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How much GABA should I use and which GABA product is best?

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The most common question I get about GABA (gamma-amino butyric acid) is the one about the blood-brain barrier and does it even work (it certainly does – read here for information on this one).

The next most common question I get about GABA is this one:

How much GABA should I use and which GABA product is best?

This exact question was actually asked of me a number of times last week after I published: Herbal therapy is equivalent to rifaximin for the treatment of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). In this blog I share about my trials of using sublingual GABA for the visceral pain and muscle tension in my gut caused by the bloating symptoms of SIBO.

There is no simple answer! It requires a blog post to provide a good answer because we are all unique, have different needs and these needs can even differ at different times depending on the issue and what is going on in our lives at the moment.

Let’s first do a quick recap of GABA (gamma-amino butyric acid) in case this is new to you. GABA is a calming amino acid that can be used as a supplement to raise GABA levels (GABA is also a neurotransmitter. It’s one of the amino acids I use most frequently with my anxious clients (together with tryptophan). GABA helps with the physical anxiety and tension, as well as panic attacks. New research shows it also helps with inhibition of unwanted thoughts and may also offer gut protection after alcohol consumption. It also helps with stiff and tense muscles and muscle pain and spasms.

How I have benefited from GABA

Here is a quick summary of how I’ve benefited from GABA supplements. I use this information to inform my use of GABA to help with the visceral pain I now experience due to my SIBO (more on that below).

If you have never used GABA or if you’ve used it once or twice, reading this should give you a clue as to why there is no one answer and how we need to use a trial approach to figure out what is best for each situation.

This also illustrates that there is no one size fits all for everyone and even for the same person under different situations.

  1. The anxiety and panic attacks I experienced 15 years ago:
    1. I used 1-2 GABA Calm three times a day and a combination GABA product at night. GABA Calm contains 125mg GABA and the GABA product contains 200mg GABA. My anxiety eased and my panic attacks stopped in a few days, giving me immediate relief and hope while I started to address all the other root causes like gluten sensitivity, adrenal issues, low zinc, gut health, low vitamin B6 and more
    2. The doses of GABA I used for my anxiety and panic attacks are typical amounts my clients benefit from and I would not have someone start on 500mg.
    3. If someone is a “pixie-dust” person and very sensitive I’d have them start with a pinch/dab or ¼ of 125 mg GABA Calm.
  1. The “ice-pick” headaches on the top of the skull that I discovered were caused by neck spasms:
    1. Physical therapy, high doses of GABA and high doses of magnesium were essential.
    2. Because of the low doses of GABA I had used for my anxiety years before this, I started with low doses of GABA increasing slowly from 200mg up to 1000mg GABA. This higher amount worked for me at this time for this injury.
  1. Throat spasms and the loss of my voice due to vagus nerve issues caused by a terrifying plane ride:
    1. Based on my prior ice-pick headache experience I now knew I could tolerate higher doses and started with 500mg GABA and used more as needed.
    2. I must have been really low in GABA because I was actually able to use upwards of 5 (and sometime more) doses of 500mg a day and not feel too wiped out, even during the day.
    3. That’s a lot of GABA for me – as I mentioned above 125mg to 250mg used to be enough for the anxiety I experienced 15 years ago.
    4. I write more about all this here: Vagus nerve rehab with GABA, breathing, humming, gargling and key nutrients (with videos to demonstrate immediate effects when using GABA sublingually)
  1. Rectal spasms/proctalgia fugax. These seem to be related to SIBO/IBS and I still experience these from time to time.
    1. I have found that 250mg to 500mg GABA opened onto my tongue works best for me for this particular muscle spasm.
    2. Again, it eases the spasms and pain in a few minutes. I write more about this here: How GABA eases agonizing rectal pain and spasms in under 2 minutes
  1. A back injury in August causing severe muscle spasms and pain.
    1. Again, based on my previous experiences using GABA, right after my fall I started taking 1000mg of GABA powder every few hours (held in my mouth for 1-2 minutes) and then reduced it to 2 or 3 times a day as needed.
    2. I share more in this blog: Acupuncture boosts GABA to reduce back pain and oral GABA further reduces the pain
    3. In the above blog you can also read some research about the mechanism of how GABA supplements ease inflammation and tracheal spasms associated with asthma.
  1. Visceral pain caused by SIBO.
    1. My SIBO is really well-controlled with diet but I’ve been having pain, bloating and insomnia while doing this herbal SIBO protocol. I suspect the cellulose in one of the herbal products is causing this bloating and pain after dinner. It was getting so bad it was keeping me awake (this is typical when I am accidently exposed to problematic foods and get a flare-up).
    2. SIBO patients can have visceral hypersensitivity where their pain can be due to the pressure of the gas that is produced and the muscles in the digestive system actually contracting against this pressure.
    3. It got me thinking about how effective GABA is for relieving muscle tension and how much it’s helped me in the past. I also use GABA with my clients all the time for relief of their physical anxiety and stiff and tense muscles. There are GABA receptors all over the gut and I recently discovered that GABA is important for motility.
    4. Over the last 2 weeks I’ve trialed 300mg GABA (opened on to the tongue) a few times to ease the pain and pressure and it’s been amazing at how much it’s helped and how quickly it’s eased the pain. I’ve used it as soon as I notice the bloating starting and it GABA helps me sleep too (as does the tryptophan I’ve also added). I suspect I could safely double this dose in the evening and may do this if the lower dose isn’t enough some evenings. I’ve also used it some days the next morning when I wake with the bloated ache in my belly.

