Focus:
Slowing down, softening and being present for the purpose of healing our nervous system.
Repetition:
My nervous system is precious.
I promise to move slowly.
I promise to soften.
I promise to practice being present and purposeful.
Morning Routine
Your morning routine should be coming together. We are:
Journaling in the morning to record all the communications from our body, and again after the morning routine. (We are using a notebook — no screens before sunrise, only candles or incandescent lights; red or orange bulbs are a bonus!)
Waking at the exact same time every day, no exceptions. If you did not sleep well, try not to nap. Doing a body scan and experiencing non sleep deep rest or NSDR is a good thing and very restorative! Relax and lounge if you are tired, but try your best not to nap. This is to readjust our hormones and for nervous system reassurance.
Circadian Light
For people who are not sleeping well, or who wake up very “sleep drunk,” irritable, or overwhelmed, we are going to add a circadian light. You are not clearing your melatonin and not getting REM sleep, which we need to recover. This does not negate getting sun, and does not change anything about screens or blue lighting in the house — this is a strategic use of light to get us into a space of healing. Continue everything you are doing for light therapy.
Use a light that is 10,000 lux — the Feel Bright Light brand is a very good one, but buy what you can make work with your budget. Add a cup of St. John’s wort tea (not with SSRIs) in the morning and before bed. In a week, add mucuna puriens, and chicory root to your morning tea. You can use 1 tsp of the St. John’s Wort, 1 tsp chicory and 1/4 tsp mucuna puriens. This will assist in making serotonin, clear your bile of recirculating hormones and make your dopamine.
If you are getting up with energy, joy, and alertness, please do not use the light — this means you are sleeping well and producing your cortisol, serotonin, and dopamine in the morning. Do not change a thing.
Detox and Cold Therapy
Detox bath and sweat.
Cold therapy — a plunge, icy water on the face alone, being outside in the cold, whatever you have available. The face alone is enough and you can do a 30 second plunge and hum for 10 seconds, repeat for three times total.
Body Scan and Breath
Body scan meditation lying flat on the floor with arms out slightly. Prayer practices. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Begin noticing your tongue. Optimally you want to keep the back third of your tongue suctioned to the roof of the mouth.
Movement
Gentle movement, including somatic, limbic, and vagus nerve work — best done outside with bare feet on the earth. Keep a wide gaze and look up often. Rebound, and do the Lymphman Shoulder Shuffle (see our ARP resources for more movement ideas). For those who want more movement, begin gently and work up to more intense primal movements and/or cycling. Men can lift; women should not. Please do not do movement after 2 pm.
Timing Your Routine
If you have two hours for this, that is wonderful — do the body scan for 1 hour. If your health is very compromised, take longer than two hours. If you feel mostly well, you can shorten this to 1 hour. Take your detox bath before bed, and do the meditation for 30 minutes, movement for 15, and the rest as you’re able.
Eating Window
We are eating at 10 and 3, within five minutes of those times. This also supports the nervous system — your body will produce the proper enzymes and expect the meal. If you are still experiencing blood sugar swings at night, it is ok to have a bite of something. You can have stock for now outside of eating times if needed; if stock is not tolerated, try warm water with mineral salt.
Nervous System Safety
Any change is stress for the nervous system. Being indoors, driving, flying, modern diets, fragrance, modern lighting, holding on to trauma — all of this is perceived as stress for the nervous system. We want to teach the nervous system that we are safe, while rebuilding our bodies with food. A lot of this may seem silly, but each step is very important. We want to build permanent habits and release what is no longer serving us.
Virtues and Vices
We are applying the “virtues and vices” approach to our lives. One does not drop a vice by quitting the vice — one drops a vice by practising its opposite virtue. For example, if someone wants to stop being prideful, they would not chastise themselves for their pride or keep a record of it to try to stop — that would only bring the focus to the vice. Instead, we simply recognise when it happens, we extend compassion to ourselves and/or pray, and we practise its opposite virtue. If we are asked to do a job we think is beneath us, we look at it as an opportunity to practise humility — to welcome the job and do it well. The same principle applies to this protocol.
We do not simply try to stop eating processed food — we add in nutrient-dense food. We do not go to bed earlier to rebalance our circadian rhythm — we wake early, at the same time every day. It is all beautifully strategic, and it is what our whole selves understand.
Journaling
Keep track of what you are eating, what your body is telling you, how you are feeling, how you are sleeping, what activities you do, and what events happen in your life, and you will start to notice patterns. Keep the date by each entry, and note what the moon is doing, what season it is, and so on. This is the journaling we do before and after the morning routine.
We will also begin a gratitude journal — a physical notebook or paper, done in the morning or before bed. Write until you actually feel grateful. Remember that emotions are the language of the nervous system, so actually feeling grateful is real medicine. Write about small things — a cup of tea, a feather you found, a bird’s song, a gift from when you were small, anything. If you shed a few tears, you know you are doing it right! And if you don’t, that’s okay too — just make sure the feeling of gratitude washes over you with its regenerating waves.
New Ferment
Make a new ferment this week! Try radishes — they are so delicious fermented. Feel free to add onions, fresh parsley, thyme, or whatever you like — play with your ferments and have fun. You can always start with a half pint to see if you like it.
Great work this week, you are doing a phenomenal job!