Welcome to Grounded Wellness, your go to podcast for
simplified and trusted information on how to live a
more non-toxic and holistic life.
We're your hosts. I'm Bethany McDaniel, founder of
Primarily Pure biohacking enthusiast and mom of three.
And I'm Courtney O'Connor, holistic esthetician with over
15 years experience in the healing power of touch and
holistic skin care rituals. Let's dig in.
Hello, welcome to Grounded Wellness.
I'm Courtney Primary, Paris holistic aesthetician.
This isn't a common conversation in the skin Care World, but the
nervous system is intricately connected to the state of your
skin. Today I'm so excited to
highlight the importance of the nervous system and how
reconnecting with your body's command center can be a catalyst
for skin healing. The nervous system is an
intricate and highly intelligent system within the body that
helps you process and regulate stress, and stress is a huge
precursor to inflammation, and inflammation is at the root of
almost every skin condition or disease within the body.
I believe that many skin conditions we experience are
more connected to the internal state of our nervous system than
the external state of our skin. With a little bit of context and
how to, you'll discover how healing from chronic stress and
the skin conditions that accompany it can start with
simple practices that support your parasympathetic nervous
system. And when you learn to activate
this rest and digest phase, healing happens here and it
begins to multiply. Today we are taking a deeper
look at how you can support your nervous system and discover its
ripple effect for your skin health.
There are so many tips I'm excited to share so that you can
begin to regulate the system and reveal healthier skin from the
inside out. It all begins with this
awareness of the inner outer connection, this mind body
connection, and to help you experience the rest and
restoration and glowing skin that you were designed for,
let's dig in. So the nervous system is the
body's command center made-up of your brain, your spinal cord,
and a network of nerves. So let's break it down a bit.
Your nervous system has 2 main components, the central nervous
system and the peripheral nervous system.
So I like to think of our nervous system as a tree and the
central nervous system is the trunk which is your spinal cord
and your brain and the peripheral nervous system are
like the branches which are this these network of nerves.
And further breaking down the peripheral nervous system, it
also contains 2 main components, your somatic nervous system or
your voluntary movements and your autonomic nervous system,
which are your involuntary activities.
And this is where we're going to focus a lot of our time today
because as we learn to tune into this undercurrent of the body,
we are able to reset and heal from the inside out.
Then looking at the autonomic nervous system even further,
this is also broken down into two components, the sympathetic
nervous system, which is known as the fight or flight system
and the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest or digest
phase. And I like to consider the
sympathetic nervous system as surviving and the
parasympathetic nervous system as thriving.
Before we get into how to activate this rest and digest
phase, I want to talk about each aspect of the autonomic nervous
system. This context gives us insight
into how the state of our mind, body and soul truly are all
connected, including your skin, the sympathetic nervous system,
or your flight fight phase is activated.
In a state of stress or perceived threat, survival truly
becomes the only priority. Cortisol levels rise, heart rate
increases, and cellular repair is disrupted.
Energy is diverted from regulating processes like
digestion and cognitive function, social connection and
skin healing. The whole priority of this state
of your nervous system is survival and to compensate for
this heightened sense of panic it's experiencing.
While this system serves our bodies and helps us survive life
threatening events, too often we find ourselves in the state of
chronic compounding stress due to our fast-paced Society of
hustle, hurry, and even harmful ingredients on our plate and in
our products. Our bodies were not designed to
sustain prolonged sympathetic activation and it can be
depleting and even dangerous to our health if we remain in this
dysregulated state. So now let's talk about the
sympathetic nervous system and skin connection.
An overwhelming number of circumstances can cause the body
and brain to remain in this fight or flight mode, inhibiting
the skin's ability to repair and regenerate.
Stress from lack of sleep, financial struggles, physical
sickness, even final exams, job interviews, relational turmoil
or trauma can all stimulate the sympathetic nervous system,
triggering cascade of emotions like worry, fear, anxiety and
anger and inflammatory skin conditions like eczema,
psoriasis, dermatitis and acne. As a holistic aesthetician, I
actually deeply believe that chronic stress and too much
activation of the sympathetic nervous system is the number one
cause of premature aging. Not sun damage, which is an
unpopular opinion I know, but living with this overactive
sympathetic nervous system truly has a detrimental effect on the
skin. It disrupts skin barrier
function, impacting lipid ratios and trans epidermal water loss,
leading to dry, flaky skin. And as we know, aging is simply
drying out. It also impacts fibroblast and
collagen production, leading to less firmness and elasticity.
It also exacerbates inflammatory skin conditions like psoriasis,
eczema, and acne. It impairs wound healing.
It constricts blood vessels and decreases circulation.
