What does it mean to be relaxed?

What does it mean to be relaxed after your entrainments?

First of all, it feels good to be relaxed and we intuitively know that it is good for us. The longer its been since we have been relaxed, the more noticeable the effect will be.

In general, being relaxed post entrainment means that your Nervous System has been operating at least partially in fight, flight or freeze as a default. This is common in todays world. There are countless demands on our time and attention as well as many other stressors in everyday life. Network Spinal entrainments help to calm this part of your nervous system and also help to stimulate the parasympathetic or rest and digest part of your nervous system.

In stress mode, our auto pilot is focused on our external environment in order to reach for threats to our safety. When we relax, our bodies are able to take a breath and take a look at what’s going on inside of us. This internal focus allows for greater healing, cellular repair, and of course higher quality resting and digesting.

When we think of rest and digest, we commonly think of food digestion. However, when this part of our Nervous System is active, we also are able to process undigested thoughts, feelings and emotions. Just like undigested food, these things can build up and weigh us down.

When the change from pre entrainment to post entrainment is exceptionally large, in terms of a revved up or stressed nervous system to a calm Nervous system, you might experience a crash or extreme tiredness a little while after your entrainment. If you can, this is a wonderful opportunity to listen to your body and give it the rest that it needs.

Next Level Chiropractic

14200 Midway Dallas TX 75244

Network spinal and breathing

Network helps us breath better on and off the table. It stimulates and activates dormant and often unused parts of of respiratory systems as well as resetting our natural pattern of slow deep breathing. All of this happens automatically. An important caveat is that during entrainments, you do not need to try to breather deeper or control your breath.

Here are some simple guidelines for conscious healthy breathing:

Its almost always best to breath in and out your nose. This warms and cleans the air, and it helps absorb oxygen better. You can also breath out your mouth with pursed lips if you are not able to exhale through your nose. Either way, it is helpful to place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth behind your front teeth. Side note: You will feel like you are suffocating the first few days of practicing exclusive nose nose breathing. This is a short adaption period and it can be helpful to use a pulse ox to monitor your oxygen levels. Humans today are chronic over breathers and your oxygen levels will likely be fine even though you feel like you don’t have enough air.

Now lets take Network principles into account.

Breathing in your mouth and out your nose is appropriate and natural in moments of Awaken, awe or ecstasy. Essentially, when something is so great that it takes your breath away, you might find yourself mouth breathing for a small while.

Breathing in and out your mouth is also associated with merging an old way of doing things with a new way.

You might also need to breath in your mouth during entrainments in order to get enough air in or to activate the season of transform and/or awaken.

Take deep slow breaths into into your stomach to activate your diaphragm.

Exception: Focused Heart breathing uses more of the secondary respiratory muscles. The benefit of this type of breathing comes from the focus on your heart.

The ideal breath is roughly 5.5 seconds in the nose and 5.5 seconds out the nose. Practicing this even for a few minutes a day can have huge benefits and help you re learn to breathe through your nose. Come see us when you are in Dalas!

Torticollis in older kids

Stress is sneaky. We often don’t notice it building up or the effects it has on us. This is partly because increased stress activates our fight or flight response, and when this happens our body awareness goes down. We then stop our healthy habits which lets stress build up even more. Our bodies do a great job adapting to let us keep pushing forward until we reach a critical mass of stress storage. When this happens, old pains or problems come back and/or new pains and problems show up.

We are seeing signs of increased stress and stress storage in both adults and kids over the last months. Some of these include; people having more headaches and pains, more tension in both the active and passive systems, people complaining about sleeping wrong or not being able to sleep, people stopping healthily habits because they do not have time or energy, people getting sick and more.

Most noteworthy is that we have seen multiple cases of severe torticollis or wryneck in school age kids. Prior to this year, we have only had 2 cases in 13 years of practice. Both of these were in very young children. Network spinal is a great way to quickly resolve this issue. This seems to be a sign of increased stress everywhere. We are all feeling it, or at least we are all subconsciously experiencing it if we are not feeling it.

