Attunement of the Nervous System from Birth

ATTUNEMENT

✨When we are in the womb we hear sounds of the fluids moving around us and the voices and vibrations of our caregivers, and we begin to attune to these sensations. 

✨At birth, when our eyes first open, we lock eyes with our primary caregiver, familiarise ourselves with their scent, interact with their nervous system and the electromagnetic field of their heart – all this serves to regulate us when we’re infants.

✨This process of attunement contributes to the formation of neural pathways that shape our development and responses to our environment, particularly our ability to feel safe, secure and our ability to regulate our fight or flight response.

 ✨When the caregiver is in an unregulated or disassociated state (through trauma, a difficult birth, drugs or medical interventions) this can also be transferred through the gaze, through scent, sounds of the voice, the nervous system and the heart’s magnetic field. Without the safety of being met by the regulated gaze of the caregiver, a sense of rejection, isolation or fearfulness may be experienced and if consistent, can become ingrained in the baby’s system as learned behaviour in the way they react in future situations and relationships. 

✨Likewise if the caregiver is unable to remove their gaze due to fearfulness or insecurities, it can become too intense for the child, and they may feel overwhelmed and need ‘cooling off’ time.

✨These disregulated neural pathways that are created early on can absolutely be transformed at any age – becoming aware of them is half the battle and then a gentle re-wiring and unravelling can begin to re-pave the way home to the self 🏡

#craniosacraltherapy #nervoussystem #meditation #stress #adhd #anxiety #birthtrauma

Food For Thought - Maintaining Brain Health

I was recently fortunate enough to attend a seminar presented by author and leading nutrition expert @patrickholford.uk  who gave a lecture in Stanmore on the rising brain health crisis and how to prevent cognitive decline. 

The stats are high - almost 1 million people are estimated to be living with dementia in the UK (many undiagnosed) and in 2022 it was the leading cause of death in the UK, with over 71,000 people thought to be living with young-onset dementia. 

It’s a subject close to my heart as I watch those dear to me struggle, and witness pharmaceuticals being endlessly prescribed and more natural solutions blocked or dismissed, when early preventive measures could be made to maintain brain health and memory function. 

Nutrition aimed at reducing inflammation is key, as is keeping on top of your B12 and B6 in order to break down homocysteine levels. Keep the cerebrospinal  fluid healthy so it can cleanse the brain of toxins, get enough sleep and exercise, drink less alcohol and encourage the growth of new neurons by learning new skills. Patrick even presented one of his elderly case studies who managed to reverse his dementia following a strict regime of dietary changes and gentle exercise. So why do 1 in 14 people over the age of 65 still have dementia in the UK? 🧠

Thanks to @naturalhealthoptionsstanmore for organising 

In Conversation with Dr Peter Levine...

Here’s the link to In Conversation with Dr Peter Levine - all about his new book, life and insights into methods to address trauma: 

https://youtu.be/KV3Zhrwy-bw?si=Xo8cFLPgkEEpUt9f

World-renowned trauma expert and creator of Somatic Experiencing, Dr Peter Levine is in Conversation with Beatrice Doubble from the Craniosacral Therapy Association and Catherine Daley who talk to Dr Levine about his own compelling healing journey, how the scientific merges with the spiritual in his new book, An Autobiography of Trauma, his experiences of Craniosacral Therapy and and how Dr. Levine’s Somatic Experiencing methods can be used to access a fuller, more embodies experience of life. 

www.craniosacral.co.uk 

www.somaticexperiencing.com

Celebrating World Kidney Day!

✨Happy World Kidney Day! ✨

As we approach the end of a long winter it’s time to celebrate the organ associated with the season - the Kidney!  If you’ve ever experienced a form of burn-out you’ll know the kidneys and adrenals are usually those organs most affected, as fight or flight hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are over-produced in a bid to keep up the pace and consequently become depleted over time.

When we work with the adrenals and kidneys in Craniosacral therapy the organs should feel soft and spongy, rather than contracted and hard or dry, which indicates burn-out from stress and over-work, adrenal fatigue, or over-use of stimulants such as caffeine and recreational drugs or prescribed stimulant medication.  Lower backache, knee pain, kidney stones, trouble getting to sleep, water retention and swelling, urination problems or bladder infections can all be signs that the kidneys need attention. 

