How Do RESETs Restore the Nervous System?

Categories: Blog, Pressing RESET, Nervous System, Parasympathetic Mar 26, 2023

A friend recently wrote me a letter and asked me the following question: 

"How do resets refresh the nervous system?" 

It's a good question. One that others have asked. So, I thought I would share the answer I wrote back to my friend as it may be helpful information to you as well. Here we go...

I often look at Pressing RESET like turning on lights. But you should know that I’m simple and I like to be really good at knowing how to turn the lights on. I don’t necessarily understand all of the science behind how electrons travel in a circuit and actually make the lights turn on. But this doesn’t stop me from trouble shooting most lights!

Having said that, my understanding of neuroscience is very surface level at best. But, the gait pattern and midline crossing movements actually create neural connections across the corpus callosum, connecting both hemispheres of the brain, making the brain more efficient. The more we use and live in these patterns the more we myelinate those neural nets and connections. Using them maintains them. If they are not there or if they are weak, building them then using them restores them.

The Vestibular System is also the system that helps to build and develop the brain. Information builds the brain, but all information travels through the VS before entering the brain. The healthier the VS, the clearer the information. It’s all about the information - the one thing the brain is constantly monitoring. And the brain monitors all information looking for one thing - safety. Am I safe? That’s the question the brain is always asking and filtering everything through. Safe information, like what is generated from Pressing RESET, or doing cross crawls, “soothes” the nervous system. If the information is safe, the brain does not inhibit the body through the autonomic nervous system. Fight or flight is not needed when all information seems safe, predictable, and positive.

When we don’t live in our design, when we don’t Press RESET with every breath and every step, we are supplying the message that something is wrong or not safe. Unsafe information causes inhibition from the brain. Safe information is generated by how we move, think, and feel. As is unsafe information. We can restore our nervous system, or soothe it, by moving it from the sympathetic state to the parasympathetic state by engaging in our design.

Being familiar with the RESETs, you have probably experienced this yourself. Maybe your body has been stressed and tired during your strength training sessions. Likely, your mind has also been tired during your training sessions. By Pressing RESET during your training session, you provided a tired brain and a tired body with safe, soothing information. You provided an opportunity to take your nervous system out of fight or flight mode to “i can thrive” mode. And you likely noticed a difference in your subsequent sets or exercises. Maybe you felt stronger and refreshed. You moved well with ease after you pressed reset and your workout seemed to get better with each set. This is how it works. You are experiencing your nervous system responding to the resets. The movements can't be energizing your muscles, movements take energy. Instead, they are removing the stress from your nervous system. 

When the information coming in is safe, the “outformation” is optimized and the performance is elevated. We are designed to generate safe information all the time. Every breath and step or movement of the head is a message of “safe/not safe.”

The more we generate safe information, the more we also myelinate all those neural connections that are involved in those movement patterns and thought processes. Conversely, the more we generate unsafe information, the more we cement those neural connections as well. We build a nervous system that spends more time in the survive state (sympathetic mode) or we build a nervous system that spends more time in the thrive state (parasympathetic mode). We are literally the creators of our own nervous system.

Anyway, regularly activating the VS as it is made to be activated, breathing properly, and living in our gait pattern along with midline crossing movements - all of these things either build, restore, refresh, or soothe the nervous system and remove the neural inhibitions that the brain places on the body. 

If you would like to know more about the neuroscience behind how the RESETs work, you should consider attending a Pro Reset Course. In these courses, you don't just learn how to turn the lights on; you learn which lights need to be turned on! 

 

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