Written by Amber Walker, Owner of Origin Wellness
Amber Walker is a Doctor of Physical Therapy-turned author with a passion to empower others to heal from chronic illness. As the owner of Origin Wellness, Amber utilizes an approach based on a blend of functional/natural medicine, nervous system tools, nutrition, movement, and emotional healing to help patients move from surviving to thriving.
Have you ever felt angry or tearful after a loud noise startled you? Do you find it difficult to have conversations or focus when background noise surrounds you? Are bright or flashing lights difficult for you? Do you remove tags from clothing or find certain materials irritable from a tactile perspective? Do you avoid certain tastes and textures of food? Do you experience difficulty swallowing, excessive gagging, constipation, intestinal gas, vomiting, acid reflux, or other gastrointestinal symptoms?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are not alone, and there’s an interesting physiological connection to these patterns. You would likely benefit from tools to help rewire the autonomic nervous system, and sound healing is one powerful option that may profoundly impact these tendencies.
After we experience trauma of various sorts, the autonomic nervous system adapts to help keep us safe, which can result in these patterns. The truth is that we are actually safer than we think, but the nervous system does not always realize that.
Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) overview
Virtually every patient I’ve met who has suffered from chronic illness presents with some aspect of neurological dysfunction related to the regulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS is the body’s system for determining when there’s a threat (and the need to flee/fight or freeze up/play dead) vs. the state of being where the body can focus on rest and digestion.
The body’s subconscious continuously scans the environment to determine if there are any threats in our vicinity, and certain parts of the brain are responsible for relaying this information via our nerves down to our muscles and tissues. This enables us to get ready to spring into action if needed. This helps shunt blood flow to different areas, depending on whether it feels safe to digest our food. This also impacts whether our body is in an optimal state for other activities, like clearing toxins from the system or increasing our libido.
Spotlight on the vagus nerve
A cranial nerve called the vagus nerve is responsible for the neural regulation of the face, head, and viscera (organs). The vagus nerve has 3 primary functions:
Parasympathetic functions: The nerve is responsible for metabolic processes, heart rate, digestion, urination, sexual arousal, and salivation—our main bodily functions that occur while resting/feeling safe.
Sensory: The nerve processes sensory information from the heart, lungs, throat, and abdomen, and has special functions related to taste behind the tongue.
Motor functions: The nerve provides movement to the neck muscles responsible for swallowing and speech.
When patients experience a tight sensation in the throat alongside other symptoms, they often associate it with an allergy attack. However, sometimes this sensation occurs because the ANS has dysfunction in one of the cranial nerves that come from the neck. Several cranial nerves run from the brain down to the body, including the vagus nerve, and they run next to each other and are impacted by the position of the upper cervical spine (neck), particularly C1 and C2. In addition to the vagus nerve, the trigeminal, facial, glossopharyngeal, and accessory nerves impact motor and sensory information for our head, face, throat, and neck muscles.
This group of cranial nerves influences factors like social engagement and the middle ear muscles that regulate our sensitivity to sounds. When our cranial nerves are not functioning properly, patients find themselves in fight or flight (sympathetic chain) and freeze (dorsal vagal) reactions, often to benign stimuli.
The middle ear and sound
When we’re infants, we’re naturally in tune with the high-frequency tone of a parent’s voice. Trauma (“big” or “small”) causes the nervous system to go into a state of hypervigilance so that we instead strain to hear background noises, which are at lower frequencies. Middle ear muscles like the tensor tympani and the stapedius typically contract to dampen background noise. However, after trauma, they become less active, making it difficult to extract the higher frequency sounds like human voices from our environment. Illness, fever, and aging also reduce the function of the middle ear muscles. This is one of the mechanisms by which sound therapies can profoundly impact the rewiring of our nervous system.
Support for the autonomic nervous system
The great news is that we can re-set these neural pathways, even when they’ve been dysfunctional for decades. Several programs and treatment interventions assist in improving the relaxed state referred to as ventral vagal tone, and this is a key component to overall healing and well-being. In some cases, it may also be important to address the presence of trauma with a mental health professional as an adjunct to addressing the nervous system in other ways.
Potential benefits of improving cranial nerve tone include improvements in heart rate and blood pressure regulation, sweating, digestive function, facial expression, eye contact, voice intonations, memory & concentration, adrenaline rushes and adrenal dysfunction, understanding of human language and body language, ability to express oneself verbally or physically, insomnia, anxiety and depression, sensory stimulation to touch/sound/sight/taste, diversity of food choices, breathing, and much more.
There are many helpful and simple at-home tools to support a balanced ANS, and it’s helpful to work with a practitioner to explore these options to customize choices for the individual. Breathing exercises should incorporate a longer exhale than inhale time, because inhaling increases sympathetic nervous system stimulation, and exhaling increases parasympathetic nervous system tone. Diaphragmatic breathing is also helpful as this stimulates the vagus nerve, alongside mobility that incorporates spinal twists and release of the psoas muscle.
Gargling, singing, humming, and chanting can also stimulate the vagus nerve and are encouraged in this process. Connecting with others in meaningful conversation and extended hugs and embraces are also supported by experts to improve vagal tone.
