The Role of the Vagus Nerve in the Mind-Body Connection

Transformational life coach Peter Winslow possesses more than 15 years of experience in helping people make radical life changes. Since launching his Scottsdale, Arizona-based life-coaching company, GoldMind, LLC, Peter Winslow has raised awareness of the mind-body connection and its impact on healing, pain management, and emotional well-being. 

The vagus nerve, a cranial nerve that runs from the base of the brain to the digestive system, is a crucial part of the mind-body connection. The nerve is involved in processing tactile sensations and managing muscle movements and heart rate. 

Taking deep breaths causes the vagus nerve to release the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is vital for the body’s relaxation response. However, if the myelin sheath that wraps around the vagus nerve is weakened, it can slow signals between the brain and the rest of the body. 

This weakening of the myelin sheath can be a result of several factors, including diet and sleep quality. A weak or impaired vagus nerve has been linked to depression and low stress tolerance. Eating a balanced diet and practicing deep breathing are thought by some experts to strengthen the vagus nerve.

Differences Between Qi Gong and Tai Chi

An accomplished author and life coach in Scottsdale, Arizona, Peter Winslow stands out as the author of four books about health and personal development. In his personal life, life coach Peter Winslow maintains his own sense of wellness by practicing tai chi and qi gong.

Two of the most popular spiritual and physical practices to emerge from ancient China, both tai chi and qi gong focus on manipulating “qi,” which is the Chinese term for the essential life energy that flows through all living things. Though historians debate the precise origins of the disciplines, most scholars agree that qi gong is the older of the two practices, dating back to the 8th century BC.

Though the two practices are similar in origin and intent, tai chi and qi gong have several differences. Perhaps the biggest of these differences lies in the complexity of motion. While tai chi involves a series of fairly complex movements, qi gong focuses on simplicity and precision. Additionally, tai chi’s movements are more akin to those found in combative martial arts.

Furthermore, tai chi’s complex motions are given form through choreography and specific progressions, which again suggests the practice’s more martial in nature. Qi gong, on the other hand, is less prescriptive, with practitioners focusing more on the meditative aspects of the movements than a specific progression or structure.

How the Body Heals Itself Section 5

I’m Peter Winslow, a life coach in general practice. In our last post we discussed stress as a leading indicator for the mind-body connection. Now, let’s use this awareness to better utilize optimal healing.

Your body is predesigned to heal itself from illness and dis-ease. It contains a complex healing system whose purpose is to keep you in constant balance. This healing system continually guides you toward optimal function, proper repair and rejuvenation, no matter the circumstances in your body.

For example, when you slice your finger, you can observe as the wound heals itself without you having to think about it. It’s a routine process for the healing system in the body. The incredible healing system is always on the job, working tirelessly to mend your body regardless of whether or not you know how it works, or undergo medical treatment.

A basic survival tool, the mechanism we think of as “healing” is found in every life form on Earth, including plants and animals. By understanding the healing system from a different perspective, you can grasp a more complete image of what true and total healing really is. How?

Suspend ignorance and disbelief, expand your curiosity and think of the healing system within your body as a type of higher consciousness. It’s an inner awareness that operates on its own, constantly watching over you and seeking to fulfill its function for better health and wellbeing.

This healing “inner awareness” is the spirit that commands an incredibly complicated interaction of the physical and subtle energy systems in your body that maintain delicate relationships with each other and must work together for the greater good of the organism—you.

Now let’s get some real mileage out of this. Your role in directing the mind-body connection for greater healing results is simply to decide what outcome you choose to experience. Then commit to believing and behaving in your chosen outcome, and watch with confidence as the inner awareness of the body follows the mind to positive results.

Consider this quote from Norman Cousins, the celebrated newspaper columnist who completely healed himself from a medically incurable condition called Ankylosing Spondylitis: “The personal belief system is often the activator for the healing system.”

You better believe it.

–Peter Winslow

A Powerful Secret 2

I’m life coach and success catalyst Peter Winslow. In theprevious post I shared a powerful secret that can lead you to achieve your goals much more quickly and effortlessly. The secret: align your goals with your intentions.

Here are three coaching tips on how to do so:

1. Does your goal feel right to you? If it feels like something you SHOULD want rather than what in your heart of hearts you really do want, it's the wrong goal for you.

