Your Health Hinges on your Nervous System
These days it seems everyone has elevated stress levels. Most of us don’t realize just how much that affects our health and wellbeing. Our nervous system acts as an information superhighway, delivering messages throughout our body regarding stress management. From a Shamanic Healing perspective, this is how and why it matters:
In essence, the nervous system has 2 main modes. The first mode is “rest, digest, repair”. In this mode, we are relaxed, the mind receives messages that we are safe, the body digests food easily and absorbs nutrients from our food. Sleep is restful, replenishing, and restorative. We breathe deeply and easily, our emotions are at ease, and the entire body is repairing and healing itself. This is optimal. Our health is properly maintained in this mode.
The second mode is “fight, flight, or freeze”. This is “emergency mode”. In this mode, the nervous system has switched off our digestion, our sleep, healing and repair. If you imagine walking in the forest and accidentally coming across a bear, this is a dangerous situation. The nervous system goes into red alert. In order to protect you and your body, the next decision will be to either run, fight, or play dead. You do not need to digest food, sleep, or heal anything in this emergency, those tasks would slow your body down. So, they are switched off. This makes sense if there is a bear, but it becomes a serious problem if work, family, relationship, unresolved trauma, or stress keeps the nervous system in this emergency mode. Our mental, emotional, and physical health becomes seriously affected when we don’t get enough rest, nutrients, or heal. Our vitality, spirit, and energy can become very low.
From the point of view of Shamanic Healing, each person is comprised of 4 bodies: The physical body, the mental body (our thoughts), the emotional body (our emotions), and our spiritual body (where we find our beliefs, the lens with which we experience the world). The nervous system interconnects these bodies. When it is in distress, it can greatly affect our quality of life. Shamanic healing and Reiki can work directly with the nervous system to help optimize health and healing, while at the same time addressing the non-physical root causes of stress. We do this by working with the subtle energies and consciousness that flows through the bodies, while in a deeply relaxed state.
*Photo by Thomas Dumortier on Unsplash
