In this video, we (Mark + Natalie) invite you to journey with us into the fascinating landscape of the nervous system, where ancient healing wisdom meets a modern lens.
We explore the essential functions of the central and peripheral nervous systems, the impact of chronic stress, and how to restore balance through natural, time-honored practices.
Learn how your autonomic nervous system governs involuntary functions, and discover accessible ways to support your body using Qigong, deep breathing, mineral balance, and more to enhance vagal tone and reconnect with your inner flow.
These simple yet profound tools help forge greater peace, harmony, and healing from within.
Whether you’re on a path of self-healing, awakening, or curious about nervous system health and holistic transformation, this is for you.
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The nervous system. What is it? What does it do? How does it work? Why is it important? We're going to answer all of these questions as well as look at how it gets out of whack, as well as natural ways to restore to optimal functioning so we can invite more balance, harmony, peace, and healing into our lives.
That all sounds good to you? Let's jump on in.
Hey, I am Mark. I'm Natalie, and we created the Forge and Flow sanctum. If you'd like to learn more about what that is, go to for and flow.org. I'm nervous right now. Are you nervous? No, but you're making me nervous. Well, guess what? We're all nervous because we have a nervous system. It is a phenomenal part of our being.
It is both seen and unseen. Scientists and doctors and researchers have identified what the nervous system looks like, where travels. And what it does, but this divinely intelligence system works in ways that are very invisible and at an unfathomable speed. Without fathom. Without fathom, because unfathomable is hard to say.
You could even say that it's not even a speed at all because it transcends time itself. It works simultaneously with so many other things. It's uniquely designed to work at any given moment. In many different ways. Now, it's important to grasp that there are different parts of the overarching structure.
The first distinction is between the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system or the CNS, is responsible for the sensory input, namely our five senses, touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, consisting, touching, touching, smelling. It consists mostly of the brain.
And the spinal cord, the CNS communicates directly with the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and the touch senses for us to be able to experience the world around us from that very physical aspect. The system also contains pain and pleasure receptors signifying to the body if there's a problem or if things are all good, and to elicit the relevant response, either ouch or oh yeah.
The peripheral nervous system on the other hand, that coordinates the sensory signals with the appropriate other systems of the body. For example, if you're exercising vigorously, your central nervous system feels the physical sensations of the workout, but the peripheral nervous system will communicate with your cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, to get greater blood flow and faster respiration going so that you don't just hyperventilate and pass out.
The peripheral also consists of two other branches. We have the somatic and the autonomic nervous systems. So things start branching out more and more and more. The somatic controls the voluntary actions of the body, so when you're ready to speak, the somatic nervous system activates the lips and the tongue and the vocal cords.
When you're ready to walk, it activates the legs. When you're ready to whack the person next to you, uh, please don't it activates your arms. The auto autonomic nervous system, on the other hand, is responsible for the involuntary actions of the body. Reflexes. Things like the functioning of our internal organs, digestion, breathing, heart beating, even the eyes blinking or dilating.
All of those amazing things our body does on autopilot without us needing to have conscious awareness of them. So that's the basic structure, very basic structure of the physical components of what makes up our nervous system with all the other various systems in the bodies. This one consists of several parts that.
Effectively allow us to function. However, there are many things in this world that get in the way of those functions, particularly the autonomic nervous system. And Natalie will talk about that. Stress, as we well know, is a big part of our particular world, and we can never avoid it completely. But when it arises, what we should be able to do is respond to it sympathetic.
And then toggle back to a more, more relaxed state, which is that parasympathetic when the stressor has passed. And as Mark was talking about, what we're finding today is that people are stuck in a state of sympathetic dominance and are not able to toggle back to the parasympathetic state once that stressor has, you know, PA come and gone essentially.
So there are many things that come along that throw us out of whack, and sometimes it's things that we wouldn't think. Or we feel like they're small enough that like, Hey, it's not a big deal, but these things add up. So that car ride and traffic, you know, every day, the boss's email causing friction every day, your child causing maybe issues at school every day, hopefully not.
Or you know, and upsetting news that maybe you heard from a friend. So there's also things that haven't been dealt with that massive car accident when you were a kid. But you don't remember it all. But there's emotions that actually get stuck in the tissues. Get stuck in what? In the light body astral layer of our light body, or again, called astral body, which is part of our larger energetic layers and levels that surround us that we can't, that most people cannot see.
So we have fear, emotional trauma, physical trauma. The list goes on and on. And in relation to the what overall. Stress can do. It can lead ultimately to what is called low vagal tone and being stuck in that state of sympathetic dominance, which means we're basically stuck in this fight, flight, or freeze mode constantly.
The body doesn't know if we're being chased by our lion or if it's just the job stressing us out 24 7. Either way, it's stress and the body doesn't determine that stress differently. It just knows. I'm stressed and we're stressed, and again, what we're seeing today is this chronic, chronic stress. Is just at, it's at a height.
From my lens, stress is one of the largest factors to creating dis-ease in the body, but also in the soul or spirit.