Things we can do:

We can all do our best to keep up healthy stress mitigating habits.

We can view stress as making us stronger by challenging our nervous systems (akin to working out)

We can focus on the good and practice gratitude for what we do have and what is working

Regular entrainments also help to process stored stress and to keep our nervous systems in growth and out of fight or flight mode.

Too many body apps open?

Do you ever leave too many apps open on your phone or too many programs running on your computer? I’m pretty sure we have all been there. Our phones or computers start to glitch or not work as fast. As soon as we close out the unneeded apps or programs, things go back to normal. 

The body works the same way 

Sometimes we have multiple phases or patterns happening at the same time. We could be subconsciously still holding on to prior emotions and thoughts from days, months or even years ago. These thoughts and emotions might pop up consciously from time to time and then go away again. 

Network helps close these extra apps. Said differently, Network entrainments help us connect to and process these recurring loop emotions and thoughts so that we can return to a calmer baseline. 

Sometimes these are the entrainments that you can’t seem to relax or tune in. These entrainments are just as beneficial as ones that are deeply relaxing or energizing, just in a different way. 

Donny’s concept of AAA helps us close out apps (thoughts and emotions) in real time. Here is a link to an old newsletter about AAA https://nextlevelchirodallas.com/epienergetic-seasons-aaa-and-the-gap/

New you-New Shoe

How often do you get new shoes?

A good time to get new shoes is when your old shoes do not feel right on your feet. This is because the shape and function of our feet changes over time as we change,

The main goal of Network Spinal is to help us grow and evolve over time. A healthier spine and nervous system equals a healthier life. Every now and then, we go through huge growth spurts where we change or evolve our sense of self. This can be thought of as how we see ourselves in the world. When this happens, our pelvis reorganizes to a healthier state as well. Old tension patterns are broken, and new patterns emerge. Changes in your pelvis track both up and down our bodies all the way to our feet. This is why old shoes may feel weird when you put them on. If we keep the old/ weird feeling shoes on, we are subtly reenforcing old habits and body positions that we may have grown out of. Next week we will take a look at the benefits of backwards walking.

Muscle memory and Network Spinal

We get better at what we repeatedly do. The nervous system learns and builds neural pathways to make doing these things easier and seemingly automatic. We used to think of this as muscle memory, but now we know it’s called building neuroplasticity. With more and more repetitions, these pathways get bigger and stronger.

This works for positive things like stretching, working out and getting entrained, In fact, research shows that Network entrainments continue to improve over years or even decades of care. Here is a link to some of the research on Network care and the Network Wave https://www.epienergetics.org/research-resources

It also works for less beneficial actions. These actions lead to a accumulation of stress in the body over time.

Obvious examples include sitting or doing repetitive motions such as using a computer mouse.

Less obvious examples include walking with uneven gate (limp or simply having one of your joints not working as well on one side), carrying a purse or bag only on one side, or holding a baby or kid on one side. These build up asymmetries and tension over time. It can take many years for symptoms to appear from the slow build up.

Here is a personal example related to entraining. For years I would only approach the table from the left so I could use my right hand. This led to asymmetrical build up of rotational tension that manifested in knee and weird rib/ mid back pain. Once I became aware of it, I started consciously approaching from both sides. I also held Max only in my leg arm so I could use my right arm while carrying him. This helped to build up the same rotational pathways. With Atlas and Luna, I have made sure to use both arms.

Network Spinal care for Southlake, Keller and Trophy Club

We love having people come to our office from Southlake, Keller and Trophy Club. We also understand that the drive can be hard, especially with traffic. We offer home visits or concierge Network Spinal care for groups or individual families.  Contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in having us come out to your home or office. 

Network and Back Surgery

Is Network Chiropractic?

Yes it is! Chiropractic simply means done by hand. In general, chiropractic focuses on the spine and nervous system. We use a lighter force to help straighten out the spine and improve nervous system function. Network is 100% chiropractic. 

