| Frequency healing, often termed as sound healing or listening therapy, is a therapeutic approach that uses sound frequencies and vibrations to promote physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. These frequencies can come from instruments, the voice, and Mother Nature. We are surrounded by and immersed in frequencies. Harnessing frequencies through specific application can have a profound effect on our nervous system and our health. Using frequencies for health is safe, easy to administer and has beneficial effects for the whole body especially the autonomic nervous system. The Autonomic Nervous System In Service of Survival The autonomic nervous system is a branch of the nervous system that automatically regulates functions of your body that you need to survive. Breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion happen automatically without conscious effort. The Autonomic Nervous System, ANS for short, connects the brain to our internal organs. The ANS has three divisions. For this editorial, we will be discussing the sympathetic and the parasympathetic branches. The sympathetic branch can move us into the protective survival response when we encounter danger or threat, known as the fight/flight response. The parasympathetic nervous system is the division which also helps us with survival as well with health, growth, and restoration of the body. There are two states of parasympathetic – ventral and dorsal. Ventral is about thriving, optimized health through healthy function. It is where we find homeostasis – a self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival. The state of our nervous system function is dictated by our environment and our past experiences. Stress caused by cues of threat or danger, present or past, imagined or real, can trigger a survival response into fight/flight or dorsal freeze/flop states. Either state is meant to protect us. Being chronically stressed and in survival states, though protective, creates less than optimal functioning conditions for our organs. Chronic stress is anything longer than six weeks. What eventually happens to our health, physical, mental and emotional over time? Vagus Nerve – Our internal control center Our vagus nerve is the parasympathetic nervous system. Vagus nerve moves through to the brain stem and has many branches that connect all over our body, most specifically in the guts. Vagus moves information bidirectionally – from the brain down to the body and from the body back up to the brain. Vagus scans our environment every minute of every day, awake or asleep, looking for cues of safety and threat or danger. This scanning happens below the level of our consciousness. When there are enough cues of safety in our world, vagus works in the parasympathetic ventral vagal state. In this state we have optimized health, are socially engaged and feel safe. Vagus as the control center of our body can manage and maintain all functions creating homeostasis. Our bodies can heal from stress and injury. We think clearly, feel better, enjoy life and connect to ourselves and the world with ease and safety. When vagus scanning detects cues of danger or threat, it will become dysregulated and move us into the protective defensive states of fight/flight, freeze/flop, or both. With chronic dysregulation come symptoms and diagnoses. Digestive issues, headaches, anxiety and or depression, sleep interruption, blood pressure changes, weight changes, pain and inflammation and more are common diagnoses. Diagnoses are the indicator vagus is dysregulated and it is not able to maintain healthy internal control. How do we help vagus to maintain homeostasis and optimize our health? Utilizing specific frequencies in music is one very effective way to help vagus find its way back to regulation optimal internal control, helping us to feel well again. Interventions with Music Safe and Sound Protocol The Safe and Sound Protocol, the SSP for short, is a five hour musical intervention for the vagus nerve to find resilience and optimal function. Employing a dynamically changing specific range of frequencies, SSP brings the autonomic nervous system and the body into embodied feelings of safety, changing the way we relate to ourselves, and the world. The SSP, developed by Dr. Porges, focuses on enhancing social engagement and emotional regulation through the presence and interactions of the SSP provider. Rooted in Polyvagal theory, the understanding of what the vagus nerve does for us, the SSP is a portal to the vagus through the middle ear. Five one hour tracks are listened to in short segments over a period of time in the presence of a qualified provider. Vagus nerve returns to regulation, flexibly and fluidly moving through the states of survival, helping us to return to ventral vagus more easily. Vagus nerve is effectively retuned to resilience and proper internal control, resuming calmer, happier living, feeling safe in ourselves and our worlds. Numerous clinical trials have produced quantifiable data supporting the outcomes discussed briefly here. Rest and Restore Protocol Also developed by Dr Stephen Porges, the Rest and Restore Protocol (RRP for short) is comprised of ten 30 minute tracks of musical frequencies that are uniquely different from SSP. RRP also has beneficial effects on the vagus nerve and its ability to regulate itself in safety. The frequencies of RRP help the body move into the state of rest and repair through self regulation between the body and the head. The RRP music signals messages of safety directly through the brain and into the brain stem. Those messages of safety are transmitted directly through vagus nerve to the internal organs below the diaphragm. RRP uses the principle of entrainment to align organ systems with homeostatic rhythms. These rhythms are naturally occurring in our bodies, but may be functioning less optimally from the effects of chronic stress and trauma. The frequencies of RRP help restore these rhythms restoring the internal organs to natural function supporting the shift from fatigue of stress back towards health, growth and restoration and recovery. RRP is delivered in the same fashion as SSP, over several listening sessions with a qualified provider. The collected data from preliminary pilot results show remarkable reduction of symptoms of dysregulation – anxiety, depression, PTSD, gut health issues Safety is what vagus nerve thrives on. Both protocols, SSP and RRP, are helping folks to experience an embodied sense of safety. Feeling safe changes our world and how we live in it. Terri Rowland, The NRG (energy) Wellness Group | nrgwellnessgroup.ca |