For example, I've coached many clients who wanted to leave the corporate arena because it no longer felt right for them. That's because their values and intentions were no longer aligned with their corporate goals and what it would take to achieve them.

2. Make your goal less about acquiring possessions and more about helping others. It is not necessarily wrong or greedy to be driven by personal gain. If one of your intentions is to be wealthy, you will find your goals for prosperity perfectly aligned with your intentions.

For many, money or wealth is not a strong motivator, which simply means their intentions do not reflect money as a goal. However, there are many ways to create prosperity, and the best ways happen when you focus on increasing your service to others rather than fixating on how much money you collect from them.

3.  Success-oriented people use intention to create the lives they desire, and so can you. How? Learn to create the authentic feeling of already having what you want, and then prefer more of what you already have. Start small and watch what happens over time.

With the alignment of your goals and intentions, you have a powerful formula for creating the life you desire—and you are well on your way to living it.

 –Peter Winslow

Luck of the Draw?

Hello I’m Peter Winslow, a life coach in private practice. In my practice as a life coach I often encounter people eager to maintain that “luck” is the most powerful indicator for personal outcomes regarding an individual’s health and wellness.

It’s all due, they say, to the environment into which we’re born into. It’s the luck of winning or losing the genetic lottery; the fortune of whom we meet and who comes into our lives on a personal level; the grace of which tax bracket we fall into; on and on it goes.

Still others will tell me there's no such thing as luck—yet they’ll agree it sure feels like an apt descriptor of the conditions and situations they find themselves in.

As for outcomes, it is readily apparent that people look to the future from the perspective of their previous experiences and current circumstances. When being unhappy, the future is dim and `challenging; when joyous and elated, triumph is all but carved in stone.

The difference is found in our own personal biases which determine how we feel about whatever actually occurs. Knowing this, it becomes obvious that we tend to attract what we expect and therefore focus on. The upshot here? The days to come will be great for those who create greatness within themselves.

As such, nothing happens to you, until it happens through you. You are the filter through which your current experiences pass from perception into reality. The wise have often written that we always stand at a fork in the road; we choose our path and can only experience the result of that choice.

Which path will you choose?

 –Peter Winslow

Part 3: Can My Thoughts Really Affect My Health?

I’m life coach Peter Winslow. Throughout my years in practice I’ve worked with many people who believe that what they think about has little if anything to do with their physical health. If you agree, buckle your seat belt because you’re about to discover a whole new reality.

Consider this: thoughts in the mind create changes in the body, many of which we can easily observe. For instance, if you see or hear something that you find embarrassing, you might "blush" and your face turn red. That's a good example of a chemical change that happens in the body in response to your thoughts.

Our thoughts produce physical reactions, many with predictable results. Sexual thoughts can create responses in the anatomy that are easy to observe; creepy thoughts will make your skin crawl and your hair stand on end. Scary and stressful thoughts cause us to secrete catecholamines, the stress hormones including cortisol and adrenalin that must be burned off regularly to prevent ongoing tissue damage.

Conditions like hypertension, stroke, ulcerative colitis, heart disease and many other health challenges are clearly impacted by mental stress, establishing the fact that there's a link between our thoughts and the internal chemical reactions that affect how we feel and how we heal. This is called the "mind-body connection."

Every day we feel our bodies respond to our thoughts and subconscious beliefs. Unfortunately, attitudes like anger, jealousy, resentment and guilt are stressors that can create grave consequences for our health and well-being. These emotions deplete a lot of the energy we need to maintain healthy immune function.

Emotional stress is a problem which worsens the pain and symptoms of chronic illness. Now researchers are discovering that we can reverse chronic illnesses through changing our beliefs and behaviors, which are the central factor in our own health outcomes. The good news is that your body is designed to heal itself naturally and keep you healthy. Your job is to get your mind on board to help it succeed.

-Peter Winslow, Life Coach, Counselor and Trainer

A Powerful Secret

I’m life coach and success catalyst Peter Winslow here to share a powerful secret with you to help you achieve your goals more quickly and effortlessly. The secret: align your goals with your intentions.

Many of my life coaching clients will ask, “What is the difference between a goal and an intention?” 

