Wellness Mini-Session | Improve Your Stress Response

 

Laura Buckner:

Welcome everyone. We’ll get started in less than a minute.

All right. Welcome. Thank you everybody for taking 20 minutes out of your day today for our wellness mini session where you will be learning about and trying out some practices to improve your stress response. This mini session is hosted by the California Stronger Connections Technical Assistance Center. We provide support to local educational agencies to foster safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments. And again, we’re really happy to have you all here with us today.

I’m going to turn things over very soon to Kat from the Orange County Department of Education. Thank you so much, Kat, for being our featured presenter today. Very quickly, Kat serves as the program specialist for staff wellbeing at the OCDE, where she leads the Thriving Schools Initiative. In this role, she supports schools to advance whole child health with a focused priority on cultivating staff wellness. So she’s a true expert in her field. We’re really happy to have her. She’s presented nationally on educator wellbeing and social-emotional learning, and champions the belief that staff well-being is foundational to student success.

Thank you for being with us today, Kat, and I’m going to stop sharing and turn the presentation over to you.

Kat Satterley:

Thank you very much, and thank you for that generous introduction. Much appreciated. Let me get this going here. All right. But welcome everybody. So excited that you could be here today for this presentation on Improving Your Stress Response, Vagus Nerve Micropractices for Regulation. Okay. We are first going to take a minute to arrive. And so this is actually a great practice that you can engage in before you start any kind of meeting or even when you’re on a phone call.

So if you can, go and grab a glass or a bottle of water, close the door if you have an opportunity to have some privacy, that would be great. Not sure what your setting is, but I’ll give you a few seconds right now just to grab a glass or bottle of water. It’s part of the show. A few seconds to do that.

And then just take a moment to center yourself. [inaudible 00:04:33] in your chair, your feet on the floor, your spine rest straight. Then we can all take a nice, slow, deep breath. In together. Let’s focus on being present and set your intention for today. We are going to move through some of these micropractices pretty quickly. We don’t have the luxury of time to do them all for an extended period of time, but they are micropractices. So they’re intended to be for those days, those times where you just have maybe a few seconds or a few minutes to engage and increase your vagal tone and calm your nervous system.

And for now, I’d also like for you to eliminate distractions. So if you have your phone nearby, please silence it, turn it over, move it out of your sight so that you can be fully present with us today. So what is the vagus nerve? Maybe some of you haven’t even heard of the vagus nerve or vagal tone. So the vagus nerve often called the wandering nerve or the internet of the body starts in the brainstem, moves through, goes down past your carotid arteries, comes down into your chest and down into your gut. And it is responsible for communication between your brain and those organs like the heart, lungs, and the organs in the gut. So it is a communication pathway as well.

And it is highly responsible, almost fully responsible for your parasympathetic nervous system. Okay. So know when your nervous system is working, right? We have our sympathetic and our parasympathetic nervous system, and the sympathetic is our fight or flight response. And our parasympathetic is our rest and digest. We have to remember that the vagus nerve goes into the gut where we’re digesting. So it also helps us to calm our heart rate, calm our nervous system down so that we can be fully engaged in the tasks that are before us.

Why does it matter? It supports focus and learning. We know when we’re regulated, and your students are regulated, or your colleagues are regulated, we can better make decisions and be productive. It also builds emotional resistance or resilience rather. Cultivating stronger vagal tone enables leaders, educators, and students to navigate challenges with greater composure and recover more quickly from stress. And also it fosters connection and collaboration. We know when we’re having a stress response that our body, we naturally wants to reach out to other people to find a friend to help support us. And so the vagus nerve influences social engagement and promotes more empathetic communication, stronger team cohesion, and healthy relationships across the entire educational community. And who doesn’t want that?

So let’s begin. So this is our first practice that we’re going to engage in. And this is just some deep belly breathing. There’s lots of breathing techniques that we can engage in, but we’ll just do this one for starters. Okay? So just take your hands like our image has here in the picture and just set them on your belly. And you’re going to slowly inhale through your nose for four counts. So do that with me. Four, three, two, one, and hold it for four, three, two, one. And then exhale for six seconds, five, four, three, two, one. So this longer exhale can activate the vagus nerve and it signals safety to your body. So we need to get one more time before we breathe in for four, hold for four, and then exhale for eight this time.

So breathe in with me, four, three, two, one. And hold. Exhale. Seven, eight. Excellent. There’s also something called the physiological side of you. And then twice we’re going to exhale as much as you can, fully exhale all the air that’s in your lungs. That is the breathing technique that they say is the one that’s going to lower your heart rate the fastest. But this kind of breathing also can help you anytime you need to increase your vagal. And if you have some cold water or a cold water bottle sitting next to you, that’s great. If you could take that bottle and just set it on your neck or then take a little bit of water and splash it on your face.

