#Autonomic Nervous System

[gold-as-hera]

[softnoodlesdoodles]

Ptsd nervous system meets disregulating virus and you get: a mess 🥲. It really feels like covid just went into my body, messed everything up, and left me to deal with the consequences.

[jesusonafrickinboat]

October is Dysautonomia Awareness Month!

Dysautonomia refers to a group of medical conditions caused by autonomic nervous system dysfunction

Conditions under the dysautonomia umbrella include: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Neurocardiogenic Syncope (NCS), Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), and others

More than 70 million people worldwide are affected by various forms of dysautonomia

Dysautonomia International and Cleveland Clinic have more in-depth articles on dysautonomia for more information

[bursting-at-the-seems]

I am 28 years old and I am 5 foot 10 and wear a size 20. I work with a personal trainer, I don't eat a lot, and I do my best to eat mindfully. I also have several recently diagnosed chronic conditions, Autoimmune, Dysautonomia, and endocrine, though the symptoms have been around most of my life. These are genetic conditions and they are not caused by my weight.

They believe if I lose weight they will go away.

Growing up my family always made comments about my weight as well as others. Most everyone in my family is over weight. I would run miles every day in high school and skip meals and still hear how i needed to lose more. I became the DSM5 definition of bulimic, made easier by other abuse going on in my life.

Now, I am a happy person and happy with myself. I'm not at the weight I want to be, but I don't discuss my weight with anyone outside of my doctor. If my family asks I tell them I am doing my best and discuss my medical condition challenges. They have offered gastric bypass and lap band surgery unsolicited. At a party someone brought up my weight to try and help me and in that I found out people have been discussing it behind my back out of concern. So I sent this text:

Hey family,

I have heard for quite some time that there have been conversations about my weight with others in the family, though not to me. Recently, this has come to my attention, again.

My doctor and I are both aware and in agreement that my weight is not our primary concern. This is due to my other medical conditions taking priority, especially as my weight did not cause these genetic conditions.

Despite this, I still consider it a priority and I've seen progress: weight loss, more muscle, less body fat, smaller measurements. This is because:

• I have met with professionals (nutritionists, doctors, therapist) to review my eating habits, avoid disordered eating, and how we can manage my conditions and side effects impact on my progress.

• I work with my personal trainer and we track my progress. Also, I'm adding more physical activity as I can.

While appreciate the love and concern from everyone, I do not want my weight to be a topic of conversation when I am not in the room. I hope you will all respect that. There is no need to respond to this message as I trust that any of my family, whom I truly love and who I know love me, will not be discussing my weight amongst each other ever again.

Thank you

In response I had two people get very upset. Saying that I should have just let it go. That people talk because they care. That's what a family is. That they are worried they will need to bury me. That my text was dismissive and uncaring. That it's not about my looks (for some) I told them these conversations are hurtful and as they don't know my weight it must be based of my looks. I was told when I really want a husband and kids I will lose weight, I won't be truly happy till l do lose weight. I told them, aside from this I am happy, I my weight isn't a requirement to happiness or marriage, and that their conversations make me feel ugly and want to go back to disordered eating. That it's hurtful when I am doing everything I can, they know I didn't eat a lot, and I'm fighting my body in other ways. It makes me feel like l'm failing. That at the very least I didn't need to hear about these conversations and I didn't need it discussed at family events.

Was my message so wrong? Does anyone else struggle with this? I love my family so much. I'm doing everything i can to keep loosing weight and it never seems enough, not just for my family but for my body. It just won't go down more.

[ehlers-danloscircus]

When you were happily on a roll getting stuff done and doing happy projects and then all of a sudden the weather decides:

HahahahHAHAHAHAÀAAAHAAAHA

Let's increase the temperature, humidity, and...AND rapidly drop the barometric pressure

HahahahahHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHAHA !!

[queeringpsychology]

Somatic Series Unit 2, Ch.10: The Body Scan

Welcome back to Unit 2 of the Somatic series! This series is where I’m using somatic psych theory to help people learn and map out their autonomic nervous system, develop a healthier relationship with themselves, and eventually build stronger communities. Unit 2 focuses on explaining and demonstrating how to use 3 somatic exercises (Grounding, Body Scanning, and the Notice and Name Exercise) to…

[samsayswhatever]

Sometimes I ask people a question about what I should do.