Answer: an intention is an inner state of being identified by the “feelings” that drive us. Feelings are the way we "tune in" to the world.

Intentions identify how we live—be it with happiness, courage, loyalty, joy, compassion or whatever personal values are most important to us. Our intentions are internal motivators, the inner guideposts and ideals we feel good about and naturally follow.

Goals are a different thing all together. They are the specific and measurable objectives we consciously choose to direct our lives toward.

You birth a magical combination when aligning your goals with your intentions. Goals set by intentions are practically unstoppable, and there is no need for pushing, driving, or forcing yourself to achieve your goal because it feels completely natural to you.

When you think of a goal, you think of what is going to be achieved down the road and what actions you must take to get there.  A more effective approach is to "feel" your way to success, which occurs when you align your goals with your intentions. Your goal feels like it is already a part of you; you feel what it is like to already have it. That’s the “electromagnetism” that brings your goal to you.

Now your intention is present in every action step you take.  As you align your feelings and intentions with your goals, they are much more quickly fulfilled.

 –Peter Winslow

Part Two: Can My Thoughts Really Affect My Health?

I’m life coach Peter Winslow. When I look back to my days with Ankylosing Spondylitis, I realize that deep and heavy emotional stress was constantly with me, which weakened my immune system and made my body more susceptible to chronic illness.

By releasing the deep-seated toxic emotions and buried stress I carried, I helped my body do what it is originally designed to do—repair itself.

Only now, years after recovering from the symptoms of Ankylosing Spondylitis, do I truly understand the role that toxic, stressful emotions play in creating and sustaining chronic conditions.
You might think the daily challenges of your life are stressful, but how you respond to those challenges is what counts. What we refer to as “distress” is the type of stress universally recognized as a primary cause of illness.

Distress is often an emotional response that affects the body. As the body becomes so stressed that it begins to break down, the immune system can no longer repair the damage.
This is because under stress, the cells in your body don't take in proper amounts of oxygen, water or nutrients. They don't release wastes and toxins, and they don't communicate to other cells with messages intended to help keep your body healthy.

However, stop fomenting the distress and you assist your cells to move out of their defensive mode and into normal growth mode. Your immune system then works to rid you of illnesses and protect your from creating new ones.

Your body is designed as a perfect healing machine, but only when it is not forced into the defensive position brought on by mental and emotional stress. How to stop that defensiveness is something you really should know about.

–Peter Winslow

Part One - Can My Thoughts Really Affect My Health?

I’m Peter Winslow. As a life coach I’ve worked with all types of people seeking solutions, but here’s an example of one who really surprised me. I was completely taken aback when she claimed, "I know exactly why I got cancer!"

She went on to explain how she realized that the stressful issues in her marriage had compromised her health and helped to create her illness.

My surprise came from the fact that this particular woman describes herself as an atheist, and  strongly believes that illness happens strictly at random.

As for the notion that "our thoughts influence our reality" she still considers it to be a steaming load of excrement, although now she is beginning to examine her own internal biases.

She's not alone; many people believe their thoughts and feelings have absolutely nothing to do  with their health, how they feel, or their healing outcomes.

When I suggested to her that we all can learn to think in a way that helps us be healthier, she  responded with vehement anger that I certainly don't know what it's like to be ill.

Well, I do in fact know exactly what it's like.

When I look back to my days with Ankylosing Spondylitis, I remember the anger, resentment, guilt, depression and other suppressed emotions I held. I didn't really understand what caused these feelings at the time because I was in the midst of living them, and coping with the constant, chronic pain of a cruel and punishing autoimmune disorder.

If someone had told me then that I was in any way responsible for my own condition, they wouldn't have wanted to stick around for my reply. But there is a wonderful silver lining to the story. If you’d like to know what it is, stick around for the next segment.

–Peter Winslow

Can Your Body Heal Itself? Section 4

I’m life coach and counselor Peter Winslow. As a life coach I’m often asked by my clients about stress and how it dominates the mind-body connection.

Doctors know that stress is a major cause of illness and dis-ease, and that alleviating the mental stress that causes health issues will often restore optimal bodily function. Medical practitioners typically prescribe invasive medication as treatment, but there are many alternative options which are free of harmful side-effects.

