Constipation, Digestive Issues, Inflammation

Intro and Tonightu2019s Colonics Interview 0:00

Hey everybody, today in Maine, the high is 60 and the low is 12. I've never lived in a place that you can have such a broad range of temperatures in one day. So yet again, another adventure in main. Today, Well first, before I get into that, tonight, we're going to have a great interview with a lovely friend of mine and she's going be talking all about colonics or colon hydrotherapy, also holistic wellness, So, if you're not sure what colonics or colon hydrotherapy is, you definitely want to tune in for this.

If you have been considering it but have a lot of questions, not really sure, then you, definitely, want, to, tune, in, as, well. colon struggles or concerns, tune in because this might help guide you in a way that would be helpful along your healing path. So that's tonight. We're going to live stream it. It's going be to our Facebook page, ThriveHW. And there is an event. Sorry about that. There is an event created, and so you'll be able to see the live stream in the event. So RSVP to the events, you know, mark yourself as going.

I think it'll give you alert if you do that. And so, we can make sure that you get the information. If not, let's say you forget to do, that and you want to go back and see it, the replay should stay available there in That's what we have going on for

What the Vagus Nerve Does 1:57

you tonight. And then today, we're gonna talk about the vagus nerve. So not many people have heard of that term. Not many know what it's referring to. In the textbooks, they use the name vagis, but chiropractors usually use para-sympathetic. Depending on what environment it is that you're speaking to someone about it, They may use parasympathy nervous system. They may use the term Vegas nerve. So what is it and what does it do? Well, I have a great picture for you. I'm going to share my screen real quick and you just find it.

It's around here somewhere. There it is. Okay, so let's share this. Okay, so you should be able to see that picture now. And this is a picture of the vagus nerve. So, um, it comes from the Latin for in the line. It means to wander. Okay. so it flows through your body and it performs lots and lots of tasks. Things like keeping your larynx open for breathing. it feeds the lung and lungs and the diaphragm. It also slows and regulates your heartbeat. It stimulates the secretion of things like saliva, releasing bile, the contraction of your bowels.

So this is where constipation comes in sometimes. It sends a message to the brain to either make or release oxytocin, which is your feel-good, your bonding hormone. It can also help lower anxiety and depression, reduce stress and inflammation. So there's lots and lots of things that this is involved in. Even letting your stomach know that you're hungry and letting you brain know you are full. That's another way that it impacts things. So it goes through the heart, the liver, gut, brain, mouth, all that stuff.

And it really helps to turn off inflammation. It has the anti-inflammatory reflex because it releases the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which helps to calm inflammation in the body. So when you're in a state of stress, all right, your immune system is depressed, okay? Everything else shuts down. Your digestion is suppressed. You're immune is system depressed. And that can lead to things like lots of infections, digestive issues. So if you're someone that doesn't have the best immune systems, or if do have digestive concerns, you might want to consider supporting this a little bit more, There's lots of autistic kids out there and they're really struggling to drop into that parasympathetic state.

It's supportive of lots things in that area. So vagus nerve toxicity is something that somebody named Dr. Klinghart really noticed at first. And he saw that things like amalgams, so metal fillings, root canals, uh, lots of toxins in the nerve, um, that it drains or toxins and the mouth that drains right into the vagous nerve and it can block that downstream signaling. So, it creates like this traffic jam. And so if you have had a lot of root canals, have a lots of dental work done, a have lot metal fillings, then this can be an area that may need continual

Ways to Support Vagal Tone 5:54

support for you. So it's definitely something to be aware of. It can be overactive just like it can underactive. But most people have an under active. Meaning that it's lacking that vagal tone because we're very often in the stress response, whether it from internal stress or external stress. That's much more common than an over active, okay? and a dead giveaway for that or things like constipation. can be a big red flag that there could be some support that could used here. What are things that we can incorporate into our every day that helps to support the vagal tone?