And they say I should do "what I want."

But the reason I was asking was that I'm constantly floating in a void between life and death and have no real goal but to survive, no values but to be better, and no awareness of my needs except the need to people please.

Realization:

I just realized that I'm likely using tumblr as a way to express my constant fawn response. Which is better than freezing, because to fawn is to know who you are, and who your group is.

Fight or flight thoughts:

To freeze is no not even know you ally from you enemy. To not have power over you life. And to think that even if you win this battle, nothing will change. So why do anything at all?

Maybe some day I'll work my way up to fleeing, where I think that I can win if I keep trying in the right conditions. End goal is to be able to fight. To know I have the power to win, and face the fear head on, and be done with it.

I know who my allies are, but I don't know who my enemies are. I don't know if I'm my own worst enemy, or if it's something else. I don't like doubting myself and havin gto check over everythign I do, just in case it's sabotoge. And then here I am, stalling, which is only a step a way frm freezing, but a mile from fawning.

Goals:

I want to write. I want to help people. I want to be someone who wants to get enough sleep. But I don't. And I'm not sure it will change, even if I win this battle, write this story, make just one person smile. But I'm still doing things, this post is a thing, and I'm only not deleting it because I won't believe I was sad next time I'm happy. But doing anything, writing anything, that gives me hope. Well, sometimes it does. Mostly it gives me hope when I accomplish things. This feeling now is just noticing hope in the distance, and telling myself "I've walked that distance before, so I should be able to do it again."

Fan fiction thoughts:

Anyway. I'm just stalling on writing fan fiction, because I don't believe in myself.

I wrote like 9 chapters of a book that was planned to be 11 chapters, then I got anxious about spice levels. Then I planned out a whole 'nother like 19 chapter book that should be all cute. And I haven't written a word. And then I planned a super detailed fix it fic that I think pulls on stings that the marvel writers wanted us to see, but I haven't even pieced together how that will start.

More stalling. This is all stalling. Goodnight. Blehh

[hearth-and-veil]

I flashed through the five stages of grief in >4 hours today as I once again mourned the life I could have had.

I have gotten an A+ with extra credit in depression pretty much my entire life. My doctors have basically all shrugged and said some variation of either "You're depressed because you have depression" or "You're depressed because you're disabled." Very recently, I learned about a medical condition called Autonomic Nervous System Dysregulation, and I check basically all the boxes for both cause and effect. I started practicing the techniques to manage and correct it, and my quality of life went straight up almost immediately.

So what's with the grief? I should have been told about this 10 years ago, at the minimum.

Denial: Are you fucking kidding me? I was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome at 19, comorbid of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. POTS, as the police do not like it to be called, is a type of dysautonomia. I was told, at 19, that it was a cardiovascular disease and nothing else. In the 10 years since my diagnosis, whether I called it POTS or dysautonomia, not one single medical professional ever told me that dysautonomia = dysregulated autonomic. Not one person, out of dozens, in ten years. Are you fucking kidding me?

Anger: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? NOT ONE PERSON MENTIONED ANYTHING IN TEN FUCKING YEARS. Not one cardiologist! Not one GP! Not one ER doctor! Not a military doctor, not a civilian! Ten FUCKING years I have suffered when I didn't have to! Are doctors that fucking incompetent? Even the so-called EDS specialist didn't think to mention it? Didn't bring up that it is EXTREMELY COMMON for people with EDS? That I have almost all of the symptoms and it explains why my life is shit???

Bargaining: If they had just TOLD ME! If they had told me, I could have done something. I could have helped myself. Even if all they had done was say it was a nervous system disorder. I was 19! I was only 19! I didn't know then what I knew now. They could have told me and I wouldn't have gone through this. All they had to do was notice one connection. All they had to do was go just a little beyond "your heart doesn't beat enough." If one doctor had just said six words, my life wouldn't be like this.

