The Vagus Nerve for mums and babies - How we can support our families' nervous systems with Dr Carrie Rigoni
Dr Carrie Rigoni is a chiropracter, applied kinesiologist and vagus nerve educator with a special interest in treating the vagus nerve in children. She is a wealth of knowledge and I really enjoyed learning about the vagus nerve with her - I know you will too!
We chat about:
- What is the vagus nerve and how it supports our nervous systems
- Signs that our vagal tone or our children's needs some support
- Ways that we can help to strengthen our vagal tone - through body work and daily habits
- When to get more support
You can find Carrie here:
https://www.drcarrierigoni.com.au/vagus-nerve-checklist-babiesandkids
She has some amazing freebies on her website including checklists and masterclasses.
Or you can connect with her on instagram: @drcarrierigoni
As always, if you have enjoyed this episode please share with your pals - and if you really love me, please leave a rating and review. It all helps immensely!
Hey Mama, I have a Sleep Guide for you! For birth to 18 months, this guide is steeped in evidence and laced with compassion. And you can download the first chapter absolutely free HERE.
Are we Insta pals? If not, why not? Come and hang out at @mamamatters.au!
As always, thanks for being here- if you enjoy this poddy I would LOVE if you could give a rating and a review. It means the world to me.
xx
TRANSCRIPT
Fiona Weaver 00:05
Hello love and welcome to the mama chatters podcast. If you're keen to ditch all of the parenting shirts and want to uncomplicate super parenting, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Fiona Weaver, founder of mama matters and through honest chats with experts and each other, will help you to cut through all of the noise and to love the heck out of your imperfect and authentic parenting. Wherever and whoever you are, you belong here. Now, let's have a chat.
Fiona Weaver 01:33
Good morning, Carrie, and welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. Yeah, thank you for having me, I am so excited today to talk to you about the vagus nerve, which is your passion, your specialty. And I want to kind of take it from the top, like what I want to know all about what the vagal nerve is how we can, you know, notice things in our babies and in ourselves, and what we can do about it and all of everything that comes with the vagus nerve. But let's start with who you are, what you do, and how you ended up here.
Dr. Carrie 02:09
And so I am a chiropractor by qualification,
Dr. Carrie 02:14
though I do kind of describe myself as slightly out of the box chiropractor, and I got where I am because I was looking for help with my own child. So I got into this field, particularly the vagus nerve and the nervous system. Because I my baby wasn't very sleeping very well. And I was exhausted and burnt out. And it wasn't until I started focusing on the nervous system, that things really started to shift for us. And it was a real light bulb moment for me because, you know, I was already a chiropractor, I had all this clinical knowledge. And I was like, sweating to motherhood so confident that I'd be like, Yeah, I'll sort it like, you know, it'll all be good. But we all know that babies are, you know, little humans, and they have their own their own needs separate to what clinical textbooks might tell us. So once I started working on my nervous system, his nervous system, we just saw massive changes in sleep, you know, happiness, I felt less burnt out. And I was like, I've got to share this message because it's so powerful.
Fiona Weaver 03:28
Oh, that's amazing. So what did you notice in him? Apart from his sleep, or what did his sleep look like? But what else was happening for him that made you think that his nervous system needed some support?
Dr. Carrie 03:42
He was the sort of baby who needed to be held all the time. And like, I guess this is like one example. But I feel like it just like shows exactly what he was like I had him in the carrier. I don't remember how old he was. But he had just fallen asleep and it took me like 40 minutes of like bouncing on the football while he was in the carrier. And then I was so thirsty, I got up to get a drink of water and just the sound of the water hitting the cup like ping eyes wide open. Sleep done. It was just like, so wired and like, you know, woke, woke with like the slightest noises was not very I wouldn't say I think he needed a lot of touch and a lot of comfort just like which I didn't have a problem providing. But I just felt deep down that he shouldn't be so wired. You know, I should be able to make noise without him pinging back to life, so to speak.
