A regular client recently underwent a procedure to reset his vagus nerve. Given the role of the nervous system and how it pertains to Body Harmony, this may be of wider interest.
A close friend with an interest in health and wellbeing forwarded me a podcast by Mikhaila Peterson, the daughter of the Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson.
In the podcast, Mikhaila was interviewing Dr Adeel Khan on cutting-edge regenerative medicine. While I was interested in the whole podcast, I was particularly interested in a procedure known as a ‘vagus nerve block injection’. It is described as follows:
‘These injections restore the “fight or flight” portion of the brain to its pre-trauma state. PTSD is an injury to the sympathetic nervous system that renders it overactive and very sensitive. Once this injury is properly treated, then PTSD symptoms vanish, usually in less than one hour.’2
The treatment uses injections at two points along both sides of the neck, where the vagus nerve exits the cervical spine. This blog post is not to be confused in any way with an endorsement or otherwise of this treatment — it’s more to communicate some of the details relevant to the story.
So I listened to the podcast with keen interest — here it is, if you would like to listen too.
The client referred to in the opening paragraph of this post has had a persistent experience of what we could describe as an ‘overactive sympathetic nervous system’. (Body Harmony is not about diagnosis so I refer to this only to fill in the background of the story.)
It manifests physically as a locking up of specific tissues, which I have regularly worked with over perhaps a four- to five-year period. This ‘overactive sympathetic nervous system’ cognitively relates to being alerted to perceived dangers in the social environment. It’s not a pleasant or enjoyable experience. It doesn’t feel like a chosen response and it is a concern for the client. In the sessions taken with me I would regularly work areas of the head, neck and face, and meeting the tension held in the tissue (including the bone) was typically received as being very transformative for the client.
The sessions helped to recover the imbalances caused by the way the tissues respond to the fear based perceptions. This was/is experienced as very helpful to the client. It is also worth noting that this person would typically drive over 90 minutes in each direction to see me.
At some point I shared the podcast with my client. Fast forward and my client had flown to Japan to get the treatment with the aforementioned Dr Khan. Shortly after arriving home, the client booked in to see me.
And now I had the opportunity to feel what it felt like to work with a person who had undergone this treatment, somebody whose body I had spent many hours working with. Somebody whose posture and gait I had observed on many occasions. Somebody whose character I’d had the opportunity to get to know well. This is what I want to share most.
My first observation was postural. Having consistently observed in the past the tendency to ‘look down’, this was no longer the case. I saw a head and a chest standing taller, more open. ‘Astounding,’ I thought to myself quietly. And then in conversation my client described an experience after the treatment in Japan of walking through a sea of people and feeling completely at ease. ‘Wow, that’s very different!,’ I thought to myself.
And then my client also related a situation in a shopping centre car park. They observed an obviously healthy person blatantly parking in a disabled parking spot. With no hesitation, they engaged the person, expressing their conflict with this person’s behaviour directly. And yes, I thought, that was also astounding.
Then came the hands-on part of the session. I touched different parts of my client’s body, listening for all the things this body may have to share with me. At the risk of exaggerated repetition this was — as so many things had been that day — astounding. I touched parts of my client’s body that were more at ease than I had ever experienced. Tissues moved more freely in mobility and motility. It was indeed a reset.
In attempting to understand this for myself I contemplated that this was my client’s body without the fearful anticipation. This was what it felt like on a tissue level to be alleviated of a constant background threat. This was, essentially, what I understand to mean when we use the word liberation.
Short answer, yes there was. I have now had the opportunity to work again with this client. The vagus nerve block injection is said to reach its maximum potency after 30 days and we were still inside that period at the time of writing. Does the procedure resolve everything? Possibly not, but that is essentially irrelevant.
My client still has aspirations for more in life. We continue to address areas of tension, of compression, of — essentially — possibility. The difference now is that a large part of my client’s internal messaging — the fearful communication from a reptilian age of evolution, previously stuck on repeat — is no longer the dominant soundtrack.
Health in Perspective’s Duncan Hogg and Gina Carruthers are both highly accomplished practitioners and teachers, with nearly 40 years’ Body Harmony experience. They also share a deep understanding of other complementary holistic modalities, offering a range of treatments from their Alaya Verde wellness centre in the Noosa Hinterland, Queensland.