Some things you can do every are gargling. Gargle really well after you brush your teeth every morning. That can really help to strengthen your vagus nerve and improve movement in the digestive tract and help Activates a more sluggish bow. All right, so that's something and that something you can do every single day. Okay, gagging also. So like I use a tongue scraper and then just gently making yourself gag when you use it can be very supportive there too. I know it sounds strange, but it does. Then there's things like chanting or humming or singing and you ever, you know, whistle while you work.

kind of thing. So like humming at your desk while you work or singing along or humming and singing in the shower. These are all things that can be very helpful to tonify your vagus nerve. Some other things are breath work is always huge. We're always talking about breathwork. Cold water exposure. So temperature therapy is really big in lots of arenas, but especially professional sports. Whether it's things like ice baths or cryotherapy, they really rev up recovery because it improves that vagal tone.

Even if you're somebody that likes to work out a lot, then you'll find a benefit there too. Um, or maybe you work physically, um, for a living as opposed to someone like me, that's mostly sitting at a desk. Um. So maybe your more construction based, right? Then especially. In every case, cold water therapy is helpful, but especially in those cases too. I'm so you can ease into it with things like cold showers for me. And all or nothing kind of I tend my personality tends to be that way. so I'd rather do an ice bath.

Every so often, then do a cold shower once, you know, every day, but everybody is different. You know sometimes you do the cold show every Wim Hof on his app. They have like little challenges that you can do. And let me see if I can find it real quick. One of them is the Cold Shower and you could just log in and mark it in there. when you do it to kind of keep track of it. So just something that you can work on a little by little at a time and work your way up, you know, even if it's just splashing cold water on your face, not just in the morning, but at night before you go to bed too.

When you splash the cold It's designed to slow your body down, to mimic as if you just dove into water. So it's pretty simple, but these are all little tiny things that you can incorporate that can add up and make a big difference. Except for the cold exposure, that's not a little, tiny thing. That's a bigger thing, But yes. There's also another video that I think you guys would love. Let's get this playing real quick. This is, it's real short. It's only four minutes, just under five minutes. So let me share my screen there.

And you know what, let's, I wonder if I can make this full screen for you. so that you'll be able to see it better.

Brain-Gut Access and Activation Exercises 10:41

Well, we'll just do it the way that we can first for now. And I'll put the link to the video in there too. Oh, there you go, that's a little bit bigger. So hopefully you can see that. So here's the first thing. If a person has a brain-to-gut access disorder, they're not going to fix it with digestive supplements for their gut. They may still need it to function properly because their brain isn't making them produce enzymes, so they need to take enzymes. Their brain, vagus, and pharynx, can't get blood for the gut, because they have leaky gut so.

So they'll probably feel better taking digestive support and changing their diet and having a clean diet so that they don't have as much inflammation and bloating and swelling. but that's not going to fix it. They have to start from brain down. And when you look at supporting from the brain, down, you really can't just deal with the supplement. You have develop plasticity. you'd have the develop connections, right? So neurons have two fire into each other for you to have your brain fire, into your vagus, your Vegas, to fire in to your gut nervous system.

and then for those migrating motor complexes to work and that neurological firing pathway not only helps motility, but it's the pathway that helps you neurologically release enzymes and neurologic fire parasympathetics to get blood flow to your gut. I want to back up a little bit migraine motor complex. Dr. Seebecker covered that, but just in case somebody didn't watch that. What does that mean? So the migrene motor complexes are just a group of what they call motor neurons or muscle neurons. And your intestine cells have what are called smooth muscles.

Those are the neurons that cause you to have your intestines contracting and control your bowel function. But that's all controlled by brain function, right? So if you have a person who's lost their brain gut access, we currently know we can't just have them take a digestive supplement to treat it. And we go into three main things we do, and I cover this in my book. One of the first things to do is we have people gargle. This is something that was done in the functional neurology world for a long period of time.

