Sometimes, every so often – in a very rare event, I’ll talk about up-regulation of the autonomic nervous system.
This is one of those times.
Today I was walking in the park and decided to see if I still had a back tuck (back “flip”). I haven’t done this movement in months and I am not particularly comfortable with it.
It’s a little scary for me!
So, because the priority is to “prime” the nervous system and make sure that I “rotate” enough in the movement, I used some “tools” to up-regulate the autonomic nervous system. I thought I’d share them.
(I also would use these before a heavy lift, or any time when I needed to extract that little bit extra out of the body.)
When the movements are at the end range like this, we can benefit from the sympathetic state.
Here are some tools that will help “excite” the nervous system.
– Tongue/mouth exercises – “clicking,” activate jaw (difficult to describe in writing)
– Grip clenching into fists
– Widen eyes and zoom FOCUS inwards/closer
– Mouth breathing and hyper ventilation
– Visualisation of the movement prior
– If I had music I would’ve used that also as it is a powerful one
The main thing though is you are going to be able to UP-regulate to a greater extent as you have more awareness and flexibility of the autonomic system as a whole (I.e learn to DOWN-regulate better too).
When we up-regulate, we do tend to create tension and stress in the body.
While this might be needed for the movement/task, when it becomes chronic we then have the problem.