Depression: Everything else goes wrong, why not this too? Why would I even expect my life to be any different? Everything in life goes against me at some point. It's really my own fault. I should never have trusted doctors. I should have known, when I was 19, stressed out, in college, in a terrible living situation, completely isolated, in chronic pain, barely able to function, completely depressed...I should have known that I couldn't trust anyone, not even a doctor. I should have done all of my own research. I am the only person I can trust with anything.

Acceptance: Now I know, now I can work on it. It wasn't malicious. Nobody was trying to hurt me. No one is omniscient. I make mistakes, so it stands to reason that other people do too. I wish I had this information sooner. I didn't deserve to suffer the way I suffered. But I know now what I know now, and I can work with it. The past is over and done. I am the one thing in life I can control. I will use this information to help myself, and I will work on disseminating this information to other people so that they can also get the help they need. It still hurts. I am still upset, and angry, and regretful. I am in mourning for the life I could have had if I had known how to manage my disability holistically instead of symptomatically, and that is ok. There is nothing wrong with how I feel, as long as it doesn't control me. I will move forward, like I always do.

[magdalene-spirit]

The dark Mother—

🩸The violent outcry,

the mad behaviour

is a cry,

the asking by Mother

of the people to feel

the state of the collective heart,

the realm of feeling-knowing—the feminine principle of consciousness— which IS Mother— the unbound, ever expanding circle womb ⭕️

🩸At this time the masculine principle of consciousness, has stretched so far that the line has reached its breaking point— ➖

We know what happens when the overstretched line/arrow snaps—

It is forced to feel—

But because it has denied feeling in favour of thinking for so long, when it breaks all that has been denied comes out—

As war-cries & stamping of feet in tantruming to get its own way at any cost—

Because it has not developed the inner capacity for holding the feeling states that are surfacing; it has no feeling-awareness for processing in a space that feels everything, without having to unleash it, in a space that can digest & absorb & clear it all out—

In energy anatomy it is the solar plexus-autonomic nervous system (the triadic currents, that turn & twist around one another regulating form) & the even stronger cyclical spiral of the womb-space— that creates the vortex-spin in which forms from this world may be broken down & cleared out of this time-space, like going through a spinning black hole—back into unified white light—the Shiva

Like the capacity of the womb to assemble organic matter to bring form into this world; it can by reversal of the current, deconstruct energy patterns, release, transmutate & recycle forms—

A doorway, opening or portal between this world of time & the other worlds of dreaming & timeless times— is what the womb is—

It cannot really be mimicked by building a particle accelerator machine—

We call her Kali, the Mother of time & cycles of birth & death (kala); the Shakti of Shiva

Drop out of the head, sink into the body, down into the subconscious, into the interdimensions— the underworld — the dark Mother space of death, rebirth & transition—

This is the descent to the Dark Mother— who chews, eats & digests energy & emotional states—

Which feels like a death of sorts—

In our time they have called it a dark night of the soul—

#kali

[springfling789]

they should invent an autonomic nervous system that works

[michellesanches]

Book Summary - "How to Do the Work" by Nicole LePera

In “How to Do the Work”, renowned holistic psychologist Nicole LePera presents readers with a transformative roadmap to self-discovery, healing and growth. Drawing upon her professional expertise and personal experiences, LePera offers actionable steps to break free from patterns that hold us back, unravel unresolved traumas and create a path toward authentic well-being. This article explores the…

[longhaulerbear]

Pathway analysis identified the strongest network interactions particularly for proteins involved in thrombogenicity and enhanced platelet activity, but also inflammation, cardiac contractility and hypertrophy, and increased adrenergic activity. Our observations generated by the first use a label-free unbiased quantification reveal the proteomic footprint of POTS in terms of a hypercoagulable state, proinflammatory state, enhanced cardiac contractility and hypertrophy, skeletal muscle expression, and adrenergic activity. These findings support the hypothesis that POTS may be an autoimmune, inflammatory and hyperadrenergic disorder.