So let's talk about the vagus nerve. Is that when you go to Las Vegas and you no def you lose your nerves? Definitely not. No. Definitely not that Vegas. But think of the vagus nerve in our body, like a central highway that tells all aspects of your being to do something.
So it's like a communication central connects to the brain organs and involved in functions around the heart. Digestion, hormonal, uh, imbalances. The immune system can pretty much say that the vagus nerve has a big part in the parasympathetic nervous system, and we can work with our vagal nerve tone, which refers to how much activity is occurring in our parasympathetic nervous system.
Higher activity equals an improved ability to withstand stress. And when there is a stressor to bounce back from that stress and go back into relaxed mode. And so how you can do this, um, basically it's like we're turning on our communication system essentially. Qigong is great belly button exercises. So these are really great.
It's literally working with your central, uh, power center and working with your belly button center and there's, and literally just by compressing your belly button, you know, for and taking deep breaths as you do, that is one way to help your body increase that vagal nerve activity and move into a state of relaxation.
It's, it's like you're training your body. How to relax. Yeah. Diaphragmatic breathing. Yeah. Deep abdominal breathing. Well, these techniques where you're using the diaphragm and the lower part of the abdomen to facilitate the breath, you not only get greater lung capacity, but it's very relaxing. It stimulates that vagus nerve as Natalie's talking about.
Yeah. Clearing your astral layer of stuck emotions remineralizing your body from the inside out. What this basically means is. Getting this is, this is actually some of the work that I do with folks is helping them to see where they're imbalanced as far as minerals, because the minerals in our body help that whole system communicate and turn on and off in somatic functions and all kinds of things.
So to be able to digest enzymes and all of these things need to be working in a smooth. Way. And when that happens, you're just helping assist to your, your entire body to do basically what it knows it can do and should be doing. And we have to get all the particles that make us come together in form. We need 'em communicating.
We need to help our body move past the stressors, give it what it needs to move into relaxation, and it's something that can be done. We can train our systems. It takes discipline. No doubt. That is no doubt, no doubt. In fact, the things that we are assisting with in Forge and Flow in general and in the sanctum are related to this.
Exactly. So what I think is wonderful to know is that we aren't broken. We can heal ourselves, we can train ourselves to rest and digest. And when that happens, we alleviate so much, you can turn back aging pain. Getting sick when we're getting older. These aren't part of the natural aging process, so we can actually help turn back and reverse these things and so much more so that we can age more gracefully and live out those so-called golden years with health and happiness rather than a decline in the health state that we see today.
Like a golden solar plexus and power center, like on the golden elixir you call it in Chinese medicine. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, vagus nerve. Pretty awesome. If you want to do a deep dive on that, there's so much information about that. Yeah. But it's a really cool and often not talked about part of our body that from our lens is vitally important.
Yeah. It just drives so many forces into our body that we don't really learn about, and we can have direct access to it in order to live more freely, more healthy and vibrant. State of being. Yeah. And in upcoming videos we'll actually be doing more, uh, around those little like snippets of things that you can do every day.
Yeah. Practical applications, like five minutes of something can change the entire day and you add that up over time. Now what you're going to see is when stressors come along, you're like, you, your body's like, oh, okay, well react. Oh, but you know, we're good now we're coming back down. It, it, it's just, it's literally a training system so the vagus nerve doesn't just stop there.
It there, there's a lot of talk about No, that was like basic, the polyvagal theory. And so in 1994, Dr. Steven Porges hopefully said that right PhD. He developed an idea the vagus nerve serves as an even wider role in the responses of our nervous system. This was coined as the polyvagal theory and continues to be widely researched today.
Now, according to Dr. Porges and colleagues in the field, there are in fact three states of the autonomic nervous system. Typically, we talk about the two states, the fight or flight state. And also the relax or rest and digest state. So as you can see from this chart here, there's these three circles and there's a lot going on here.
And we'll break it down. So if you look at the top circle, we see the relaxed state, the bottom. Right. We see the mobilized state in the bottom of the left immobilized state. Now, don't feel like you have to understand all that's going on here, but uh, let's break it down little by little. So in the top one, the relaxed state, we're talking about the parasympathetic nervous system.
So we have, like Natalie said, the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the stress response and the parasympathetic. These, and these are just scientific words really that say stress or relaxed. Are you in a stress state? Or are you in a relaxed state? But it goes deeper than that. So we have different, it says ventral vagal pathway or dorsal vagal pathway.
We have different pathways within this system, so when we're relaxed, you have a normal heart rate, normal respiration, normal muscle tone. You're feeling like you're in a safe space. You have emotions like being relaxed or being engaged, curious, creative or hopeful. This would be like hanging out with friends or family that you enjoy being around in nature or on a beach or just something where you're feeling pleasant sensations coming across.
You feel safe in the mobilized, you're, you're now kicking into the sympathetic nervous system. You in there, you're gonna have an increased heart rate more, higher blood pressure, higher hormone flow. And an increased muscle tone. This is now activating your body in specific ways because there's some sort of stress.