For babies and children our Kidneys hold our vital essence or life-force that we inherit from our parents and the quality of the energy we’ve inherited can be indicated by the strength and development of our bones (eg scoliosis and osteoporosis), hair, teeth, developmental delays and our ability to reproduce. 

The Kidneys are linked to the Water Element, which when out of balance leads to fear, anxiety, control issues  or the freeze response taking hold. The Kidneys don’t like acidity and rely on their connection to the lungs to take in alkalising oxygen. The Kidneys love warmth as it helps to distribute and transform the water to where it’s needed throughout the whole body, maintaining a sense of fluidity in how we navigate life emotionally, so we’re able to adapt to any situation that comes our way.💦

Illustration credit: R Reinhold

Braces - Don't Let them Hold You Back!

Around 200,000 people get braces every year in the UK, in fact they’ve become pretty trendy in recent years.  Whilst they’re a lot more accepted than they used to be, they can certainly leave their mark on the Craniosacral system.   In people who wore braces as a child or adult, the skull and facial bones will often feel tightly compressed, and the Craniosacral system will often feel very contracted or ‘pulled inwards’.  Braces pull together the teeth, jaw and skull bones and narrow the upper palate. The sutures between the maxilla bones and all the other facial bones can become compressed resulting in the restriction of the CSF fluid within the hydraulic Craniosacral system (which is produced in the ventricles of the brain, expanding as it fills and contracting as the fluid empties).  The cerebrospinal fluid pumps and the subarachnoid spaces in the skull, and along the spine where the CSF flows, can become restricted and its job of nourishing and cleansing impaired.

Physically this can feel very taught, and emotionally a person may often feel as if they are being held back or restricted in some way, or as if they are constantly having to push against something or can’t quite breathe and expand fully, and these feelings can be reflected in other areas of their lives.  In fact if braces are fixed when the Craniosacral system and its pumps are in a state of contraction, it can become locked in this state, and likewise if they are applied in a state of expansion, resulting in the rest of the body becoming stuck in certain patterns, twists or imbalances, causing pain in the jaw, pelvis, skull and upper palate.

Dr. Upledger notes a case of a 16 year old girl whose scoliosis was compounded by her braces as her skull bones and upper palate were being compressed: “The sphenoid bone is one of the prime movers of the craniosacral system. When the bone's mobility is restricted, the craniosacral system tries very hard to compensate for the dysfunction, but it's seldom fully successful.” As soon as her braces were loosened they were able to work with and make progress with straightening the scoliosis, before the braces were re-applied.

Ideally before braces go on, any tensions in the system should be released, including imbalances in the pelvis which are often reflected in the skull and jaw. Then as the braces  are adjusted over the following months, CST should be continued to keep the system in balance and the cerebrospinal fluid flowing, and to maintain the straightening effects of the braces themselves, which can reverse once they’ve been removed if the rest of the body has moved out of alignment to compensate.

Vipassana Learnings

👁️ VIPASSANA LEARNINGS:

Sitting in silence for ten days with no phones or email, Vipassana (insight) meditation offers the opportunity to delve into the self and explore the mental obstacles holding us back from living freely.

Guided by @YogiAshokananda, meditating for up to ten hours each day means no stone is left unturned. Old aches and pains, twitches and the urge to move surface initially as we face resistance to exploring what’s inside. The teaching is to just observe any thoughts as they come and go without reacting, simply witnessing.

My senses became heightened, a bell is rung whenever it’s time to go into meditation but I began hearing them constantly, even when I drifted asleep I was awoken by an imaginary bell - the mind filling the silence any way it can.  As we developed mindful eating, at mealtimes each bite felt like pure joy in the mouth. A side of sprouted mung beans literally felt like they were bursting with life on my tongue.

Over the first few days I alternated between states of joy and tearfulness, as old samskaras - habitual patterns, stuck emotions and generational traumas surfaced. Back and shoulder aches emerged as my heart space went through a process of unlocking. We were told the mental and emotional barricades we build around ourselves as protection manifest physically. Following our discourse on self-worth, I felt a deep grief and then a ball of energy rose up through my stomach and solar plexus. These releases create space for new states to unfold.