Fiona Weaver 04:47
Yeah, like he's looking out for danger. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So this is I was listening to something else that you had done a little while ago before we chatted today and it raise a lot of questions for me as somebody who speaks about kids who are, you know, more sensitive than other kids whose nervous systems are a little bit more sensitive, a little bit more fragile than others. And I do believe there's like a, there's always going to be a spectrum isn't there? You know, everybody's nervous system is different. But this is something that makes me consider, you know, my own baby when he was little, because what you have described was him as well, like, just wired and on and ready for action. And he just felt stressed. Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Carrie 05:42
That absolutely is a spectrum. And, you know, even looking at my child now, who's now seven, he's still a little bit like that, even though I'm confident his nervous system is well regulated, you know, he's still really sensitive to his environment, and more likely to, I guess, get dysregulated from things that maybe same his sister would doesn't, she's just like, Yeah, whatever. Whereas he's still really sensitive. So, you know, I kind of describe it, like, we all have this battery inside of us. And everyone's in a battery is a different size. So, you know, being a bit more sensitive, just means his batteries going to be a little bit smaller. So it means that if to deplete his battery from, say, 100%, charge to zero, it's going to happen faster for him and for sensitive kids. And it's not really right, right or wrong, or whatever. It's just like, visually, I know that his capacity is smaller. That makes sense. Yeah, that does
Fiona Weaver 06:53
make sense. So it's still there are still more kids, still kids who are more sensitive than others, but concentrating on their nervous system is going to help them.
Dr. Carrie 07:03
Yeah, and I find that like, you know, I suppose even identifying as highly sensitive myself that I think it's more important for these kids. And even you know, if you're a mom listening, and you feel like you're highly sensitive as well, because we feel everything so much bigger, we respond to our environment faster, we notice things that perhaps other people or other children don't notice. So we, it's so easy to deplete that inner battery. And so if we're not taking care of ourselves, we are the ones who are going to get overwhelmed and burnt out. Because we just have no capacity left, but we're just dealing with a smaller capacity to begin with.
Fiona Weaver 07:46
Yeah, okay, that makes sense that yeah, so let's take it from the top. Now, what the heck is the vagus nerve.
Dr. Carrie 07:56
The vagus nerve is the largest cranial nerve in the body, it extends from your brainstem. So up in your more primitive part of your brain, down through the front of your neck, underneath your collarbones, or through your chest, or through your abdomen, all the way to your pelvic floor. And it has like these little projections that go to every single organ in our body. And its job is twofold. Number one, its job is to control I guess it controls the stress response in the automatic functions of our body. So it slows down our heart rate. It regulates our blood pressure, our breathing rate, you know, things that we don't really think about. What the vagus nerve does is if we go through a period of stress, once that stressor is finished, the vagus nerve kicks in, calms everything back down again, so we can go back into a regulated state. So that's function one. And that's like top down like that comes from the brain through the vagus nerve into all the organs that it needs to, to calm everything down. But then it's got this other really, really important function, which is, you know, between 80 to 90%, of the function of the vagus nerve is actually from the body into the brain. And what it does is it senses what's going on inside our body and lets our brain knows. So say for example, we get an infection in our gut, you know, that's something that the vagus nerve would start to pick up and say, Hey, we've got an infection here. Let's get started to clear it. It kind of senses inflammation, it senses if something's going, you know, a bit array in any of the, the organs, but what it also does is it senses what's going on in our external environment. And it tells our nervous system, particularly the fight flight or With a sympathetic activation part of our nervous system that protects us from threats, it tells us whether we're safe, or whether it's worth being activated. So it has a huge role to play in how much time we spend in fight or flight,
Fiona Weaver 10:17
if we are feeling a level of stress that sort of ongoing, is that an indicator that our vagus nerve, or our vagal tone is a little off kilter?