Because we use such light forces, Network is one of the only types of chiropractic that is safe and effective post back surgery. Most surgeries turn out less ideal than surgeons promise. Even successful surgeries have a lifespan of around 10 years until further intervention is usually needed. Network care is a great way to prolong the lifespan of previous surgeries as well as a great option to help prevent future additional surgeries. This is because Network helps correct the underlying issues that created the adverse wear and tear and build up of tension in the first place. It also helps the body adapt to any fusions or other mechanical changes. Please send any friends or family members that have had successful or unsuccessful back surgeries in for a free consultation to see if we can help them. 

Stability and instability

Network Spinal is a reorganizational healing modality. Its goal is to help you go from one level of stability in your spinal health/ area of life to a higher level of stability in your spinal health/ area of life. There must be a level or period of instability in-between levels of stability. It’s very much like having a messy garage or closet that you know where most things are (lower-level stability). You pull everything out, throw away the trash and figure out how to put it all back better(instability). When you finish reorganizing, the closet or garage is at a higher level of stability.

Why is it good to reorganize?

Simply releasing the buildup of tension and not changing anything, allows it to build back up. Said differently, if we keep making the same choices and doing the same things, we will keep getting the same results.

Growth in areas of life comes throughs stacking levels of stability and instability.

Stability means resisting change. You get the same output no matter the external stimulus or demands. Or I always do things this way. Examples include doing the same workout or stretching routine no matter how our body feels or always sleeping in the same position or way. Another example is getting pain in an area of your body over and over and either ignoring it or doing the same treatment for it over and over ie medication. Think if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

Instability means open to change in a way the adds energy. Think maybe I can do this instead. Continuing the examples above- adding new workouts and stretches or trying a class or new gym. You could try sleeping in a different position or using a new pillow. You could even try sleeping on the floor. As for the recurring pain, you can try and notice what brings the pain on and change your activities or the way you stand or sit at work. You could also try new ways to deal with the pain such as foam rolling, stretching or getting adjusted. These might help the pain move to a new location which would be a positive change.

The goal is to get to a higher level of stability or way of doing things. This simply means it works better for you than the way you used to do things.

From our previous examples- You could sign up for workout classes, change your workouts based off of a schedule or how you feel. You could find a healthier way to sleep- maybe transitioning to your side from your stomach or to your back from your side. You could also get a pillow that fits your current body better. You could commit to regular chiropractic and self-care to alleviate and prevent pain. You could get a standing desk or fix your ergonomics in another way.

AAA vs taking Action

This post was originally written in late 2020. 2020 sure has been an interesting year. I think it is probably safe to say that this year has been too much for all of us.

We have all had to deal with normal life stresses compounded with massive amounts of uncertainty and fear surrounding Covid and polarity surrounding the election. For most people, this combination has been too much many times over.

When life is too much over and over again, it can start to shift our Nervous System to “survival mode.”

If we fail to notice, or if we are not willing to acknowledge that we are overwhelmed, it is easy for our subconscious or auto pilot to become stuck in survival mode. It is at this point that people tend to stop doing their healthy habits and default back to old bad habits. Once healthy habits stop, forward healthy momentum will slow and eventually stop before beginning to slip backwards.

If we are able to realize when we are overwhelmed, and we are able to acknowledge it, it becomes much easier for us to accept it.

Sometimes this magic formula of AAA (aware, acknowledge, and accept) is enough to let you feel and process everything in real time. This allows your nervous system to dissipate the extra energy instead of storing it as stress.

Other times, action is needed after AAA’ing. Some great action steps include:

Kick starting healthy habits even when you don’t want to.

Doing something that makes you happy.

Workout (vigorous if you can)

Increase meditation time and/or frequency

GET ENTRAINED!!! Not only will getting Network entrainments help to instantly shift your body out of stress, but it will also help shift your brain function back to where it is easy and enjoyable to do our healthy habits! Our habits help determine our long-term health.