I was completely taken in by the joy the plum tree emanated in the orchard, and the whole orchard seemed to dissolve into stillness in front of me. We were told not to become attached to any experience though, as how we relate to everything is in constant flux.

Through bodyscans we went deeper into the subtle layers of the body, becoming more and anchored within it. By the end of the retreat I started to experience a greater state of presence.

If you fully engage, Vipassana can be a beautiful and humbling experience, the equivalent of months or years of therapy, and how privileged we are that it’s a teaching that is freely given. Thanks to everyone at @YogivilleCroatia & @yoga_yucca for recommending 🙏🏼✨

Vipassana @yogivillecroatia

Born to Survive: Craniosacral Therapy & the Primitive Reflexes

I’ve often noticed that during Craniosacral treatments children and adults will move into certain positions, re-enacting where the body was once traumatised, where it became stuck, or where some form of movement is needed to prompt the nervous system into functioning optimally. The latter is often a sign of the ‘primitive reflexes’ attempting to integrate.

The primitive reflexes are survival mechanisms which are present at birth and originate in the brainstem as involuntary motor responses. When they don’t fully integrate, there can be emotional and physical consequences such as anxiety, low self-esteem, insecurity, shyness, angry outbursts, plus over sensitivity to sound, light, taste, touch and smell. ADHD, autism, low immunity and emotional disregulation can all occur. 

As the brain develops inside the womb and after birth, these reflexes are gradually replaced by voluntary responses, but in many children and adults they can still be observed or may even return due to dysfunctions within the nervous system, trauma, illness or developmental delays.

During Craniosacral sessions, babies, children and even adults may move into and repeat these movements in a bid to integrate these survival reflexes that are still present. I’ve experienced an 8 year-old twin who would go into the ‘moro’ or startle reflex during sessions but would freeze halfway – the moro reflex is a protective response where the arms draw up to protect the baby from falling when being held, but it can cause an overload of stress hormones in the system if it stays present for too long. For this twin it became apparent that she didn’t have enough room in the womb to make the movements necessary to work through some of these fight or flight reflexes and had been left with anxiety and a poor immune system as a result.

Children who are born prematurely may also struggle to attain fully integrated reflexes – in sessions the body may often move into the fencer or ‘ATNR’ position with arm and leg flexed on one side but extended on the other. This reflex develops at around 18 weeks in utero and assists with kicks and moving through the birth canal.

Likewise with the ‘Spinal Galant’ reflex which stimulates the spine and hips to arch and move to help with passage through the birth canal. This can be retained if the baby didn’t have the opportunity to enact this movement fully (eg with C-sections, inductions, or other assisted birth methods or if there was not enough space, breech or back to back).   

IVF babies may also experience delays in the integration of these reflexes due to the stress of the interventions during the IVF process and the impact of extra hormones and medications on the nervous system. I’ve even experienced a young adult client with a retained sucking reflex that had returned after the nerves along the mouth had been damaged in an accident.

Craniosacral Therapy sessions work well to move through the disruptions of any birth trauma experienced and re-train the nervous system, and specialist primitive reflex practitioners may prescribe a series of exercises that can be done daily at home. Specific yoga postures can also be similar to these exercises and work to balance both sides of the brain and central nervous system by crossing the midline eg spinal twists (ATNR reflex), cat-cow (STNR reflex)  and superman pose (TLR reflex). But the adventure doesn’t stop there- these reflexes can also reappear in the elderly if illness begins to affect the central nervous system and as our faculties begin to decline with old-age.

Re-enacting the birth process during and after a session:

During or after a Craniosacral session children can often be seen to re-enact a part of their birth process. 

This can manifest as curling into fetal position, spontaneous unwinding, or crawling through and under chairs or other tunnel-like structures. Children  may also feel the urge run around for short bursts to free stored tension.

The body remembers what happened during the birth process and releases stuck memories, restrictions and trauma from the system. The body may also revert into the position it should have been in to avoid these restrictions, effectively re-setting the tissue memory and allowing the nervous system to move out of fight or flight and function optimally.

How your Birth can Manifest as Behavioural Patterns Later in Life:

The way we’re born can impact our bodies, emotions and nervous systems. The hormones released into the blood-stream by the mother during times of stress, the effect of interventions on our nervous systems and the environment which we’re born into can all leave their mark, affecting attachment patterns, perspectives and how we navigate our work and play.

