Stress is a woman’s worst enemy. Our ‘fight or flight’ state is activated during stress, causing our adrenal glands to release adrenaline, a hormone which activates our body's defense mechanisms. This causes our hearts to pound, our blood pressure to rise, our muscles to tense and the pupils of our eyes to dilate.
It is not natural for a woman’s body to be in a constant or chronic (ongoing) ‘fight or flight’ state. A woman’s body is designed to be in a naturally calm, connecting and loving state, with only the occasional stress due to very real threats, like predators or physical danger. That’s the normal state of the parasympathetic system. By design a woman’s body is also hard-wired to produce more Oxytocin (the hormone of love and connection), and not adrenaline (the stress hormone).
What kind of problems do women have as a result of over-active ‘fight or flight’ activation?
It probably wouldn’t be an overestimation to say that most women’s health illnesses and conditions are somehow connected to stress either directly or indirectly. Stress is a contributing factor in everything from a simple backache and insomnia, to cancer and heart attack. Other stress-related women’s health problems are:
- Acid Peptic Disease
- Alcoholism
- Asthma
- Fatigue
- Tension headache
- Hypertension
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Ischemic heart disease
- Infertility
- Psychoneuroses (depression, anxiety, OCD, phobias etc.)
- Pregnancy problems
- Sexual dysfunction
- Skin diseases like Psoriasis, Lichen planus, Urticaria, Pruritus, Neurodermatitis, etc.
- Eating disorders
- Basically, any illness (including infections) is somehow linked to stress directly or indirectly.
- Also, unwanted “flight or fight” response is a common cause of:
- Relationship and marriage breakdowns
- Business failures
- Job problems
- Financial difficulties
- Failure to succeed at any endeavours
As women we can only be strong, resilient and efficient when we are in a connecting and loving physiological state and produce more Oxytocin (not Adrenaline).
Loving and connecting state of being is the key to health and personal blossoming.
A “loving and connecting state” is an Oxytocin state, that time when a woman’s body releases Oxytocin.
As modern women we feel content, happy and healthy when we follow our purpose, make contributions and create a difference in our lives and in the lives of others. So it is important that we allow ourselves to understand this new paradigm.
To become a healthy, purposeful and prosperous woman we must learn to be in a calm, yet connected, physiological state. This is the state when we can think clearly, connecting intuitively to other people and the particular situations we are dealing with at the time. This state can be achieved by the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system and the most critically important nerve in the entire system—the Vagus nerve.
The Vagus nerve is the nerve or pathway that allows us to come out of our ‘fight, flight and freeze” state, into a state of “calmness and connectivity.”
Vagal pathway activation makes us feel grounded and relaxed. We don’t feel like we are running too fast or trying to chase something, like a goal or result that exhausts us. Stress takes us out of experiencing the moment; the Vagus nerve helps us stay in the moment. It is also good because we don’t feel like we are just doing, doing, doing and not being in the flow.
But the most important part of Vagal pathway activation is the connected part. The connected part makes us, as women, feel connected with who we are. This connection occurs on many different levels. We feel connected viscerally. We feel connected intuitively. We feel connected emotionally; many women feel connected spiritually and, of course, mentally. All of that contributes to a bigger sense of magnetism, beauty and health.
So now I’m going to share with you some really important components of the Vagus nerve and the Vagal pathway. Before we do that, let us go ahead and allow an oxy-breath. If this is your first time, you can follow along with the instructions I will be giving you. You can also watch the video.
Oxy-breath instructions (to release Oxytocin, to activate Vagal pathway).
- Relax your shoulders.
- Imagine a thread pulling the top of your head towards the ceiling so your posture is nice and enhanced, but not rigid.
- Sit on a chair, or stand comfortably.
- Put feet shoulder-width apart, arms resting on your thighs with your hands facing upward.
- Relax your jaw. Relax your jaw muscles too.
- Relax your tongue and allow a deep breath in. Now notice it is not ‘take’ in a deep breath, it is ‘allow’ a deep breath. When you take a deep breath your chest rises, which is actually a more sympathetic type of breath, and it activates the sympathetic nerve that is going to produce more adrenalin.
When you allow a deep breath, it is calmer, it is deeper and your belly swells up and out. So we want your belly coming forward, not your chest. So, allow a deep breath.
And now—with a little smile on your face, your eyes relaxed, your gaze relaxed—you are going to exhale with a pleasurable sound of a ‘ha’ (h-a). And you’re going to allow your ‘ha,’ or your exhale, to be slow. This is really important. Exhale slowly and exhale much slower than you inhale. You can inhale for the oxy-breath at a regular rate. You can exhale much slower, with a ‘ha’ sound. The sound and feeling of a component of pleasure must be there also.
Why is it important that a component of pleasure is there? This is because your hypothalamus will pick up on the vibration of pleasure and realize that you are not in a ‘fight or flight’ mode. You cannot be running away or fighting if you are in a state of pleasure. Or, in other words, you simply cannot be in a state of pleasure if you are running away or hiding.