Now, ladies, especially, I know during the day if you’ve got some mascara on, this is probably not something you’re going to do and then go back to work. But if you have anything cold that you can put on your face or just splash with a cold water or an ice pack, I know those cold packs that you cold nearby and put that on your neck and the back of your neck. It’s going to increase your vagal tone and help you to calm down. Splashing water on your face triggers this dive reflex, which can instantly calm your heart rate and engage your vagus nerve. And if you can take a polar plunge, go for it. You won’t get me in that kind of cold water, but it’s good for you.

And then humming or singing. Okay. So all of you are muted right now, so don’t worry if you don’t have the best singing voice. I could sing to you right now, but I’m going to hold off on that. But these vibrations from humming or singing or even gargling, I’m going to talk about that in a second, can simulate this vagus nerve directly through vocal cords. So if you are doing something on your computer that’s sort of mundane, maybe organizing some files or writing it, sort of mundane email, something that doesn’t necessarily require your full attention, maybe you can hum a little song or sing your favorite song.

So right now, I’m just going to have you take a few seconds and I want you to hum, but real deep here. Sometimes we hum higher and we can feel it more in the middle of our head, but I want you to come from here and really vibrate those vocal cords or sing from here if you like. I know the door’s closed. So if you like to sing a little song, your favorite song that you’ve been listening to, just do that for a few seconds. It’s really great, because if you’re attached to a particular song, like that one I just hummed, I love right now. I’m obsessed with it, when you close your eyes and do it even has a deeper effective relaxation.

Gentle neck rolls. And when we go in between slides and switch these, these are all very simple, so just take a deep breath and enjoy the next ones and big, crazy transitions. You’re just going to drag your chin down to your chest, take a nice deep breath, and then just kind of roll your ear to your left shoulder, then bring your chin to your left shoulder, and then bring your shin back down in your chest, and then roll your right ear to your shoulder. And then chin to your right shoulder and then roll your chin back down. Take a deep breath and exhale and bring your head all the way up, looking upward, not too far back, it’s comfortable, and stretching your [inaudible 00:13:08] or shooting your [inaudible 00:13:08] upwards.

Then I’m going to gently from left to right. And this too can help release that tension because those muscles that are in your neck and all around your vagus nerve. That’s why it feels good when someone rubs your neck. If you can get a volunteer, even better. Compassionate self-touch. So this is something that you might find yourself doing sometimes naturally. Sometimes I rub my arms. Sometimes I might just sit, maybe I’m in between calls or emails, and I’ll just give myself a little rub on the arm. So want to just take your hands and just put them on your arms and kind of just give yourself a gentle touch.

Again, closing your eyes or lowering your gaze. For some people, this might feel like a little corny. But giving yourself a hug actually activates a little bit of oxytocin. Activate that the release of that hormone, which in turn, stimulates you vagus nerve. So giving yourself that little bit of touch again, maybe a little hug, maybe your arm, maybe rubbing your neck, placing your hands under your heart. If you could do that with me, both hands over your heart, taking my [inaudible 00:14:41] back in. This too can help you to bring it down. Give me a couple of thought of maybe thinking about someone that you really care about, really gives good hugs. My friend Kathy, sadly is no longer with us. She used to give the best hugs. So every once in a while, give myself a great big hug and I think of her. And remind me of her brings some joy to my heart.

Social connection, these are warm face-to-face interactions, even brief ones can activate the social engagement system and increase your vagal tone naturally. We mentioned earlier that when we’re stressed, we want to reach out to other people. So it’s natural for us typically to want to phone a friend or talk to somebody when you’re really stressed out. But even when you’re not stressed out, you’re just moving around the office throughout the school. And if you can take the time to have a nice social interaction with somebody and remember to try to keep your thoughts positive, maybe share the best thing out of your day or ask someone, “Hey, what’s good today?” Naturally, we also would like to let loose and maybe complain sometimes. When you want to complain, lean into gratitude, think about that and ask somebody maybe what you’re grateful for today. So just take a second to think about what you’re grateful for today. That’s also very helpful.

Occipital massage. This one’s great. I love this one. So take your hands, put your thumbs to the back of your skull right here where you feel these little two bumps on the back of your skull. You can also use your hands like this guy in a picture to do that. I like to use my thumbs. You know why? Because then I can put my fingers on my head and also rub my scalp. So you’re giving yourself, again, you can close your eyes when you’re doing this and press hard. Sometimes I like to press in real hard, but I also like to press and then pull out, press in on the occipitals and drag my fingers outward towards my ears.

If you’re pushing nice and hard and you’re kind of squeezing your head a little bit like that. Now I know that this is something you don’t really want people to see you doing at work, but I challenge you to share this with somebody at work and just give that little head massage and you’ll be surprised by it, because we carry so much tension in our neck and that area is connected directly right behind it is where the vagus nerve really starts. And so that’s a great way for you to give that little bit of stimulation and it’s just going to take the edge off. There is no magic sauce to this is going to be the solution to all of your problems, but when you really need to take that edge off and just take a TO. This is a really great way to do it.