Dr. Carrie 10:27
Yeah, absolutely. So vagal tone is simply how well your vagus nerve works. So someone who has low vagal tone may struggle to pull themselves out of the stress response easily. So, you know, it thinks to a time maybe when you felt really burnt out as an adult, and maybe it takes, you know, something stresses you out, and it takes you three or four days to recover and feel back to normal. That's your vagus nerve really struggling to kick in and support you in coming back to regulation. Whereas someone with a high vagal tone tends to be able to flip between stress and regulation much faster. And even with, say, babies and children, you know, say you have a toddler who gets really upset over, you know what cup you give them totally normal toddler behavior, right. But how long it takes for them to regulate after gives us an indicator of how well their vagus nerve is doing. So a child who can regulate really quickly after, you know, quick went by quickly, I mean, like, I would probably expect around 20 minutes, which is still a long time. But you know, like, we can get them regulate quickly versus you know, this, this one experience setting you guys up for a really bad day where you're walking on eggshells, and you know that, you know, perhaps they're screaming for an hour and a half afterwards, and you just can't seem to no matter what you do in terms of CO regulation, I'm sure all of your listeners know all of the things to you know, support their child's, you know, expression of emotions, and all of that if you're doing everything, and your child is still really dysregulated, then that could be a sign that their vagus nerves just not kicking in, and helping them regulate back into that safety zone.
Fiona Weaver 12:22
What do you put down to individual temperament? And when something needs a little bit of help? Or is it just that if that's their temperament, if they're that way inclined, then they might just need that extra little bit of help?
Dr. Carrie 12:39
I have? That's a hard question to answer, because my clinic is very biased towards children who do have a lot of dysregulation, so I guess my, my common, the way I describe it to the parents that I work with when I'm working with a child is that there's still going to be personality, like, I can get your child's nervous system working as well as it can for them. But they're still going to be a part of their stress response, or how they cope with stress that is inherently their personality. So yeah, there's no black and white answer to that one. It's quite a gray area. It's
Fiona Weaver 13:21
okay. Yeah, there's no black and white answers to anything. I'm okay with that. When you say that you are working on working with someone's nervous system and helping them along with their regulation. What are you doing?
Dr. Carrie 13:39
Yeah, it depends on the person. So a lot of babies and children, it's simply some body work that enables the vagus nerve to function. So one thing that can inhibit vagal tone is just restrictions around the area where the vagus nerve actually travels. So whether that's in the neck, or the shoulder girdle, sometimes down in the belly, you know, it has to move through the diaphragm and into the tummy. So a lot of the work is, I guess, working on their body, which is why I still call myself a chiropractor, because I'm still doing hands on stuff with them to support their nervous system. Yeah.
Fiona Weaver 14:22
What about what parents are able to take home with them? Or What strategies can we use to help our babies and kids regulate themselves? Yeah,
Dr. Carrie 14:33
so the biggest thing is regulating ourselves as adults. So one thing we do know about the nervous system is that our children will mirror us. And so if you're listening to this thinking that you possibly have low vagal tone and you have for your whole lifetime, then it's safe to say that if that's your version of normal stress response then You're probably going to mirror that your child's going to mirror that as well. So if you're finding that your child is really, I guess struggling with regulation, or you feel like they are really wired. First step would always be ensuring you're doing what you can to support your nervous system and making sure you know, going back to that inner battery that your inner battery is as full as possible. And even just reflecting on how big you think your inner battery is. So when I talk about this analogy, lots of mums are always like, Well, yeah, my inner battery is tiny. I know that already. And it's like, okay, well, that's what we're working with, though. So let's honor that. And let's make sure we can keep your tiny little batteries charged as possible, so that you're not getting to zero. And then your child's not mirroring you when you're in a completely dysregulated state.
