Tag: relaxation

Anxiety: Understanding the fact 🙌

by drjurisharma, posted in Life

Hello everyone ! Have a wonderful and safe day 🙋🏻

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“The best use of imagination is creativity, the worst use of imagination is anxiety”. Deepak Chopra.

Humans are the only species since evolution, who have the most evolved mind. They can undoubtedly imagine both constructively and destructively. So, it’s our thoughts alone which can make or break us.
Being anxious is having an uninvited guest into your house, which you are trying to avoid, but still, he refuses to leave.

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Anxiety is a state of mind, not a disease. Every day, we generate about 70,000 thoughts, out of which majority of them are negative and repetitive thoughts which do not serve any purpose. Thoughts are the main stimulator of our state of wellbeing. Whether you are physically healthy or not, thoughts are only instrumental which determines our state of wellbeing. It’s the day to day thoughts that creates our perceptual reality which we believe our real world. Hence, this is the hard truth that needs to be acknowledged by us.
It’s essential to educate ourselves that thoughts typically creates our reality. So, if we modify our thinking pattern or start creating empowering thoughts and beliefs, we can easily change the world around us.
Therefore, thoughts are so powerful that they can push you to the peak of physical and mental wellbeing or dumped you in the pit of depression and anxiety.

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So, how does anxiety builds up?
Out of 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts generated, every day, about 90% of them are just repetitive and negative thoughts. There is overthinking and rumination of the same type of thoughts. As the cycle continues, there is an alteration in the chemical makeup of the brain. Dopamine and serotonin, the mood regulators get depleted in the brain. The production of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) gets consumed, and slowly there is shrinkage in the size of the brain. When the cycle becomes vicious, and anxiety state becomes chronic. It started to interfere with daily activities. Such a state is regarded as an Anxiety disorder. As chronic stress get elevated and reaches the threshold, there are significant changes taking place in the brain.

Dr Joseph LeDoux New York University neuroscience.16ef.indd
Some noticeable changes are :
1. The more the brain is engaged in anxious thoughts, the more the ‘anxious neural pathways’ are strengthened.
2. The brain is stuck in the state of ‘high alert’, becomes more reactive to the stress receptors for possible threats which are mostly imaginary.
3. The fear centre in the brain becomes more prominent and more significant.
4.Not just the chemistry, but changes start appearing up to the DNA level in the brain.
5. Brain ageing process also fastens.
6. The circadian rhythm is disturbed, and the sleep cycle gets disrupted.

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Simple ways to get rid of the anxiety state :
1. Firstly, it is better to face the anxiety. More avoidance will lead to more exaggeration. So, visit your fears, and start being an observer. Being an observer of your mental state, create a sense of indifference, feels like you are different from your state of mind. You understand that the mind and body have created a false association to any external object or stimulant as the triggering factor.

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2. Diaphragmatic breathing: Long bouts of inhalations followed by long rounds of exhalation. The deep breathing technique: Like taking a prolonged deep breath of inhalation by counting 1-4, then, a pause of 1-4, followed by an exhalation of 1-4, then another break of 1-4, and the sequence continues. That is why this technique is known as four-square breathing. This slow and deep breathing causes the oxygen to reach your brain, and the parasympathetic nervous system gets activated. It can be an instant stress reliever.
3. Naming your anxiety is as expressing your state of mind to another person. Putting words, and explanation of your anxious thoughts will stimulate the frontal cortex. Your brain will be more attentive in the frontal cortex and deviated from the fear centre, which is responsible for the anxious state.

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4. Mindful and relaxation techniques like mindfulness, meditation, yoga, which all goes to help stimulate the parasympathetic system, which is for relaxation.

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5. Plant-based food is known to have a calming effect on the human mind.

Thanks for reading.

Blessings and much love to all 💐

Vagus Nerve: The wellbeing stimulator 🙌

by drjurisharma, posted in healing, health, Life, mental health, Science, wellness

Hello everyone! Have a wonderful day and stay safe 🙋🏻

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Vagus Nerve, is the body’s unique nerve which is by far the most important nerve to be stimulated in today’s time of crisis, threat, anxiety, innumerable stress, pain, tensions. Especially in times of crisis like this Coronavirus Pandemic where people are continuously under the anxiety and fear of falling sick, hospitalization, death.

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Anatomically, this is the 10th cranial nerve which starts in the brain and runs entirely throughout the body till the reproductive organs. Therefore the name ‘Vagus’ comes which means a wanderer which wander through every organ of the body. It is also the longest and most complex nerve. Just to simplify, it runs from the brain and branch as dorsal and ventral branches with numerous sub-branches running through both front and back of our body touching almost every organ.
But, why is this nerve so important when it comes to wellbeing ? The reason is that this particular nerve is the cynosure of Parasympathetic Nervous system, the ‘rest and digest’ stimulation or the relaxation of the body. It is this nerve which helps the body to self regulate and maintain the homeostasis. It is this nerve which maintains the brain-gut communication. The immune system is rejuvenated and work efficiently. There are the body’s recovery and healing.

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The Autonomic nervous system has 2 main areas:
Sympathetic Nervous system: This system is mainly responsible for mobilization, high energy state, vigilant state. So, the heart rate, blood pressure, alertness, breathing rate are increased. In such state, there is no energy left for growth, repair and regeneration.

Parasympathetic Nervous system: The vagus nerve is mainly responsible for this system. This is the ‘rest and digest’ state where the metabolism is optimized, heart rate lowers, breathing slows down, blood pressure lowers and the body is relaxed. There is a restoration of growth. repair and the immune system is regulated to it’s highest potential. The body is in recovery and the healing state from any damage that it went through.