We may gather more layers as we go through life but birth and pre-birth tend to lay the foundations upon which our deeply ingrained patterns are unconsciously repeated. I was induced and premature and ended up with so much adrenaline in my system that I walked on my toes, never crawled, ready to go into flight mode but needing an impending deadline to get anything done. I have several clients whose mothers nearly died during their births who often find themselves stuck in victim-perpetrator cycles and are often embroiled in legal action in their family and work lives.

And then their are the less obvious cases, children who are angry and depressed without explanation whose mothers later reveal there was a twin heartbeat lost in the very early weeks, leaving the child to suffer from ‘survivor’s guilt’. And the clever breech babies who are often cited as having their heads in the clouds, but in fact protect themselves from danger in the womb by moving into a safer position, who as adults tend to act cautiously in life but often feel as if their upper and lower bodies are disconnected due to having been pulled about so much by doctors in the process of trying to get them out.

Releasing these stuck patterns from the body and resetting the nervous system can free up stuck trauma energy, transform the way we view the world, and allow us to reach our full potential, and it’s never too late ✨

#craniosacraltherapy #birthtrauma #breech #premature #twins #birth #babies #healing #wellbeing #attachmentstyles #anxiety #health #wellbeing #meditation #yoga

Fight or Flight: a bone-shaking response:

If you scare easily make sure you look after your bones. We can store fear in many parts of our body such as the kidneys, stomach, brain and even blood cells. But the bones seem to be particularly adept at harbouring fearful memories, and new research indicates they play a vital role in regulating our fight or flight response.

Our bones are known to respond to vibrations more than any other tissue in the body. We can feel our bones literally shaking if we suffer a fright, and our bones are known to heal faster if vibrational therapy is used. Astronauts who spend months in space are susceptible to losing 1-2% of their bone density every month but studies show they can regain that bone loss by standing on a lightly vibrating plate for 10-20 minutes a day to strengthen muscle and bone. I remember when I broke my hand, all it wanted to do was shake during a craniosacral session, partly to relieve the trauma but it was also the body’s way of encouraging the healing process. When osteocyte bone cells sense these vibrations, they activate osteoclasts which remove damaged areas of bone, and osteoblasts which form new, stronger bone.

Even more recent research has shown that our bones are involved in the fight or flight response via the release of osteocalcin, a protein produced and secreted by the bone. Osteocalcin is a hormone involved in metabolism, fertility, and muscle and brain function. Researchers have demonstrated that under stressful conditions, osteocalcin levels surge, and that ‘osteocalcin works by shutting down the autonomic nervous system, making way for another part of the nervous system to initiate flight or flight reaction’. But when it is used up in the fight or flight response, there is less osteocalcin available to make strong bones and regulate insulin and glucose levels, improve muscle strength, regulate testosterone, and boost cognitive function, and the body becomes deficient in these areas.

So give your bones a break and relax…

🦴Sources: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fight-or-flight-may-be-in-our-bones/

#bones #osteoporosis #health #wellbeing #stress #fightorflight #craniosacral

🧠World Mental Health Day: How keeping your brain clean and nourished can help with depression

To maintain a healthy brain and nervous system we need to have clean and nourished cerebrospinal fluid. The cerebrospinal fluid that bathes our brains and nervous systems helps to cleanse toxins that cause inflammation and use up the essential nutrients we need to keep our brains functioning optimally.

Neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and GABA are either amino acids themselves or are synthesised from them, and studies have shown specifically the amino acid Ethanolamine to be nearly 50% lower in depressed subjects compared to controls.

Ethanolamine or EA is closely related to the endocannabinoid signalling system, and is a pre-curser to the neurotransmitter anandamide (named after the Sanskrit word Ananda which means bliss), and plays a role in producing states of euphoria, influencing higher thought processes, memory, pain, regulation of body temperature, fertility, appetite and has anti-anxiety and anti-inflammatory effects - something we definitely don’t want to be lacking in. Decreased Ethanolamine has been attributed to inflammatory responses in the brain, where it is rapidly used up and converted into substances to combat this inflammation.