And then gentle movement. So if you can, just take your arms and bring them up and then slowly bring them down. So just even sitting in your chair, there’s light stretches, gently and we don’t need to get up and jump around necessarily. Sometimes you can just get up, do a couple of stretches, just do some gentle arm circles, sort of this smooth circular movement that feels really good like somatic dance or a little Tai Chi or something like that. Or if you like to do yoga, you could do maybe a couple of yoga moves. And a short walk can also support your vagal tone because it helps to shift your body out of that fight or flight.

Gargling. So if you have a little bit of water in that glass, you can just take a little sip of it right now. Again, you’re muted, so don’t be shy and we can’t see you. If you want to take a little sip of water and then just go ahead and take a little gargle. I’m going to try not to gargle too loud, but what they tell you is gargle hard. So this is a nice one that you can couple with your morning routine of brushing your teeth, right? If you don’t already gargle, add this in, because it can take off a little bit of the edge when you’re getting ready to start your day. There you go. Who does that on a recorded Zoom?

All right. Gentle eye and ear massage. Okay. So you want to take your fingers, put them on your eyeballs and just give a gentle little rub. You can do a deep breath in, just for a few seconds. And then you can also grab your tragus. And what that is, or trager, sorry. It’s this little flap of skin here right by your ear. Again, maybe not do this in the middle of a meeting. But you can grab it, give it a squeeze, give it a gentle pull, and release. Grab, squeeze, pull, and release. Again, relax in some of those muscles that play right over the vagus nerve. Eye movement also moving from left to right. So look to the left as far as you can for five, four, three, two, one, and look to the right as far as you can, with just your eyes. [inaudible 00:20:15] Four, three, two.

And gentle carotid massage. So take your three fingers, just put them on your neck, and give them nice little rub here. Nice, deep breath in. Exhale. Excellent. Okay, we’re going to watch this. Just a couple of scenes here from this video, because TikTok, we’re running out of time already.

Speaker 3:

Did you open this?

Speaker 4:

No.

Speaker 3:

You didn’t open this at all?

Speaker 4:

I see it.

Speaker 3:

Did you open it? Did you put it on your face?

Speaker 6:

Open your mouth, Lay.

Speaker 6:

You eating marker?

Speaker 7:

No.

Speaker 6:

How you get your tongue blue?

Speaker 7:

Blue?

Speaker 6:

Yes, it is.

Speaker 7:

It green.

Speaker 8:

I didn’t did it, touch the cake.

Speaker 9:

You didn’t touch the cake? You sure you didn’t touch the cake? You didn’t touch the cake?

Speaker 8:

No.

Kat Satterley:

Okay. If you didn’t get a chuckle out of that, I don’t know. We need more vagal tone increase here because that’s just great. So a little laughter goes a long way. That’s why we do like those little TikToks and reels, but try to stay away from the Zoom scrolling, especially when you are at work. Okay.

Fasting. Daily fasting is great if it’s something that you can do, it will absolutely help you to gain more control over your nervous system. And this can also help diabetes, blood pressure, along with that nervous system regulation. You could do it days in a row or you can just do that intermediate fasting during the day.

Infrared heat from sauna. Hot sauna, followed by that polar bear plunge is also good for you, because anytime we stress the body like doing physical activity as well, and then follow it by that cold plunge, that vagal stimulation, so good for you. It really helps to build that resilience.

We won’t go through this because we’re out of time, but just think about those morning moments when you can add these in that midday reset, afternoon and transitions, maybe between classes. And then at the end of the day, even in the car, do a little singing or humming on your way home. And remember this, you don’t need a lot of time. Even 30 seconds of intentional vagal activation can calm your state and consistently, or consistency, sorry, matters more than duration.

Your nervous system is listening. Give it the signals it needs to feel safe, regulated, and resilient. You have this at the end of the presentation, which you will have access to. So this can be your little one printout that you could keep at your desk. Don’t forget to engage in self-care as much as possible. Self-care turns into collective care, which is the way we change the culture.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here.

Laura Buckner:

Well, thank you so much, Kat. Really appreciate all of these valuable sort of micro opportunities for people to use throughout the day. So what you all see on your screen right now is Kat’s contact information. You can reach out to her. There’s also a QR code and we can put the link in the chat to access the slides and all of these wonderful exercises that Kat shared with us.

Finally, there is a Zoom poll popping up on your screen. It’s just three questions, but it does help us at the Stronger Connections Technical Assistance Center to improve our offerings. So we appreciate you taking a few moments for that. Finally, you can stay connected with us on our website and learn about more opportunities for mini sessions such as this. And we just want to thank you all for being here. Thank you, Kat, very, very much for sharing your expertise with us today.

And we hope that everybody can go about the rest of your afternoon feeling a little bit calmer, a little more centered thanks to Kat and those exercises she shared. So thank you very much, everybody. Have a wonderful afternoon.