It contributes to tense or rigid muscles, which also inhibits
flow of lymphatic fluid, and it increases melanin production and
pigmentation. So healing the skin begins by
sedating the sympathetic nervous system and promoting a
parasympathetic regulation. The body is innately designed to
heal, it just needs the proper support and space to support the
parasympathetic response. This rest and digest mode helps
to maintain balance and homeostasis within the body.
Body temperature cools, heart rate slows down, and our bodies
enter a more relaxed, resilient and less reactive state.
Energy returns to regulate processes like digestion and
cognitive function, relational connection, and skin healing.
It prioritizes repair and health and homeostasis, while also
enhancing feelings of safety, peace, connection, and clarity.
To engage the parasympathetic nervous system and to begin to
truly heal your skin, it's essential to give the nervous
system signals of safety so that it can reset to a state of rest.
And the most effective way to send these signals is through
the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve has gotten a bit
more attention in the Wellness world, but if you're unfamiliar
with this vital part of your nervous system, it is about to
change your life and of course, your skin.
The main component of the parasympathetic nervous system
is the vagus nerve. It's essentially like this chill
out button for your body and it has a direct link to the
parasympathetic system. It controls the mind, body
connection and plays an integral and integrative part in the
body's ability to self heal. It helps relax the body after
experiencing stress, overstimulation, or danger,
moving from fight or flight to rest and digest.
It is the longest cranial nerve in the body and contains 3/4 of
the tissue in the parasympathetic nervous system
traveling from the brain all the way down to the digestive tract.
This is also known as the gut brain axis, and it connects to
almost every vital organ within the body.
The vagus nerve regulates many of the body's main functions
like heart rate, immunity, digestion, blood pressure, mood,
inflammation, and overall homeostasis.
Poor vagal nerve function can contribute to a variety of
health issues, including digestive disorders, sleep
disruption, fatigue, and feelings of anxiety.
So engaging the parasympathetic nervous system by stimulating
the vagus nerve returns the autonomic nervous system to a
regulated state, slowing the heart rate, reducing emotional
stress, and lowering inflammation levels.
Many holistic doctors reference vagal tone.
It's similar to muscle tone, so it can actually build over time
and essentially is the health status of your vagus nerve.
So vagal tone is connected to our capacity to regulate our
stress response and it contributes to more resilient
health in body and mind. So higher vagal tone equals a
healthier internal world and of course, healthier skin.
Now let's unpack some practical ways that you can strengthen
your vagus nerve for vibrant skin.
Vagus nerve exercises are practices that kick start your
parasympathetic nervous system and they help your brain and
body enter a state of rest and calm.
So first is one of the easiest practices that you can implement
and it's deep breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing or belly
breathing actually massages your internal organs and has a
profound and immediate effect on your nervous system.
And this is a practice that is so beautiful because you can do
it at any time, anywhere. We can even do it right now
together. So place your hand on your belly
and as you inhale you should feel your belly expand like a
balloon, and as you exhale you should feel it deflate and lower
towards your spine. To stimulate the vagus nerve
even further, exhale twice as long as you inhale.
So inhaling for a count of four and exhaling for a count of
eight with your belly on your hand and feeling it expand,
breathing in for four. And exhaling for 8 as your belly
contracts towards your spine. So a way I like to easily
remember this practice of an extended exhale is because often
we can find ourselves if we're stressed or scared, we have that
short, shallow gasp like that inhale that's super quick and
sharp. So that inhale is linked to the
sympathetic nervous system. However, when you're feeling
relaxed or you're unwinding or settling into a comfortable
space, we let out this soft sigh and this extended exhale, and
this exhale is linked to the parasympathetic nervous system.
The next vagus nerve practice that you can implement is
meditation and mindfulness. So studies have shown that this
practice has a direct connection to the vagus nerve because it
naturally causes your breathing to slow, your heart rate to
decrease, and it activates a relaxed state more
intentionally. You can easily download one of
the many apps available on your phone to guide you in a
meditation practice, or you can also just take 5 minutes in the
morning to sit in stillness and begin to build resiliency for
the day ahead. So the next one is by far my
favorite as a holistic aesthetician, and that is
massage. So the most incredible yet
overlooked aspect of your nervous system is that we have a
direct link through touch. When we touch our skin, we are
touching our nervous system. Touch also stimulates oxytocin,
which is the antidote to the stress hormone cortisol.
Facial tools like guashaw, cupping and dry brushing are
also easy, effective ways to help to regulate your nervous
system. Rhythmic movements and somatic
practices like massage, especially when you're massaging
your shoulders, neck, ears, or scalp, can stimulate your vagus
nerve even without any facial tools.