Growing evidence points toward POTS being an autoimmune disease, oftentimes triggered by a viral or bacterial infection, Lumican (LUM) interacts with CD14 and CD18 on macrophage and neutrophils to promote innate immune response, and normally helps to restrict autoimmunity, antiviral, bacterial and inflammatory responses.

Increased expression of skeletal muscle myosin in POTS

We observed significantly increased expression of myosin light chain 1/3, skeletal muscle isoform (MYL1) expressed only in fast skeletal muscles in adults and required for proper formation and maintenance of myofibers, and muscle function.

POTS, differences in sympathetic nerve discharge and fiber loss from skeletal muscles is observed which could putatively explain muscle fatiguability and deconditioning associated with POTS.

Upregulated alpha-adrenergic activity in POTS

We noted significant upregulation of myosin regulatory light chain 12B (MYL12B) protein in POTS, which triggers polymerization of vascular smooth muscle.

Vascular smooth muscle cells are predominantly innervated by the sympathetic α1 adrenergic receptors and play an important role in maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis by regulating vascular tone, blood flow and blood pressure. In POTS, increased sympathetic activation causes activation of the adrenergic receptors and a surge in norepinephrine levels, and approximately 89% of patients with POTS exhibit elevated levels of autoantibodies against the adrenergic α1 receptor.

[clownibalism]

i don’t think my autonomic nervous system graduated from autonomic nervous system school

[songlinesdreamingtracks]

What is Heart Rate Variability?

Heart rate variability (HRV) is a physiological phenomenon that has gained increasing attention in recent years due to its potential as a valuable indicator of overall health and well-being. HRV refers to the variation in time intervals between consecutive heartbeats, and it is considered to be a reflection of the autonomic nervous system's influence on the heart. This variability is often measured using specialized equipment and can provide valuable insights into an individual's stress levels, fitness, and overall cardiovascular health.

One of the most compelling aspects of HRV is its ability to serve as a non-invasive and easily accessible marker of an individual's physiological resilience. Research has shown that higher HRV is associated with better cardiovascular health, improved stress resilience, and overall better physical and mental well-being. Conversely, lower HRV has been linked to increased risk of various health issues, including cardiovascular disease, anxiety, and depression.

Anecdotal evidence also supports the potential significance of heart rate variability in assessing and improving health. For example, consider the case of Sarah, a 35-year-old professional who leads a high-stress lifestyle. Sarah noticed that she often felt fatigued and struggled with anxiety, and she decided to start monitoring her HRV using a smartphone app. Over time, she observed a correlation between her HRV readings and her stress levels, and she used this information to make lifestyle changes, such as incorporating regular meditation and yoga into her routine. As a result, Sarah reported feeling more energetic and less anxious, and she noticed an improvement in her overall well-being.

In addition to its potential as a tool for personal health management, HRV has also garnered interest in professional sports and athletic training. Coaches and athletes have begun using HRV monitoring to optimize training programs and prevent overtraining. By tracking HRV, athletes can adjust their training intensity and volume to ensure that they are adequately recovering and minimizing the risk of injury.

Furthermore, HRV monitoring has shown promise in the field of mental health. Therapists and counselors are exploring the use of HRV biofeedback as a tool to help individuals manage anxiety and stress. By teaching clients to regulate their HRV through breathing exercises and relaxation techniques, therapists aim to improve their clients' ability to cope with stress and regulate their emotions.

In conclusion, heart rate variability is a fascinating and potentially valuable physiological marker that offers insights into an individual's overall health and well-being. While further research is needed to fully understand its implications, anecdotal evidence and preliminary studies suggest that HRV monitoring may have significant applications in personal health management, athletic training, and mental health interventions. As technology continues to advance, it is likely that HRV monitoring will become more accessible and integrated into various aspects of health and wellness.

[queeringpsychology]

Connecting with your intuition/body via Somatic Work - Deeper on that Fight/Flight Response

If you’re new here, this is a long series where I am explaining somatic psych theory so people can have a better relationship with their bodies, connect with their intuition, and resource/prep themselves for trauma work. [Video version of this post here] Understanding how your nervous system works, how your body in general works, is essential for this somatic healing journey. Like I said before,…