Fiona Weaver 15:57
I was talking about this with my husband this morning, because I am pregnant at the moment. And I have shared my journey, this pregnancy feeling like my nervous system feels fickle. Like there's something that is arrived, whether it's my hormones are something I'm working with a naturopath and working psychologist, I generally feel okay, but there are there days and you know, a few days at a time where I feel so fragile and emotional. And like I could snap. And this morning, I was feeling great. We had a great morning. And then suddenly my body started feeling really anxious and stressed. And I didn't know what it was. But that's just the feeling that I had in my body. I felt tense and my husband came in from the gym. And he's like, Well, but it was a real energy this morning. And I was like, I don't know what it is. It's just my body. I'm feeling fine, but my body is feeling tense and anxious. And he's because he has really bad anxiety. And he it's chronic. For him. It's good at the moment. He manages it through diet and exercise, mainly. But he's like, it made me actually think like how hard it is for you guys when I'm anxious because you can really feel it. And I was like, Yes, I feel it. I sense that energy. As soon as you walk in the house, it's hard to be around. And it's obviously hard for him to be around when I'm feeling like that too. But we mentioned that our kids, especially the sensitive one, he is absolutely a mirror of whatever is happening for us at any time. Yeah,
Dr. Carrie 17:27
100%. And you can and that's your vagus nerve, by the way. So when you walk into a room, and you can feel it, you know, you don't even have to say anything, you're like, Whoa, this feels really off, you know, the vibe is and that's your vagus nerve sensing. So, you know, it senses your internal environment and your external environment. And it uses things like nonverbal communication. So you know, what's happening people's body language, etc, to work out what's going on. And so if you walk into a room and you know, the vibes off, that's your vagus nerve saying, hey, this feels a bit threatening, I'm going to, I'm just going to like our cup a little bit and stay talking about
Fiona Weaver 18:15
our cup when he was when he's got that energy about him, talk to me. I mean, it just stop. It's making me feel stressed. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, so as mothers, particularly because this podcast is for mothers, there are obviously times of stress that we have in our days, weeks, months, years. And how do we how do we kind of regulate our own nervous systems? Or notice when we need a little bit of extra support to regulate our nervous systems? What's the stress of daily life in motherhood? And what is leaving a bit more?
Dr. Carrie 18:57
Yeah, that's really individual as well. And I think it's really important. Firstly, to reflect on what kind of nervous system you had pre kids, and if that's brought you into where you are with your children, you know, like particularly highly sensitive mums, or if she came in feeling already really burnt out. And, you know, maybe things like noise and light have always bothered you. And now your kids are making the noise. You're like in constantly on edge, but knowing what your baseline was already provides so much information into how you're responding now and what I guess what ability or what conditioning you've had up till now, that, you know, makes you respond in that way. So the vagus nerve is subconscious. It does this without us even thinking so if it's not in our awareness, it won't shift will just automatically behave the way we always have So, in that sense, I would always work out what someone's baseline is or was. That can be shifted, shifted. It's like a thermostat. But that's always step one. Step two is to remember that the stress is not the problem. It's whether you can pull yourself out of it or not. And that's where it's going to look different for everyone. So for me, like we were talking about before we started recording, and non negotiable for me is getting up early. And going down to the beach. Sometimes I just dip in the ocean, sometimes I add in a walk or try running. You know, but I do I need that to start my day. And that's a non negotiable in our family. But that's not going to work for everyone, like some people might be like, that sounds awful. I don't want to do that. Well, you don't have to, but working out what your non negotiables are to keep that in a battery full? is going to help you as much as possible. Yeah.
Fiona Weaver 21:03
What about some quick strategies that we can use? Like in a rough day of parenting? What can we do that is going to help to bring us back to balance quickly?
Dr. Carrie 21:15
Yeah, my two favorite things to do are so quick and easy. So we're all guilty in this day and age of trying to escape by picking up our phone and scrolling, right, like I don't know, any human knowing never do that, like, we all do it in, you know, varying degrees. And what that does, is makes our eyes converge. So our eyes kind of have to turn in a little bit to be able to focus on something up close. In what convergence does is it activates our fight flight even more. So even though we're escaping our current reality, we're actually still activating our nervous system. And that's, that's going to be detrimental. Like the moment we put our phone down, we're actually not our nervous system, like mentally, our mental load may have changed. And we may feel like, you know, a few funny tic TOCs have made us laugh. So we feel different, but under the surface, our nervous system is still going to be in that hyper vigilant state. The opposite of that is say, looking really far into the distance. Which starts to activate our parasympathetic activity. It's like this primitive part of our brain that says, if we look, if I can see really far away, I know I'm safe, because I can see so much of my environment. And I know nothing's coming to, you know, threaten my safety. So instead of picking up your phone, just going, you know, looking out the window, looking as far as you can into the distance. This is why I think sometimes you know, you're having a bad day with the kids getting them to the park and stuff can be really helpful because they also get
Fiona Weaver 22:59
just about to say, you know, cautious. Regulating. Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Carrie 23:06
And it's so like, it's so easy to do, you just have to remember like, and again, that's the subconscious part is like, it's like, activated straight into what I know that I already do. But we need to consciously start shifting our behavior of like, Oh, I'm about to pick up my phone, hang on a sec, I'm gonna look into the distance for a little while first, doesn't have to be this versus that you can still look at your phone. But adding that in is just going to bring that thermostat down a few so that you're not so hyper vigilant. And that sympathetic nervous system isn't quite as activated.