So how can we remedy such deficiencies and inflammation? Studies have shown that vagus nerve stimulation elevates levels of Ethanolamine in certain subjects and can alter the chemical composition of the cerebrospinal fluid by cleansing the glymphatic system of the brain of any unwanted by-products.

Craniosacral Therapy, meditation, chanting and breathwork can all help stimulate the vagus nerve and balance the myriad of chemical reactions happening in the central nervous system at any given time.

Refs: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep07796

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4636982/

#craniosacraltherapy #mentalhealth #anxiety #depression #brainhealth #stress #wellbeing #cerebrosp

"Listen to your patient, he's telling you his diagnosis"

Sir William Osler, known as the father of modern medicine during the early 1900s would often whisper to his medical students: ‘listen to your patient, he is telling you his diagnosis’. Today this is perhaps an art that is more readily adopted by complementary practitioners. Therapists listen to their patients in many ways, we palpate, listening to the body’s innate pluses and tides for indications of strengths and weaknesses, stagnation and flow. We feel into the fascia, the bones and the blood for restrictions, inflammation, heat and cold, stuck emotions and deeply held trauma. We listen to our patients’ tone of voice, and read between the lines, listening to what they don’t say as much as what they do say.
Listening for the skilled practitioner involves using all our senses and interpreting what the patient expresses in their various ways, honouring that deep down their systems know what they need best to return to health.

Covid-19 After Effects - Beyond the Lungs:

I’m finding more and more people are seeking treatment for the longer-term effects of Covid-19, even though they may have had the virus many months ago and didn’t experience particularly severe symptoms at the time. These after-effects are continuously evolving and may vary from person to person depending on how their health is to begin with.

The main symptoms I’ve come across are brain fog, fatigue and lack of focus manifesting as tightness and inflammation in the meninges of the brain (a bit like how meningitis presents), causing a lack of blood and cerebrospinal fluid flow around the brain and skull.

The nerves along the spinal chord are also inflamed and feel frayed, and gut issues are very common with poor digestion, histamine induced cortisol and adrenaline spikes making the gut feel tight, raw and shocked with a mix of diahorrea and constipation episodes. Joint pain flare-ups in weak spots are common and the adrenals and thyroid can suddenly be triggered off-balance causing exhaustion and anxiety.

Organs can feel tender and inflamed to touch or over-worked and disturbed. Rashes over the body can suddenly appear (often if a previously dormant virus is awoken in the nervous system). This is particularly common in children whose nervous systems also become inflamed causing sleeplessness, anxiety, tummy aches and discomfort and tightness in the head/brain area. Overall the nervous system seems to be the most ravaged, with any latent illnesses switched back on and weak spots attacked as the body struggles to push back on the inflammatory processes.

“Dr Putrino said inflammation from the virus might be disrupting the normal functioning of the vagus nerve - the body’s longest cranial nerve- which relays messages to the lungs, gut and heart” (Wall St Journal 01/11/20)

Craniosacral Therapy featured in Candis Magazine!

 I got interviewed by Candis Magazine (www.candis.co.uk) for their autumn feature on how Craniosacral Therapy works and what it’s beneficial for! The case study is one of my lovely long-term clients who describes his experiences of the therapy and its effectiveness for vertigo, sciatica and stress control. Come and try a session yourself to help navigate these uncertain times.
Written by journalist Karen Evennett, photo credit @melindaedavies model @ijeoma_ndukwe  #craniosacraltherapy 

Inflammation & Craniosacral Therapy

Inflammation is a creeper. It builds up over years and seeps into the system, starting on the surface - rashes and eruptions on the skin, mucus secretions, thick sinuses, sore eyes, bleeding gums. It then permeates further into the body - creating the sore joints and aching limbs of rheumatism and arthritis, fraying the nerves, swelling the veins and attacking at the deepest level when it reaches the organs - the painful stomach in Crohns, IBS, and leaky gut, heart palpitations, angina and cardiovascular disease, asthmatic lungs, heavy periods and fertility issues, triggering depression in the brain, Alzheimer’s and dementia ... and in chronic cases setting the whole body on fire with Fybromialgia, DNA damage and cancerous growths.

Healing inflammation isn’t a quick fix and has many causes. A diet high in unhealthy fats, refined sugar and red meat, damage caused by chronic infections and viruses such as Epstein Barr and Shingles, pathogens such as candida, parasites and mould poisoning, even over or under-exercising plays its part.

