Break Free From The Anxiety Spiral: Natural Techniques To Calm Your Nervous System in Minnetonka

Anxiety can feel overwhelming, like being stuck in a perpetual motion that goes nowhere. Much like rocking in a chair, you find yourself endlessly caught in spirals of worry and "what ifs." It's a cycle propelled by your nervous system, specifically when it's stuck in a sympathetic overdrive. In this post, Dr. Julia, founder of our Minnetonka MN chiropractic clinic, provides tangible techniques backed by neuroscience to help your body and brain break free from anxiety using a natural approach.

Understanding the Anxiety Cycle In Minnetonka MN

Your brain consists of two sides of the autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic, responsible for fight, flight, or freeze, and the parasympathetic, which promotes sleep, digestion, and relaxation. When anxiety strikes, it's likely that your nervous system is stuck in sympathetic overdrive, perceiving stress and releasing stress hormones in a feedback loop that reinforces anxious thoughts.

Breaking Free from the Anxiety Cycle

It’s not enough to simply change your thoughts; your body must also send clear signals of safety and ease to your brain. Here are some body-brain exercises to help:

1. The Curled Tongue Breathing Technique: To perform this exercise, curl your tongue and breathe in for four seconds. Hold the breath for four seconds, then exhale out your mouth for four seconds. This technique stimulates the vagus nerve and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping to calm your body.
2. Joint Squeezing For Calm: Squeezing your elbows, shoulders, knees, and hips provides proprioceptive input, sending calming signals from your body to your brain. This helps to ease the anxious sensations.
3. Cranial Nerve Sweep: Gently stroke your face starting above your eyebrows, down under your eyes, and along your chin. This action stimulates cranial nerves, triggering a calming effect in the nervous system.
4. Jaw Wiggle: Often, anxiety results in clenching the jaw. Take a moment to release this tension by gently wiggling your jaw.
5. Peripheral Vision Exercise: Move your eyes slowly from side to side, noticing your surroundings with your peripheral vision. This exercise helps shift your focus away from central visual lock, which occurs when your nervous system is in danger mode. By practicing peripheral vision, you signal safety to your brain.
6. Hand Rubbing: Rubbing your hands together promotes blood flow to your extremities. When in a sympathetic state, blood is redirected to central organs like the heart. Restoring circulation to your hands signals to your body that it’s safe, reducing anxiety.

Conclusion

When you combine these body techniques, you enable your nervous system to exit the anxiety spiral, returning to a state where logical thinking and new behaviors become possible. For a more balanced mind and body, regular practice of these exercises can empower you to break free from the rocking chair cycle of anxiety. If you found this content helpful and want a video explanation of all the techniques mentioned, follow this link to view a full video on our Youtube channel!