Last week, a patient described being more “sensitive” than usual. It was difficult for her to put into words, but she said she felt more “aware”. Upon reflection, she realized that her recent dental surgery had taken a toll on her nervous system, and perhaps things that might not normally bother her seemed more irritating than usual.
This is a very normal response. In honour of National Mental Health Week, I (Dr. Ivey) am developing a new metaphor. Well, it’s new for me, I don’t know if someone has used it before. I’m going to call it the “Wellness Tank“. It is like a fuel tank that each of us has.
Without fuel in the tank, we don’t function. We fill our tank by doing healthy things: eating well, getting proper rest, exercise, getting time in nature, etc. We deplete the fuel in our tank in various ways.
Regular, everyday living will slowly use up fuel from the tank, so we have to keep adding to the tank on a daily basis. Some things will accelerate the speed with which we deplete our tank.
Stress of any kind will make our engine run faster and the fuel deplete more quickly. Even “good” stress like planning a wedding or entertaining friends will make us burn through our fuel. Dental surgery like my patient experienced, illness, or challenging life events will affect our fuel levels. Some of us have jobs that involve our engine running on overdrive for extended periods- handling one stressful situation after another.
The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for refilling the tank. It moderates our digestion, heart rate, respiration, the creation of hormones our bodies require, etc. It is programmed for rest and restore. It’s counterpart, the sympathetic nervous system, is what empties the tank. It is designed to take over when a tiger is chasing us. Fight or Flight. With a tiger chasing us, we don’t worry about digesting our food and we don’t use the creative parts of our brain to write a poem about the tiger. We use the lower part of our brain to react quickly and get out of there. We are designed to be in this situation for maybe… 10 minutes. In that time we either get away from the tiger or we get eaten by the tiger. We are not designed to live in this state. However, many of us do! Our body cannot distinguish between a tiger chasing us and living with chronic work deadlines or being a caregiver to a loved one that is ill, or managing a chronic mental or physical illness of our own!
Here is an image Dr. Cultrera created that illustrates this beautifully:
I have been reading Sarah Wilson’s book “First We Make the Beast Beautiful… A Conversation About Anxiety”. Wilson, herself. lives with anxiety and a variety of mental health challenges. She explores the different things that may contribute to anxiety. Research is finding a possible relationship between those who experience severe anxiety and gut health. Other research may indicate an inflammatory response in the body may be related. . The truth is, science doesn’t know why one person will be more affected by anxiety than another.
To use my “Wellness Tank” analogy, some of us are born with smaller tanks than others. We may have a hole in the tank that causes fuel to leak out more quickly or we may have an engine that runs faster. We each need to figure out what helps us to put fuel in our own tanks, and learn how to regularly monitor the level of fuel we have. Some of us don’t recognize we are running low til the engine seizes up, because we have been running on fumes for the past month and in a stressful time we have failed to check the fuel gauge.
Because we are all built differently, we burn fuel at different rates and we replenish our fuel supplies with strategies that are distinct to each of us. For instance, an introvert needs alone time to replenish, while an extrovert is fueled by time with others. I find exercise first thing in the morning helpful, you might find a different time or activity is helpful for you. It may be helpful to find out from others what they do to replenish, but we have to put in the work to find out what we need to do to replenish our own tank.
Network Care is developed to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and break the “fight or flight” mode of the sympathetic nervous system, re-engaging the program to rest and restore. It also allows us to stop and take stock, to see what level our wellness tank is at. Sometimes after a chiropractic visit, practice members have described being very tired and enjoy a very long sleep that night. They have become aware that their tank is low and they need rest. Some practice members describe having lots of energy, as they have let go of long-time stored patterns of stress and released that energy back into the tank. They describe being incredibly productive and energized after their visit.
It was intentional that I gave this imaginary tank the general name “wellness” tank, because it doesn’t just relate to our mental health or our physical health. It is both! We can deplete our tank with mental/emotional stress and experience physical symptoms, or we can deplete it with physical stress and experience mental/emotional symptoms. Many of us will get a headache or succumb to a cold/flu or injure ourselves when we are dealing with prolonged intense emotional situations. Conversely, physical stress can lead to emotional results. A certain chocolate bar has run a successful ad campaign on athletes being “hangry” and affecting their performance because their blood sugar is low.
Whether it is National Mental Health week or not, we need to learn to monitor and regularly refill our Wellness Tank. To live our best lives, we need to keep our tanks full!