Now, it's important to realize that stress isn't always a bad thing. We'll talk about some of those hybrid states that we see there in the middle, but typically the fight or flight. Think about an acute stressful situation. We always liken it to ancient times. If you're running from a saber tooth tiger or something like that, or running from a bear that's trying to eat you.
That's stressful, right? And you're going to want to either fight your way outta that or run away. So in either situation, your body very intelligently knows to divert energy from systems that don't really need the energy right now, like your digestion, like your cellular metabolism, and reroute the energy to tightening the muscles for greater activity levels.
Increasing the heart rate, increasing the blood flow to get into this fight or flight state.
However, there are good times when your body is mobilized. Think about playing dancing, sports performance, and so in either state, you're gonna have more higher energy, more active, more motivated. Whether you're in the stressed, fearful mode or the mobilized active playful mode, your body knows how to divert energy.
Now you look to the lower left in the immobilized state. This is another part of the parasympathetic nervous system characterized again by the lower heart rate, lower muscle tone, lower energy. In this case, you are immobile, not active, not moving. Again, this can be good or bad. Bad in the state of being depressed, unhappy, lonely, hopeless, just loafing around being lazy, doing nothing, and not activating your body in any positive way, but you can be immobilized and being happy.
Think about being in a blissful, dreamy, tranquil state meditation, sitting by a stream, laying on a beach, doing something relaxing that you enjoy. You're immobile, you're physically not active. But you are still in a good state. So that's what brings in these hybrid states. If you look between relaxed and immobilized, the hybrid state is quiet moments, even intimacy between relaxed and mobilized.
You can be playing dancing, performing even something like Qigong or Tai Chi or yoga. You're active, your body is moving, but in a very positive restorative state. And then the immobilized, immobilized hybrid state would be that freeze. You don't know what to do.
You're scared and you don't know if you should fight or flee, and you're in this free state.
Think of like a deer in the headlights. So looking at these three different states plus the hybrid states, we see that our vagus nerve and our overall nervous system. It is kind of complex, but when you think about it, all we're doing is either being in a stress mode or a relaxed mode, but in between there are those nicer states of being mobilized and in a healing state that's.
Kind of the sweet spot there. That's the spot that we strive to be in. So doing activities, like I said, like Qigong, Tai Chi, certain forms of yoga or other relaxing, restorative, healing practices. And that is what we practice here and that is what we teach and that is what the Forge and flow sanctum is all about, is getting into that sweet zone of being.
Mobilized, but relaxed at the same time. To engage our nervous system in such a way that we can be active, but not stressing ourselves out so much that we're actually causing damage. People that go to the gym all the time, not saying that working out is bad, but you can actually work out too much. You can put your body in a state of stress by working out to pushing your body beyond the limits of what is normal.
You might think I'm being healthy, but you're actually harming your nervous system, which in turn has disabling effects to other systems in our body like our organs. So Qigong, Tai Chi, all of those ancient healing practices that keep you moving. Actively moving, but slow, intentional, using your breath, focusing your mind and your spirit.
That's what it's all about. And that is stuff that we practice. That is stuff that we love and that is stuff we'd love to bring more to the world. Anything you'd like to add? I mean, I've been there, as you well know. I do. Well know. He, well, he Wells knows this. I well know. Yeah. Uh, you know that state. It's that again, um, we've mentioned this in other videos talking about this work hard play hard mentality, right?
Hit the gym, gotta go, gotta run like five miles. Yeah. And I'm being healthy doing it and I thought I, you know, I thought I was, you're pushing your heart, you're pushing your blood, you're pushing your lungs, you're pushing your organs. Yeah. And what I, we will go over this in some future videos too, but when you're, when you are a generator, meaning you are an active generating, um.
Lot. You have lots of energy. You're that type A, you're that, you know, action go, go, go. You know, obviously we're, we are, what we're really talking about is that is great. Ah, but you have to balance that out. Getting into that hybrid in that, in, in that middle area is really where we're looking at this by mobilized, but relaxed foraging and flowing like simultaneously.
So we call this active yin. Is the video on our channel, uh, suggest you check out about yin and yang and the balance in harmony that that all entails. But yin is the re relaxing state. The more feminine, calming state of the yin yang balance. But what feminine from an energy perspective, feminine has nothing to do with female.
Yes. Which is all in that video. Check it out. But things like Qigong and Tai chi are that active yin. So you're moving. But very gently, very intentionally, very calmly, but it's still holding powerful stances. You can build muscle, you can build bone density back and strengthen your nervous system overall by moving gently, slowly and intentionally with the breath.
So active yin, that is the sweet spot we like to be in. Yeah. But this world is often overly yang. Yeah. And that's where we see a lot of sickness come from. Actually as a yin deficiency, people are not relaxing enough. People are not rejuvenating, resetting, restoring enough. So that's what we aim to do. So please subscribe if you would like to receive more videos about forging and slowing getting into that sweet spot, uh, in our lives together.
And if you want to join us in the sanctum, uh, please check out forge and flow.org. Thank you so much.