Fiona Weaver 23:43
Yeah, so that's normally that's that's what I do. as well. Like last night we had this stressor happen. It was like a mortgage bank thing that just came out of nowhere that something hadn't been sorted. Anyway, it doesn't matter what it was, but I felt it is a trigger for me. I'm never going to sell this house and buy a new house because I cannot deal with financial paperwork and deadlines and things not going right. And it was this thing that should have been sorted like three years ago anyway. I'm getting stressed thinking about it. But I was saying to my husband, like when we were trying to sort that out, and we were being just so stressed with our kids as well. And they were making noise because their kids and it was night time. And we were like we're feeling really stressed. We're gonna snap, we need some calm, and then I felt as though everything was just amplified and noisier and more chaotic. And I was like, I feel like I'm going to snap. I just need to go outside. And I always just go outside and look up to the sky, put my feet in the grass and that instantly makes me feel better. Everything feels better outside. I reckon it's and then come back to the chaos.
Dr. Carrie 24:58
Yes, yeah. And it's still gonna be there. But it's how we respond to the chaos. Hey, like, but then that is very much guided by the state of our nervous system in that moment.
Fiona Weaver 25:11
Yeah, and it's hard when we're both dysregulated because it was stressful for both of us. So there was no one saying I can see that you're struggling. Let me take over go outside for a bit. Yes. Like, in a snap.
Dr. Carrie 25:25
You don't feel each other's dysregulation?
Fiona Weaver 25:29
Yeah, it's it's such a snowball effect, isn't it? Okay, so what's your other favorite one.
Dr. Carrie 25:34
The other thing is so simple. I use this when I am. Like, say, for example, cooking dinner, and the kids are whinging because they're really hungry. And I'm like, mate, I'm going as fast as I can. But they're just like at me, and I feel like I'm about to snap. This is when I use this tool. So the easiest thing to do is start focusing your attention into the area of your heart. And what you'll notice is when you start focusing that attention in there, your breathing automatically slows. But the reason that we focus on the heart is because a large proportion of vagal fibers actually go from our heart, straight into the fear center of our brain. So it's a really strong neurological pathway to shift how much threat you're feeling in your body. So the vagus nerve detects it by just by focusing on that area, we know that the nervous system starts focusing, it's like, you know, if you bang your toe, and you focus all your attention to your toe, because it's hurting, like it's a similar principle, we can focus on our heart that starts to regulate our heartbeat, and then our breathing. And then these messages go from our heart into our threat center saying, Hey, you're actually really safe right now. You don't need to snap even though the children are like, you know, really ticking you off. And it just brings you down a few notches. So the trick with this one is to focus for as long as until you feel yourself and like some people just feel a melting like you know, a relaxation, I guess, other people might actually sigh or yawn, it might be like, Oh, yes. Okay, that's better. And then once you've hit that point, you know that your vagus has kicked back in, created some safety signals, decrease the threat response, and you can respond to your child without, you know, going straight into that like rage. Yeah.
