Did you know that play improves the tone of your vagus nerve?
Play positively impacts on your nervous system by improving your inner resilience and self-regulation. It’s a powerful way to exercise your vagal brake, which keeps you calm and balanced.
The need for play doesn’t end in your childhood. It continues to shape your body and brain as an adult, and it’s something you can cultivate more to help your nervous system respond well to daily stressors.
Research has shown that without play, adults are less curious, less imaginative and can lose a sense of joyful engagement in daily living (Brown et al, 2009).
The biological make-up of play is a blend of two states of the nervous system: 1. The sympathetic nervous system (this energy is mobilising, exciting), and 2. The ventral vagal state (this brings a feeling of safety, calmness and security)
Chronic and traumatic stress can lead to you being stuck in the sympathetic nervous system leading to anxiety, irritation and an inability to switch off. Or you may get stuck in a state of disconnection where you feel flat and there’s a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Being stuck in these states is what leads to nervous system dysregulation.
Using play as a neural exercise teaches your nervous system to apply to the branch of the vagus nerve known as the “vagal brake”, and will down-regulate your nervous system. You can also use play to add mobilising energy and up-regulate it when you feel flat and depressed. The ability to attune to your state and calm your physiology, or bring it up, is what makes you more flexible and adaptable as you face challenges and conflict. You don’t get stuck in anxiety or shut-down for long periods of time.
Play improves your emotional health, as well as your psychological and physical well-being. You’re not spending long periods of time in survival mode which takes its toll on your mind-body system. You can feel your emotions and physiology being mobilised by the energy of the sympathetic nervous system, but you don’t have to move into fight-flight-freeze and release their associated stress hormones because you have access to a state of safety from the vagus nerve.
Neural exercises are a powerful antidote to nervous system dysregulation and helping your nervous system recover from chronic and traumatic stress. You reduce the emotional, physical and psychological suffering that can come from being stuck in the fight-flight energy of the sympathetic nervous system and the immobilising energy that can bring apathy and shutdown.
Who brings out your playful side?
What activities feel like play to you?
What activities add energy and excitement to your nervous system?
Where are you your most playful?
Learn more about the blended states of the nervous system and how to engage the vagus nerve in the Vagus Nerve Masterclass starting soon.