  Those pain messages are letting you know that something isn’t working right.

NeuroMuscular Reprogramming enables us to have a detailed conversation with the individual muscles impacting spinal support and movement, and to assist the body in reprogramming movement strategies for better support and stability.

Sympathetic Dominance

Published: 23 February 2023
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
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Categories: Brain Function, Hacking Your Nervous System, NMR Efficacy, On The Path, Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic

How do you know that someone is Sympathetic Nervous System Dominant?

There are lots of signs that you are Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) dominant: Muscle tics in the eye lids, rapid blinking of the eyes while responding to movement instructions, labored or quick breathing, chronic tension in muscles, especially those in the back/extensor side of the body, and cognitive delays in response to instructions just to name a few. A person with SNS dominance will apologize and tell you they did not understand what you wanted them to do.

 

How do you measure ‘Sympathetic Tone’?

I look for common clues that indicate problems with the fundamental coordination system such as the inability to rotate the T/L junction with reciprocal ease in both directions, cognitive confusion, orientation confusion such as not knowing the difference between right and left, looking confused or misunderstanding simple directional instructions, with 2 out of 3 reciprocal rotator functions ‘off’ or inhibited.

 

Signs that your client’s ParaSympathetic Nervous System (PNS) is coming back online:

Gurgles and squirts in the viscera; yawning; spontaneously swallowing, dropping into a sleep state instantaneously, twitching in peripheral muscles, softening of formerly tight muscles.

Why work so hard to get muscles to relax when you can just get the ANS (autonomic nervous system) to slow down? Sympathetic Dominance may be contributing to your client’s muscle tension and inhibiting corrections in stored movement patterns. Clients with Sympathetic Dominance need Brain Function Facilitation in order to shift into the ParaSympathetic.

 

From the NeuroMuscular Reprogramming Instagram.

How Do We Know if Someone Needs Brain Function Facilitation?

Published: 14 February 2023
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
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Categories: Brain Function, NMR Classes, NMR Efficacy, Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic

In my intake forms I look for signs of Multi-System Breakdown.

When there is a history of trauma and visceral or cognitive effects ongoing Sympathetic Dominance may be a contributing factor. For some people the hindrance is cognitive and for others it’s structural/functional and for others it has evolved into metabolic disturbances disrupting digestion, absorption, elimination, and healing.

40 plus years ago I studied Educational Kinesiology and have incorporated what I learned into my work with clients’ structural problems…

The inclusion of approaches to shift clients toward the Parasympathetic side of the nervous system is part of Mod 1 Intro to NeuroMuscular Reprogramming.

 

How Do We Shift a Client Toward the Parasympathetic?

Actually, it’s the clients who must do the work. I introduce a few breathing practices, and the incorporation of a couple of simple techniques from Educational Kinesiology which have become very popular with Chiropractors in the last decade as they choose to expand their clientele to work with kids who have cognitive processing problems.

NeuroMuscular Reprogramming NMR® incorporates some of the basics of Brain Function Facilitation and teaches it at a level that can make a big difference to clients progress toward their goals of reduced structural pain and improved ROM.

 

Lesson 1: First Important Consideration in Corrective Bodywork

 

Adrenal Stress Points

Published: 6 January 2023
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
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Categories: General Interest, Handling Stress, Self Help Techniques, Stress, Techniques

 

At Healus Neuro Rehab Center and in NeuroMuscular Reprogramming® we use a variety of relaxation techniques to calm the nervous system down, in order to facilitates the body’s ability to heal.

 

Triple Warmer

One of those stress points we call the “Triple Warmer”.

Have a family member or friend hold your adrenal points. Two reflex points will release your adrenal stress before you go to sleep, enabling you to sleep more readily and more deeply. Once your partner finds the points, no pressure is needed. Just touching and holding those points will bring the system to equilibrium and put you to sleep.

 

The Adrenal Stress Points:

The location of the first point is on our shoulder blade 1″ from the medial border nearest the spine, and 1″ down from the top edge of the bone. If you touch the blade with 2 to 3 fingers, you can’t miss it, as it will be tender to the touch upon pressure. The second point is halfway down the back of the hand, between the 3rd and 4th hand bones (ring and little finger). Hold the points for 1-3 minutes on each side of the body or until you feel pulsation under your fingertips.
With a little attention and regularity, these simple steps will have you sleeping through the night and awakening fully restored and rejuvenated.