For instance, moderate movement exercises balance the mind and body by settling the brain chemistry brought on by stressful emotions. There are a variety of simple mind-body techniques and exercises you can use to help your body heal from stress, many of which can add quality and years to your life.

The astounding thing is, you don’t have to understand the mind-body connection in order to use it for powerful results. Consider it this way: do you need to know how to build a Ferrari to start one up and drive it down the street?

Your body—the Ferrari—was designed and created to operate smoothly. Your mission is to climb into the driver’s seat and steer your vehicle to happiness, health and wellbeing.

Remember, understanding the mind-body connection is not required for results. Case in point: do you know exactly how you digest and assimilate food and then excrete the waste without even thinking about it?

You don’t have to know how you do it because the work is done automatically. Call it what you want—the subconscious mind, inner intelligence, instinct, nature, or higher awareness—the system is operating right now, directing your physical functions without you paying any conscious attention to it.

This is where it gets interesting: even though you pay little or no attention to it, your inner intelligence pays close attention to you. How? It responds to your dominant thoughts and emotions, and for better or worse, stressful or otherwise, you are communicating with it at all times. 

–Peter Winslow

Can The Body Heal Itself? Section 3

I am Peter Winslow, a life coach and health counselor in Scottsdale. I have a question for you today that may make you think very deeply about your own health, and it goes like this: What makes us ill—and who, or what, can make us well?

There is a growing mountain of evidence that our beliefs and behaviors hold the key. The new science of Behavioral Epigenetics reveals new facts about the cause of chronic illness, and I am a firm believer. Why? Because behavioral changes led directly to my remission from the “medically incurable” autoimmune disorder known as Ankylosing Spondylitis.

We now know beyond all doubt that long-standing toxic emotional states greatly constrict the immune system, a natural defense mechanism which exists to protect us from premature aging and disease.

Ask yourself this question: if you repress your resentment, guilt, shame, anger, and other difficult emotions, can this behavior lead to illness? Recent medical studies prove that yes in fact it can.

This is all due to what is called the mind-body connection, a natural phenomenon that many people remain skeptical about. Yet medical studies continue to find that how we think and feel affects our health, especially when what we think and feel leads to chronic stress.

In the United States, stress-related illness accounts for 85% or more of the complaints that patients report to their doctors. Here’s a common example: Studies show that emotional stress directly affects the human digestive system. Mental and emotional stress is frequently cited as causing loss of appetite, uncontrollable cravings, or unhealthy eating binges. Stress also impedes proper absorption of nutrients and causes further issues with elimination of waste matter.

Chronic stress is proven to cause symptoms of illness in the physical body. The long-term solution is found in lifestyle and behavioral changes, rather than quick-fix addictive drugs whose positive results never last. 

-Peter Winslow

How the Body Heals Section 2

This is Peter Winslow, a health and life coach in private practice. Today we’ll discover the difference between “medical treatment” and “self-healing.” You may be surprised to learn that they often have very little in common. 

“Treatment” concerns external means to manipulate for an outcome, while “healing” is what occurs naturally within the body. 

When we discuss “healing” we’re talking about a subject that cannot be accurately predicted by medical data or controlled studies. Outcomes for healing are always variable; doctors can at best discuss the probabilities for any successful outcome. 

In fact, the natural energy that heals the human body is almost never discussed in western medical training. Scientists focus on the laws that govern physical tissues, systems and the matter they can observe with the implements of medical technology. They seek ways to interact with those things and they evolve their findings into methods of medical “treatment.” 

“Healing” is completely different, because healing is what you do. You already possess the energy to heal; the doctors don’t prescribe it and no one can sell it to you. In fact, “healing” is an act that ultimately depends on you. 

The energy that heals your body lives within your body, and it will never leave until you die. If you cut the finger of a cadaver you will notice that the wound will never heal. At this point, no medical treatment is useful because the healing energy is no longer in the body. 

This indicates that the power to heal is connected with the animating life force within us. This has never been studied by medical science, and the organic energy that heals your body cannot be witnessed through a microscope. It remains “meta-physical” or beyond the physical, and beyond the scope of medical technology. 

–Peter Winslow

Can the Body Heal Itself?