It’s going to sound like this: Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
See the video, which shows you step by step how to perform an Oxy-breath.
How does the Oxy-breath work?
The Oxy-breath works because it switches your body away from the parasympathetic system and activates Vagal pathways.
Why and how does that happen?
When you have a little bit of a smile on your face you’re telling your hypothalamus “I’m not in ‘fight,’ I’m not in ‘flight,’ I’m not in ‘freeze.’’’ So, it’s going to switch you away from the sympathetic system (fight or flight) to the parasympathetic system (rest and relax mode).
It also will activate your Vagal pathway. When your Vagus nerve gets activated, then you have a connection between your belly and your emotional brain, which is really the essence of mind-body connection, because the Vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body. It connects to the core of the brain. The core of the brain is the emotional brain. It’s called the limbic system and it is where your emotions are. The outside layers of the brain are responsible for our thinking and logic (the cognitive brain).
So, the vagus nerve will connect the core of the emotional brain (limbic system) and come down with the huge pathway of nerves. It’s not one nerve; it’s a pathway of nerves. Below the belly button it gets divided into millions and millions, if not billions, of nerve endings. So, by vibrating the Vagus nerve with the loud sound Haaaaa, you activate the nerve endings in the belly. This gives you the connection with your emotional centres in the brain, which is why we intuitively say, “I had a gut feeling,” because we are thinking in our belly. By activating the Vagus nerve, we become more intuitive as well.
Three different components of the Vagal pathway activation, and its benefits.
The first component is the breath itself. We talked about it earlier. Now, it’s really important that you can hear the exhale. When you hear it, your auditory system is hearing the sound of the exhale. It’s called “acoustic stimulation.” It’s going to stimulate you in a way that says, “I am calm and connected.” So, it’s actually a bonus to be able to hear your own exhale. It contributes to the Vagal pathway on a bigger level.
The breath itself, the pleasure, the slow exhale, shoulders, jaw and tongue relaxed, and a smile with a nice pleasurable exhale and a relaxed gaze all contribute to the stimulation of Vagal pathways and put you in a “clam and connected” state.
The second component of Vagal pathway activation is the voice component.
One of the ways you can activate your Vagal pathway on a daily basis is by having a melodic voice. Now, I don’t mean you should walk around talking pretentiously.
But you do want to have a little bit of pleasure and melody in the sound of your voice, because the sound of your voice, when you speak, will tell your hypothalamus what state you are in.
What’s important is not what you say, but how you say it. It is in the music that you say it with. The music of your voice affects not only you, but other people as well. Now, I’m going to talk about it in the context of the Vagal pathway. You want your voice to have a pleasurable component to it, because when you hear it yourself, you are telling your hypothalamus whether you are in a defensive mode, which could be related to ‘fight-flight,’ or you are in a connected mode, which is related to the Vagus nerve and Oxytocin and the Vagal pathway and the parasympathetic nervous system.
So, if you are talking to someone you have to be aware of this all the time. Just allow yourself to do that. Don’t force or control yourself— allow yourself to be in a calm and connective state. Don’t seek perfection in this—this is a continuous journey of excellence, because we live in a reactive world. And so, on a daily basis, you are going to have a variety of things making you reactive.
The third component of Vagal activation is the gaze component. That is the way your eyes feel. When you adjust your gaze try to imagine a thread pulling your eyebrows out and away from you.
It is just like an imaginary thread just pulling nice and gently. And, as it pulls it, you can’t help but allow the muscles of your forehead to relax. The muscles around your brows are relaxing. So, feel it extending outwards. Do the same thing on the right and left sides.
Achieving Oxytocin state.
Breath, voice and gaze are the three most important components which will put you in a loving-connecting state (Oxytocin state) because when you do that, you actually tell your hypothalamus to go ahead and be in a state of visceral safety.
Many women tend look for safety on the outside. They tend to look for safety in a relationship. They want that sense of safety to be brought to them by a man, or someone else that they are in a relationship with. Many women tend to look for safety in their job or business as well.
But when you look for safety on the outside, you tell your hypothalamus that you are on the defense, and that puts you into a defensive physiological state on the inside. Looking for safety on the outside tells your hypothalamus to activate your sympathetic system, your adrenalin system of ‘fight-flight.’
You can change that. By paying attention to your breath, by paying attention to your voice, and by paying attention to your gaze, you can activate your Vagal pathway.
So breath, voice and gaze are the three most important components for putting you into a loving-connecting state (Oxytocin state). Try to be angry or anxious when you do the Oxy-breath every day. Try to be anxious when you speak with a natural calm voice and have a physiological gaze. You can’t.
If you start watching yourself and implement all the three components regularly, your physiological state changes. You will become healthy, more connected, focused, relaxed and natural. |