Ideally, there is a balance of harmony between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Whenever, there is an alert state, a threat, there is an automatic switch-on of the sympathetic system. Once, the threat is gone, there is a switch-off of the sympathetic and parasympathetic system takes the centre-stage. But in today’s time, we, people are so caught up with the day to day stress, anxiety, fear, that throughout the day, the sympathetic system remains in action. There is hardly the switch off. As a result, there is less potential for growth, repair, regeneration, rejuvenation of the body. The immune system is compromised and we become susceptible to disease. Most of the time, or even during an entire lifetime, we remain stuck in the high tone state which is not good for the body at all. We, end up, suffering from various chronic conditions and diseases. Therefore, it’s high time that we realise this default habit in our system and start taking measures to activate the Vagus Nerve (parasympathetic) tone daily for our overall wellbeing.

There are various ways by which the Vagus Nerve get stimulated to maintain the calm relaxed state:

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1.Social connection: The ventral vagus branch is mainly stimulated by social connection and engagement. By keeping ourselves connected to loved ones, people around with positive emotions like love, gratitude, joy, empathy and compassion, there is the self-regulation of the body-mind connection and the homeostasis is maintained.

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2.Deep breathing: Baroreceptors present in the heart and upper body around the neck get stimulated by slow deep breathing. Therefore, regulating the breath with slow deep cycles of breaths can instantly stimulate the vagus and lowers the heart rate and blood pressure bringing the vitals to a relaxed state. There are different breathing exercises like the Pranayama in yoga, Win Hoff method and other helpful breathing techniques.If you want to learn more about diaphargmatic breathing, you can listen and understand from audio CD of Dr Andrew Weil

3.Meditation: Meditation and deep relaxation can naturally put our body in the parasympathetic tone. Chanting or humming words, mantras can directly stimulate the Vagus nerve. The singing and chanting in the chorus (like the choir in Church), can increase the heart variability rate and naturally causes relaxation waves in the body. Prayers are highly effective in increasing heart variability rate and maintaining calmness.

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4. Cold exposure: Exposing the body to cold like cold water shower, splashing cold water in the face, drinking ice cold water, sudden cold exposure can naturally stimulate the Vagus Nerve.
5.Message: Having messages like a foot, hand, neck messages along the carotid arteries can naturally stimulate the Vagus Nerve. It also lowers heart and blood pressure.
6.Gargling: This is a simple technique where the muscles of the pallet are stimulated by gargling which inturn stimulates Vagus nerve instantly.

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7.Exercises: Usually mild low-intensity exercises like stretching, Yoga, Tai Chi stimulate and improves the brain-gut axis and helps in relaxation. High intense training should always be done in short intervals followed by relaxation so that the body learns to fluctuate from sympathetic to parasympathetic tone in a quick recovery state.

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8. Food rich in omega 3 fatty acids and probiotics, fermented food can naturally stimulate the gut which in turn stimulate the gut-brain axis.

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9. Music: Relaxation and listening to the music of your choice can naturally increase the heart variability rate, gives your pleasure, joy which enhances immunity and stimulate the Vagus Nerve.
10. Intermittent Fasting: Intermittent fasting provide the much-needed break, the rest to the digestive process. The metabolism slows down and improves the vagus nerve activity.

Thanks for reading.

Blessings and much love to all 💐

Post : Are genes linked to stress ? 4 points of clarifications.

by drjurisharma, posted in healing, health, mental health, Science, wellness

Some 50 – 80 years ago, people rarely used the word “stress”. Maybe the word was just another word in the dictionary whose meaning had the least relevance in their lives. But, today, it is the most common widely used word in every individual’s life.

Today, everywhere, you go, stress can follow you. At home, at the office, stuck in traffic, getting late and the list goes on. Therefore, the most common causes of stress in people’s lives nowadays.

Relationship stress.
Financial stress.
Workplace stress.
Health concerns.
Daily chorus stress.

4 points of clarifications as to how genes are linked to stress.

1.Genetical predisposition: Often seen, some people tend to battle more with day to day stress than some other people. So, how are genes related to our body’s psychological response? Genes produce proteins which influences our body’s reactions to different psychological responses and, stress being one of them. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), are tiny differences in the genes which affect the release of hormones and proteins in the body and determine the psychological responses. This is a reason, different people react differently and have a different level of stress for the same particular situation.

2.COMT gene: Catechol – O– methyltransferase is an enzyme which causes the body to break the stress hormones like epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine. Epinephrine and epinephrine are hormones produces during extreme stress, under fight and flight response whereas dopamine is feel good (reward) hormone which also function as a neurotransmitter. So depending on which version of the COMT gene you have, your genotype can be a :

Warrior gene: Those who perform well under stress or under pressure.

Strategic gene: Those whose performance suffers during stress but performs well in calm situations.
Combination of both: Those who are quite in between.

3.BDNF ( brain-derived neurotrophic factor): BDNF normally function as protecting and creating new neurons, strengthening the signals between neurons. As far as stress is concerned, this protein acts as a resilience factor. This helps you to tolerate and resist the stressful situation and can still act and make you perform without affecting your health and wellbeing.

4.Managing stress level: This is the most important part of this topic. So how do we manage stress level? Depending upon, genetic predisposition, you may be the either high or low level of stress resilience. So, easy steps to handle routine stress are:
Breathing/relaxation: Deep breathing is a simple step that can be effective to control stress. Because, when you breathe deep, this makes the brain to relax and calm down.
Exercise: When you exercise, your body releases endorphins, your body enters the feel-good phase. 2 types of endorphins: Anandamide and serotonin.

Exercise increases your level of anandamide which helps the body to produce BDNF which in turn helps to regulate stress.
Serotonin is a feel-good chemical which makes you happy, motivated which can be boosted by exercise, walking, running or any physical activity which you enjoy doing. When serotonin is level is maintained, stress is less likely to occur.