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 when you face stressors and demands.

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 blend of two states of the nervous system: 

1. The sympathetic nervous system (this energy is mobilising, increasing metabolic output), and
2. The ventral branch of the vagus nerve and the social engagement system (this brings a feeling of safety, and allows for connection)

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 a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. You may feel exhausted and lack motivation. Being stuck in these states is what leads to nervous system dysregulation.

Using play as a neural exercise teaches your nervous system to apply the "vagal brake" and down-regulate your nervous system You can also use play to add mobilising energy and up-regulate it when you feel flat 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 your nervous system is regulated by the vagus nerve.

Neural exercises like play are a powerful antidote to nervous system dysregulation and helping your nervous system recover from chronic and traumatic stress. They're like doing bicep curls for your vagus nerve. 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.

REFLECTION:

• 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 in the two hour Vagus Nerve Masterclass. You'll leave with a tool-kit of neural exercises that help to re-regulate your nervous system. You'll receive a recording of the Masterclass, a video tutorial and guided audios.