Fiona Weaver 27:35
Yeah, yeah. I love that. I find that when I like safe my daughter, because she's just turned four, she has some big feelings. If she's feeling dysregulated and I am in turn, feeling dysregulated just picking her up and having a really big cuddle with her and taking some really deep breaths, intentional deep breaths, and then noticing that she does the same thing and we're just kind of regulating each other. Feel like that's really nice. And another thing that works for me as well is cold water. Splashing cold water on my face, washing my face with cold water. Even having a cold shower going for a dip in the ocean. That is always a reset for me as well. Yeah, that's that's stimulates the vagus nerve, doesn't it like a cold shower?
Dr. Carrie 28:23
Yeah, so cold shower and cold face. Slightly different. The, the cold water on the face is actually like directly activating that vagal tone. So it changes the way the vagus nerve is functioning like from a sensory stimulation point of view. Whereas the cold shower starts to get your body to activate your vagus particularly after because it needs to calm your heart rate back down to like, you know, say the cold water is a shock and temporarily increases the stress response, but then your vagus nerve starts to kick in, and it activates your parasympathetic activity after so different mechanism and I mean, that's why I'm so addicted to ocean depths because even when it's freezing afterwards, I'm just like, ah, like I need and that you know, yeah,
Fiona Weaver 29:16
it's the ultimate reset and ocean dip, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. I don't know. I can't I don't feel like it compares to anything. I don't do it enough. But my husband he does all the things he does the ice baths he puts those facing icy water does the ocean dips loves all that stuff.
Dr. Carrie 29:35
It's so good. And you know for the most part it's free like we don't you know like, the more I guess the more the nervous system is becoming popularized, popularized just make up a word.
Fiona Weaver 29:49
No, I feel like that's a word. Okay. That's it was rolling
Dr. Carrie 29:53
up my tongue I'm like you know, there's heaps of device is around now that activate your vagus nerve or bring you back into calm and honestly, like the ocean or cold exposure? You know, we don't, we don't need to pay money to access this stuff. We can do it at home in our backyard or, you know we can we don't need to spend the money on this. We've got it in ourselves. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Fiona Weaver 30:23
Yeah. Okay, can we go back to the the kids if we're wanting to help them to regulate on the whole? How does screen time diet exercise and things play into all of that? Yeah, yep.
Dr. Carrie 30:43
Screen time. There's two problems with screen time. And again, I'm not like my kids get TV, I'm not a purist with any of this stuff. So with screentime, we've got the I convergence. So if they're, say, using an iPad or a tablet, and they're converging their eyes, then that is going to increase their fight flight response. And it's just going to brew under the surface, you know, it's not going to necessarily, they're not going to be in a full rage, but they're just going to be like, it's just activating their nervous system under the surface. And the other thing that we really need to be mindful of is the blue light, particularly in the later hours of the day, that can really dysregulate their nervous system, just from a melatonin point of view, we know that more exposure to the blue light, decreases our melatonin production, and then we try and get our kids to sleep there, they're still wired. So I just, you know, recommend, like when it comes to screen time that you kind of, say, my kids only get screentime on the weekend, because I want them to go to bed early on school nights. So you know, working out rules that work for you. But understanding that it does amplify their stress response. So if they're having a bad day, I know it's really easy to give them the iPad just felt like a moment of peace. But the I guess the risk of that is just understanding that that's actually probably going to amplify their nervous system response
Fiona Weaver 32:20
was that gut and vagus nerve interaction.
Dr. Carrie 32:25
Yeah, so that's what we would call bi directional in that the vagus nerve, influences the gut. And the gut also influences the vagus nerve. So the vagus nerve controls how quickly food like it controls peristalsis. So how our gut contracts and moves waste out. So if you have a child who's maybe constipated, or who has, you know, explosive diarrhea all the time, but you know, allergies and stuff have been ruled out, then you know, that potentially the vagus nerves playing a role in how the gut is contracting. But then gut inflammation, such as food reactions, or, you know, like parasites or little bugs that shouldn't be in the gut. If they're inflaming the gut, then that will inflame the vagus nerve and make it function at a lower function. The vagus nerve really doesn't like inflammation, but it's also our body one of our body's biggest anti inflammatory nerves. So it actually dampens inflammation. But the moment it gets inflamed itself, it stops functioning at its optimum. So it's kind of like, it can be hard. Like there's no again, there's no like, I guess rule because sometimes the food could be the problem that's impacting the vagus nerve. Or other times it could be you've tried every diet under the sun and you're still having these problems with your gut, then perhaps it's the vagus nerve that is the driver behind it. So yeah, sometimes it can be difficult to discern which one's causing what?