And then there’s stress. The constant strain on the adrenals to release hormones when we’re in fight or flight mode creates a cascade of inflammatory reactions throughout the body.

Working to improve vagal tone, to release, soothe and stimulate the Vagus nerve (Cranial Nerve X that travels from the brain down the the neck to the organs) can help remedy the inflammatory response. Low vagal tone is linked to inflammation and greater risk of autoimmune conditions. The Vagus nerve mediates the immune system via the release of corticosteroids from the adrenals, and via the immune cells themselves when it detects inflammatory cytokines - triggering a response to the nervous system to try and maintain homeostasis of the immune system. When the vagus nerve loses control of this delicate operation, all hell can break loose in the body!

Vagus nerve stimulation via electric currents is currently being explored by the medical profession to reduce inflammation and ease conditions such as epilepsy, rheumatic pain, sepsis and depression. Craniosacral Therapy works in a non-invasive but effective way to manually release and stimulate the nerves and ease the system back into a state of balance and optimal health. #craniosacraltherapy #inflammation #health #wellbeing #IBS #rheumatism #stress 

Awareness Week and new research possibilities

Awareness Week 2019 was a fantastic success, and our theme of ‘Integrated Healthcare’ opened many doors into the world of conventional medicine. We were based at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Healthcare’s Self-Care Space and treated GPs, anaesthetists, technicians, nursing assistants, administrative staff and security and got very positive feedback. The next step I’m currently working on is to run evaluative studies on the effects of CST on certain conditions, which we hope to do at the Self Care Space working with patients referred by clinicians at the Hospital there… watch this space!

Awareness Week & the Self-Care Space at The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine

This week I met with Dr John Hughes at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine to discuss providing taster treatments to clinicians at the Hospital's Self-Care Space in order to raise awareness of Craniosacral Therapy as part of the CSTA’s Awareness Week campaign, and to encourage patient referrals. We’ll be based there during the week and there is also potential for future collaborations and further research into its effectiveness for a variety of health issues. Groundbreaking and exciting times where the worlds of conventional and complementary healthcare are merging. 💜

CST & Breastfeeding

CST & Breastfeeding:
One afternoon I was called to do a Craniosacral sessions at home with a new mum who was having difficulty feeding her baby, and her friend, a breastfeeding expert and midwife at Ealing Council sat in on the session.

Slightly apprehensive at being watched by an ‘official’ NHS employee who was curious about the process, I began working with the baby and holding the space and soon we witnessed the baby transforming into a calmer, happier being whose rigid body started to soften and release. The following day feeding became easier and it wasn’t long before latching on was no longer a problem and the baby was putting on weight.

The pressure new mums feel to breastfeed successfully is immense. The stigma attached to being a bad mum, the feeling of being clueless and the fear that there is something wrong with either their baby or their body can be agonising. Feeding problems are incredibly common, and can be due to tongue tie, misplaced jaws, the skull bones being contorted during the birth process (particularly with forceps or a ventouse) consequently effecting the upper palate and making it hard to suck or swallow. The neck might be twisted trapping the vagus nerve and making digestion uncomfortable, and even the pelvis being out of alignment can effect the jaw, gut and oesophageal tract. Not to mention the emotional trauma of being born! And some mums just can’t produce enough milk and need to mix or change to formula just to fill their babies up. So new mums know that you’re doing a fantastic job!

Craniosacral Therapy Awareness Pop-Up Day 20th Oct

Great review from the lovely @thefatgirlsguidetorunning who came for a taster treatment with me at our pop-up today with her gorgeous daughter. Wishing you lots of luck for the NYC Marathon!

CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY AWARENESS WEEK 15TH-21ST OCTOBER 2018

I'm delighted to invite you to the Craniosacral Therapy Association's pop-up event that I'm organising on Saturday 20th October 10am-5pm. Myself and other experienced practitioners will be giving restorative taster treatments as part of our Awareness Week at the beautiful 19 Greek St, W1D 4DT gallery space in the heart of Soho. We'll be giving away goody bags filled with tasty treats from Ombar raw chocolate plus essential oil mixes. Message me for details, or pop down and say hello on the day!