Hello I’m life coach Peter Winslow, and I have a radical question on tap for you today: do you believe that your body can heal itself?

If so, you’re in the minority. Most people believe that “healing” only comes from doctors and drugs, and that the body has little if any internal healing ability. As a life and health coach, I hear this constantly from my clients. Yet it’s a misguided misunderstanding—and a dangerous one at that.
For you to better empower your own healing ability it will be useful for you to think of healing the body from injury and dis-ease in terms which are not limited to medical science, but which also include a powerful healing philosophy.

The word philosophy means “love of wisdom.” The natural philosophy we can use to comprehend self-healing includes wisdom about the communication between your mind and body which evolved over eons to protect you and keep you free of illness.

The concept of a “mind-body connection” has often been rejected by the modern mainstream and by those who find it difficult to think of healing as a holistic (mind and body) phenomenon. This is likely due to the fact that western medical training has not endorsed mind-body methods of treatment as being useful or good for business.

For years, medical facilities taught that the human mind has little or no impact at all on the body. They reasoned that something as ambiguous as “stress”—which is a mental state—couldn’t possibly have any effect on the complicated anatomical workings of a human being. Most medical instructors now willingly admit that they just didn’t believe it was that simple.

Today many medical practitioners have seen the light about the toxicity of mental and emotional stress. They have evolved their practices to include recommending holistic approaches for stress relief as they recognize the powerful benefits of these “new-age” practices and how effective they are for their patients.

–Peter Winslow

Getting Over Feeling Like a Failure in Your Breakup

I’m life coach and counselor Peter Winslow. I know that when a relationship ends, we can sometimes feel like we failed. We failed to keep the relationship vital; failed to live up to the ideal of a perfect partnership; failed to be enough, work hard enough or provide enough to hold the relationship together.

For some, this can be more damaging than failing at say, a business venture.  Announcing to the world, “We split” may feel like saying “I’m a failure and I’m not good enough for a real relationship.”

Yet you can heal from the pain of feeling like a failure. This feeling can readily dissipate when you learn and accept these things:

• You are a human being having human experiences. Breakups are practically a universal experience. Do you know anyone who has NOT experienced a difficult breakup at some time?

• Life is all about changing, growing, and evolving.  A breakup is one of those changes.

• As you change, your experiences change and your relationships change as a result.

• When relationships feel good, that is the right experience for you at that time in your life.

• When relationships begin to feel bad, heavy or difficult, it means it is no longer the best situation for you at that time.

The ultimate lesson:

When a relationship ends it’s because the two individuals no longer are a match to each other as they once were. Doesn’t that feel like nature, life, God or the Universe (insert your favorite term) doing its best work?

The best relationship is a cycle, not a success or failure: we met, we matched, we grew, we changed, evolved, lived and learned. Then we were no longer a match in those aspects of life that make relationships work.

Only by moving on can you make the space for a better life.

  

– Peter Winslow

Getting Over A Breakup

I’m life coach and counselor Peter Winslow. If you have recently been through a tough breakup, there are probably plenty of good reasons for it beyond the obvious (we fought all the time, we grew apart, etc.)  And when you finally realize that your relationship really needed to end, you can more easily let go of the heartache and misgivings that followed.

One of my recent life coaching clients related that when her long-term relationship ended, it took time for her to see how that was the best thing that could have happened. She didn’t know it then; at the time it felt like a ton of unnecessary pain and regret. Yet as the days passed she learned a lot from the experience, much of which helped her find meaning in her life, and one of her discoveries can help you do the same.

The basic lesson is this: the end of a primary relationship heralds your highest and best interest at that time. Ultimately, this means that whether you like it or not, the breakup was actually a blessing. It probably didn’t feel like a blessing, but in time it will.

You can now move onto sacred ground and discover how to capitalize on the “blessings in disguise” that come with the hard knocks of life, and that will lead you to important breakthroughs. You will grow in ways that other life lessons simply cannot afford you.

Begin with this towering lesson of spiritual significance: each trial and tribulation, every life lesson and labor we've endured, for better or worse, all point to our true purpose. This includes every fruitless or failed relationship you’ve had, and in a very big way. If this solemn truth is hard for you to swallow, then you haven't been paying attention to what is really important—and it’s time to change that.

–Peter Winslow