Fiona Weaver 34:05
Mm hmm. Okay. And exercise and things.
Dr. Carrie 34:12
Yeah, so the best thing we can do, in terms of what I guess in terms of the stress response, rather than vagal tone itself, the best thing we can do is like low grade aerobic exercise, particularly when we're really burnt out. So if we're feeling you know, like mums listening, you feeling burnt out or really depleted like, you really don't have much to give. These are the kind of moments where you want to do just some low, like low heart rate, even just like walking, slow jogs, etc. What this does is it increases these proteins in our brain that decrease our stress His response basically, so we can use exercise as a way to manage our burnout. But we can't push it too far, if we're in a chronic stress state, and we're struggling to get out of that, then adding more stress to your system such as like, you know, F 45, or, you know, all of these, like really hardcore exercise, things that are available to us. That's only going to add to our stress, our nervous system is already really vigilant, it's in an activated state. So by pushing it into further activation, you're not like you may feel good temporarily, but from a nervous system point of view, that's going to make you feel worse a longer
Fiona Weaver 35:42
term. Oh, that's interesting. I wouldn't have thought that.
Dr. Carrie 35:48
Yeah. So I see a lot of mums who maybe did that sort of stuff before pregnancy, or before motherhood, and really loved it. And, you know, if if you were an exercise addict in the past, and you've really like needed it to feel good, then that can be another sign that your system is in that activated state. And you're using exercise too, as a way to shed that excess energy that your body's creating, from being in fight flight. And that's what makes it feel really good. So you've, you're really activated, you do a hardcore exercise. And then afterwards, you feel good, like you've just like shed all this nervous energy out of your body. But then the same moms go, oh, well, that's what my body really liked. Before I became a mom, I really want to go back to that. But it feels really different. And maybe you feel exhausted after you do it. Or you just can't push yourself as hard. And this is a sign that your nervous system is just far more depleted. And you need to be more gentle with yourself.
Fiona Weaver 36:48
Yeah. Yeah, right. That's really interesting. So if somebody is listening to this, and they're noticing, either in themselves that their vagus nerve isn't functioning as best as it could be, or whether they're noticing some of these symptoms in their baby, their baby is wired, they're not sleeping, well, they're sleeping lightly. They don't like to be put down a lot things like that. One, what can they do to start? Do they need to see somebody? Or Is there stuff that they can do themselves, or there's definitely
Dr. Carrie 37:18
stuff you can do yourself, I would probably just recommend jumping onto my Instagram, I share heaps of free content on there. And when it comes to the nervous system, because it's so individualized, there's not one thing that works for everyone, right? But I try and share heaps of information for everyone to try so that they can then go, Oh, that one worked really well for me, or that I could that tip really resonated with me personally, and working out what you need to do specifically for yourself and for your baby. Again, I know that's like quite Gray, but we're all just so individual. And nervous systems respond differently to the same environment, you know?
Fiona Weaver 38:05
Hmm, yeah. And if they would like some further support, what can they do there? And where can people find you?
Dr. Carrie 38:14
Yes. So the best way to contact me is just via my instagram or via my website. I do see people in person in Perth, and I do have some online offerings as well, which are all listed on my website.
Fiona Weaver 38:29
Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Today has been enlightening. And now I'm off to buy some books about the vagus nerve. Because I want to learn more about it. So thank you so much for your time today. I know that it will be really helpful for so many people. So thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening to mama chatters if you enjoyed this episode, let's continue the conversation on Instagram at MAMA matters.edu. Be sure to share this app with your family and friends. And don't forget if you liked it, please leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you again and I will see you next time.