Journaling, reading, meditation, mindfulness, prayer, yoga, tai chi, massage, laughter, art, energetic boundary practices, sensory integration tools, somatic havening exercises, and other calming activities support the regulatory functions of our nervous system. Slowing down is key!
Some patients find Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping to be useful. Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercise (TRE) elicits a shaking response to dissipate sympathetic nervous system tone. Brainspotting, Brain Tap, and binaural beats may also be helpful tools for the ANS.
More complex special programs may also teach patients how to rewire top-down conscious patterns alongside bottom-up somatic tools.
Popular programs with guided activities to support the ANS:
I also recommend addressing structural and musculoskeletal factors (particularly spinal alignment and stability issues) with the help of trained professionals (physical therapist, osteopath, etc.) to help support the ANS.
Auditory therapies
My favorite of all of the options is sound-based therapy for the ANS. The Safe & Sound Protocol, Solfeggio Frequencies, and Sound Bowl Healing are three helpful options.
Safe & sound protocol (SSP)
The SSP is an auditory therapy developed by Dr. Stephen Porges that strengthens ear muscles to improve parasympathetic state, social engagement, sensitivities, etc. This intervention targets the middle ear muscles specifically to help rewire the system away from the danger response. The SSP involves 3 playlists of 5 hours of music each, spread out over time. This approach must be utilized with a trained practitioner but can be completed via telehealth and the use of an app in most cases.
Many types of clients benefit from the SSP. The majority of the research behind it has focused on individuals with autism spectrum disorders, functional neurological disorders, sensory and auditory processing disorders, chronic pain, ADD/ADHD, anxiety and depression, disordered eating, long-COVID, sleep, traumatic brain injuries, and PTSD. Additionally, clinical cases find benefit for conditions such as hypermobility spectrum disorders, dysautonomia/POTS, multiple chemical sensitivity, mast cell activation syndrome, ME/CFS (myalgic encephalitis/chronic fatigue syndrome), Chiari malformation, intracranial pressure issues, extracellular fluid leaks, motion sickness, and misophonia (a strong reaction to certain sounds, such as dripping water, chewing, tapping).
The SSP is not about the content or back story of trauma, but rather, it’s about honoring the body’s response. The body has done what it needs to do to survive, but the SSP enables patients to move into a state of “rest and digest,” a time for thriving, not just surviving. The SSP is an invitation to help release healing and give the body the rest and the nervous system reset that it deserves.
Learn more about the SSP here:
Solfeggio frequencies
Solfeggio Frequencies are a functional music scale of several measurable tones that are used therapeutically to rebalance the body. Historically, there are several theories and connections to this musical scale, most notably tied to mathematics and religion, that explain how the music may bring your body back to a balanced resonance. These frequencies are believed to stimulate healing and promote vitality by impacting the subconscious mind.
Different frequencies of this music are connected to different therapeutic purposes. For example,
174 Hz: Pain reduction; physical healing; stress
285 Hz: Rejuvenation; energy restoration; cellular and tissue repair
396 Hz: Liberating guilt and fear; support for anxiety
417 Hz: Energy clearing; undoing situations and facilitating change
432 Hz: Positive vibrations; balance and harmony; sleep
528 Hz: Emotional release; transformation and miracles (DNA Repair)
639 Hz: Connecting/relationships; love
741 Hz: Awakening intuition; truth; detoxification of mind and body
852 Hz: Intuition; inner peace; spiritual awakening; returning to spiritual order
936 Hz: Enlightenment and divine consciousness; a sense of oneness
This music is free, readily available, and does not require special headphones, equipment, or training.
Learn more about Solfeggio Frequencies here:
Sound bowl healing
This form of sound bath therapy utilizes the vibration of singing bowls to promote healing and relaxation. Sometimes instruments like chimes, rattles, gongs, drums, and wind instruments are also used. The vibrations created by these tools are believed to promote balance and alignment in the chakras. These vibrational frequencies may alter the energy field surrounding the human body, known as the biofield, to impact brain waves and cellular healing. Researchers have measured changes in heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and mental health variables with singing bowl sound meditation.
A trained practitioner facilitates this therapy either in person or virtually.
Learn more about Sound Bowl Healing here:
Which one of these are you most curious to try? Whether you explore sound healing or other approaches for the autonomic nervous system, remember that with the right tools, through neuroplasticity the body has an incredible ability to heal itself and rewire programming that no longer serves us.
Read more from Amber Walker
Amber Walker, Owner of Origin Wellness
Amber Walker is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, author and the owner of Origin Wellness. She is passionate about a root issues approach to healing from chronic illness and has advanced training in functional medicine, nutrition, nervous system healing, Mind Body Spirit Release™ (MBSR™) and CranioBiotic Technique. With over 16 years of experience working with clients all over the world, Amber specializes in conditions such as mast cell activation syndrome, mold biotoxin illness, long Covid, POTS, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Lyme disease, autoimmune conditions, and chronic mysterious ailments. When not on a surfboard, she enjoys hosting telehealth groups, 1-on-1 care, and retreats in Mexico. Her mission: Help you go from surviving to thriving.
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