Galen Hart

I have been a teacher for 25 years: I have always been interested in nutrition, health, and naturopathy, and while I believe there is a time and place for medication, my personal belief is that it’s always better to heal yourself naturally as much as possible. Unknowingly, I used bits and pieces of polyvagal theory for years while healing my own health issues, and I continue to be amazed at the human body’s capacity to heal itself. We now know that your mind and body don’t work as separate entities, but that they function as one complex ecosystem in which each part can affect another, and none of them can work by themselves. Ten years ago, I suffered from bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome accompanied by nerve damage. Despite many attempts, Western medicine simply couldn’t heal these ailments. For two years, I tried everything I could find; eventually, I turned to biofeedback, medical massage, and acupuncture. Biofeedback taught me to calm my nervous system through breathwork, and medical massage of my neck and shoulders helped to reduce my pain. What I didn’t know at the time was that these practices have been shown to improve vagal tone. As for acupuncture, I was amazed at how quickly it addressed the pain and healed my injury. Although I didn’t understand it, I was grateful for the relief. I have since learned that there are many studies that show that acupuncture can also help stimulate the vagus nerve, which in turn has anti-inflammatory effects on the body. In addition to relieving my physical pain, toning my vagus nerve also helped me to deal with my mental imbalances. I went through a long and difficult divorce that caused a lot of anxiety and depression for me. The only place where I felt I could breathe deeply and be released from my anxiety during this time was in yoga class. Of course, I didn’t realize the reason for this was because yoga was stimulating my vagus nerve. When I went through a battle with breast cancer, yoga rescued me once again. I felt alone and scared, and yoga class became a safe zone for me where I could truly relax. I didn’t understand why this was my experience, but activating my vagus nerve was, in reality, relieving my stress. Nowadays, I do yoga and breathwork almost every day, because I continue to love the way it makes me feel. I have a lot more knowledge now than I did in the past, but it has occurred to me that if I’d had this information earlier, I would have been able to recover faster—and this is why I’m so passionate about sharing what I know with others. Please keep in mind I am not a doctor and I can’t offer professional medical advice. I can, however, share my own story of recovery, a lay person’s perspective on holistic healing in general, and my own experience with vagal healing specifically. Remember to seek your doctor’s advice about your health concerns before you start any new routine. My goal is to put people in control of their bodies by teaching them how to use the vagus nerve to stop the typical cycle of fight or flight, and to bring them into the rest and digest mode. Only then, does the body feel relaxed and safe enough to start the healing process and attain optimal health. It has helped me turn my life around, and it continues to be the thing I turn to when something in my body is amiss. Not only has it proven extremely effective, but it’s also so easy, it almost feels illegal!