People had head injuries and things like that. But gargling, as you take water, put it in back of your throat, you fire those palate muscles, which are fired by the vagus. And the key thing when we have patients do it is they sometimes understand the intensity they need to do. They need basically do to the point they're tearing, you know? So it's not like... It's like they take the water back and go... You're working it out. Yeah. And then the area of the vagus is right next to an area called the superior salvatore nucleus, which causes you to tear.

So you have to brainstorm aggressively enough, and you'll start to see the tearing. We ask patients to gargle aggressively until they have tearing in. And if this area is a part of the brain that's not functioning well, is degenerated, they're going to have a really hard time gargling. Or they may gargle for three or four seconds, or they just may choke, spit it out. So they might have to start with a small amount of water and kind of build up over time. They can do it for several minutes really aggressively, and they are tearing, tearing and tearing.

And that is how you activate it through an activation pathway. The other thing that patients do is we have them go to Amazon and buy a box of tongue blades. and induce a gag reflex, not in the back of their throats, they don't injure themselves, but just to push down on their tongue. If they push it on the backside of the tongue, if they feel like a little gag, and their eyes will start to tear. As they do that, their actually firing that pathway. And it's just like having a weak bicep. So if you have a biceps, you activate it by doing curls.

Weak vagus, brain to gut connection, You have to activate to really develop those connections, get that plasticity going. The third thing we do, this is really important, is we have patients do a coffee enema. but not for detox reasons. We want them to do a coffee enema and the coffee has the caffeine, and a caffeine stimulates gastrointestinal nicotinic cholinergic receptors, so it makes your gut kind of move. That's why laundry butter constipated do coffee enemas. But we want to get enough coffee and saturated enough so that they have to force themselves to suppress their bowel movements.

So if they land their side into confienema, they might have this urge in the bowel movement. If they don't have an urge, we need to have them increase the concentration of the caffeine in there. And they just hang out there for as long as they can, suppressing their urge. As they suppress their urges, their frontal, pontine, vagal, enteric access. If they keep doing that, they build endurance in there and they start to regain their brain kit access, right. You just hold it as long as you can. Hold it long, as can and then you concentrate it along with the can so it becomes difficult.

It's like kind of adding don't be adding plates to your, to you're your French press, you have to increase the intensity to make yourself work harder so Those three things we do seem to have a really good impact on impacting brain to gut access. At the same time, we want them to take a clean diet and take digestive enzymes and support their intestines because we don't want the inflammation there because the pathway goes from gut to brain as well. But the most area that's neglected with a lot of chronic digestive people is failure in their brain and gut axis.

That's why I wrote a whole chapter about it in my book. Nice, so I hope you like that video i'm going to share a link to the video in case you want to revisit it or maybe if the sound wasn't great or you couldn't see it really well, let me get the link for that. so I can share it here because it's really important and it is something that we take for granted and we don't think about very often. You may find it helpful, especially if you're experiencing any of the symptoms that were talked about or if are having digestive difficulties and just jumping right to supplements can sometimes be a help.

But, and it may relieve some of the symptoms but we don't want you to be reliant on those supplements we really want to get to the root cause of it and dealing at this level would be more of one of So there's also things like essential oils that you can do on your vagus nerve. We talked about brain tap yesterday. That's something that can be supportive of that.

Wrap-Up and Additional Resources 16:48

So, there are lots and lots of tools out there. What he was discussing in the video that I love so much is just simple things that we can every day. Coffee enema is a little bit more extreme, but if you're constipated, where you are going, once every few days, or for some people, I talk to people that are going once a week. It can be helpful in the beginning to start stimulating things, start relieving some of the pressure, so to speak, while you're healing. And it's another reason why you may want to listen into the colonics live that we're doing tonight, because you might find some that helpful too, especially if you are in that situation.

So I will put the link in there. I'll put a link to an essential oil blend that you might find helpful too. For the coffee enemas, if you're interested in that, they have kits on Amazon. If you search coffee enema, there's a whole kit that they sell that's really nice that comes all together and can be, like I said, can a starting place. for some of this deeper level healing. So we'll be back on again tomorrow. We're on live tonight on the Facebook page. I'll see you all next time.