Here is a simple massage and stretch that you can do at any
time from anywhere to help to activate your parasympathetic
nervous system. For this vagus nerve massage,
simply tilt your head to the side, lowering your ear towards
your shoulder, feeling that nice stretch on the side of your
neck. And I like to take my opposite
hand and applying a bit of pressure on the opposite
shoulder, enhancing that stretch.
And to further activate the vagus nerve, twist your head,
looking down to your shoulder while still holding the stretch,
and then twisting your head to look up to the sky and holding
and repeating for as long as it feels good.
And then alternating to the other side, tilting the opposite
ear to the other shoulder, using the opposite hand to apply a bit
of pressure on the shoulder, and then twisting your gaze down to
your shoulder and then up to the sky.
And again doing that for as long and as often as it feels good.
And then coming up for a simple ear massage.
This ear massage is everything. I always include an ear massage
in my facial treatments. And if I just need a little
reset, the ear massage makes an immediate shift in how I feel.
So massaging the outer rim of the ear, you can even tug a
little bit up, tug out and tug down and then moving to the
inner area of the ear and actually massaging your ear in a
Figure 8 motion, the Infinity sign.
This really helps to engage your parasympathetic nervous system.
And then coming up above the ear, beginning to massage into
the scalp. And there's really no rhyme or
reason here. It's quite intuitive and just
tuning in to discover what feels the most supportive.
And that is a simple 62nd Vegas nerve massage that you can
implement at any point during your day just for that exhale
and reset. The next vagus nerve exercise
that you can implement into your day-to-day is aromatherapy.
So essential oils derived from plants contain positive and
immediate benefits to support your nervous system.
It has a beneficial impact on your emotional body and your
mental processes. And I find we can often when we
just take that inhalation of an aromatherapy oil, we can feel
that immediate sense of calm and rest within our bodies.
A few of my favorite oils for aromatherapy are lavender, blue
tansy, geranium, neroli, and frankincense.
Next is vocal cord vibration. So any activity that it
initiates your vocal cords or your vocal box, like a gargling
water or humming or singing, has a beneficial impact on your
vagus nerve. So singing along to your
favorite song in the car, or humming along while you're doing
dishes or cleaning the house, or gargling when you grab your
water bottle midday can have a profound effect on your nervous
system. Next is sound therapy.
Research has shown that listening to soothing music has
a profound impact on our nervous system, leading to positive
physiological benefits. Next is hydrotherapy.
Harness the healing powers of hydrotherapy by taking a cold
shower which reduces your heart rate to preserve oxygen and it
activates your parasympathetic nervous system.
You can also draw a warm foot soak or a hot bath with minerals
and essential oils to enhance proper vagal nerve function as
well. And lastly, stress relieving
practices. So set aside time to prioritize
stress relieving practices that serve you personally, whether
it's coloring or gardening, journaling or simply sitting and
just staring at the ocean. Whatever brings you joy with no
agenda. This is a simple place to start
to prioritize the health of your vagus nerve and your
parasympathetic nervous system. And over time, you'll begin to
see how it builds resiliency and helps to resolve long standing
conditions in your skin. Clearly, we have a powerful role
in regulating our own nervous systems.
Yet we can also play a role in regulating the nervous system of
others. This is called Co regulation.
This is a supportive process between two people where one
nervous system actually helps to calm the other, to restore
homeostasis and rebalance their emotional body and overall
well-being. A quote from Caroline Leaf,
who's actually a neuroscientist, on our primarily pure expert
panel beautifully explains how Co regulation works and how this
healing tool takes effect. She says that as you Co regulate
with someone, their mirror neurons in their brain are
activated and this enables the person in the deregulated state
to literally mirror your calmness.
Co regulation has been shown to a positively improve Wellness in
patients where caregivers show true compassion and connection,
making it a powerful healing tool.
Being in the presence of someone who truly cares and creates the
sense of safety and peace allows your senses to fall and the
parasympathetic nervous system to engage.
I love that I have the privilege of offering this healing tool to
our facial gas at our spa. And as I regulate my own nervous
system to a state of calm, as a professional, I can help to Co
regulate my facial gas and facilitate and foster that calm
within them as well. Whether you're in a professional
setting or simply holding space for a friend, we hold the power
to reset the nervous system of another and create a ripple
effect of Wellness. Around us and that is the impact
of our nervous system on our skin, in our health within and
in the world in which we live. Thank you for joining me on
today's episode as we dig a bit deeper into the nervous system
skin connection. I hope today's episode has
inspired you and reminded you that you truly have the tools to
tap into your body's self healing capabilities, to soothe
your fight or flight response, and to calm and heal skin
conditions from the inside out.