How much should I use and which GABA product is best?

I have a blog post listing the products I use with clients: The Antianxiety Food Solution Amino Acid and Pyroluria Supplements

Always read the precautions (there is a link on the above blog) and do the amino acid questionnaire (the link is also on the above blog) before starting a trial. I also recommend reading the amino acids chapter in my book The Antianxiety Food Solution so you are a well-informed savvy consumer.

If you’re doing a trial for anxiety and panic attacks:

  • If you can use tyrosine the Source Naturals GABA Calm product is the one I use with most of my anxious clients.
  • The other GABA products listed on the supplements blog need to be opened onto the tongue and started with a low dose (100-200mg is a good starting dose) and increase based on symptom relief. More can often be used at night, especially if sleep is also an issue – sometimes up to 500mg.

If you have SIBO/IBS and are doing a trial for visceral pain:

  • I’d suggest NOT starting with the Source Naturals GABA Calm because the sugar alcohols can be problematic for some individuals. Or if you do, be aware that it may not help and may make things worse in the short-term. Personally, I have not found this product to be an issue with my SIBO and I have very few clients report an issue.
  • The other GABA products listed on the supplements blog need to be opened onto the tongue and started with a low dose and increased based on symptom relief.
  • For a client totally new to GABA I’d start with 100-200mg in the evening and also increase slowly over a few weeks based on symptom relief, up to 500-1000mg.
  • For early morning belly pain I’d start a client on 100-200mg because too much in the day can make you feel tired.    

If you have other pain issues:

  • For a client totally new to GABA I’d start with 100-200mg in the evening and increase slowly over a few weeks based on symptom relief, up to 500-1000mg.  Depending on the pain more may often be needed and higher doses can often be tolerated during the day.
  • Keep in mind that pain can have any many root causes and it may be more than low just GABA or may not be due to low GABA at all. Other factors to consider include but are not limited to: low serotonin, low magnesium, low endorphins, inflammation, structural damage, low omega-3s, gluten issues, Lyme disease etc.  Physical therapy and acupuncture are wonderful approaches to include too.

As you can see from my experiences above it’s a matter of doing trials to find the ideal amount for you for your particular situation.  

If you’ve used GABA supplements for anxiety, visceral pain or other muscles spasms I’d love to hear from you.

This GABA-pain connection is not well recognized and I’d love to have more people know about this as a possible option. The more we share our experiences the more we all learn.

If you plan a trial similar to any of the above I’d also love to hear your questions and feedback.

Anxiety, depression, GABA and cortisol: effects of Lactobacillus ingestion

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We now know that good bacteria or probiotics have the potential to alter brain chemistry and have an impact on anxiety and depression. You may recall my interview with Professor Ted Dinan on a prior Anxiety Summit – Microbes in the gut and psychobiotics as a potential treatment for anxiety and depression. He shared his paper and this definition of Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic.

…we define a psychobiotic as a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness. As a class of probiotic, these bacteria are capable of producing and delivering neuroactive substances such as gamma-aminobutyric acid and serotonin, which act on the brain-gut axis.

Research published by Dinan, Cryan and their teams also found benefits of Lactobacillus rhamnosus on stress, anxiety and depression type behaviors in mice. This is older research (published in 2011) but it’s the first time I’ve shared it on the blog. I talk about this paper in the upcoming Microbiome Medicine 2 Summit so I like to share study excerpts and links to the study.

The write up in Science Daily is a good one – Mind-Altering Microbes: Probiotic Bacteria May Lessen Anxiety and Depression

…mice fed with Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1 showed significantly fewer stress, anxiety and depression-related behaviours than those fed with just broth. Moreover, ingestion of the bacteria resulted in significantly lower levels of the stress-induced hormone, corticosterone.

The part that I find fascinating is the effects of Lactobacillus on GABA receptors in the brain (GABA is your main calming neurotransmitter):

The researchers also showed that regular feeding with the Lactobacillus strain caused changes in the expression of receptors for the neurotransmitter GABA in the mouse brain, which is the first time that it has been demonstrated that potential probiotics have a direct effect on brain chemistry in normal situations.

In this paper the authors discuss the vagus nerve and the three-way communication:

…the vagus nerve is the main relay between the microbiome (bacteria in the gut) and the brain. This three way communication system is known as the microbiome-gut-brain axis and these findings highlight the important role of bacteria in the communication between the gut and the brain, and suggest that certain probiotic organisms may prove to be useful adjunct therapies in stress-related psychiatric disorders.

What is even more fascinating is this:

the neurochemical and behavioral effects were not found in vagotomized mice

What does this mean? When the researchers severed the vagus nerve in the test mice – removing the communication between the gut and the brain – they found that the behaviors and stress hormone levels reverted back to the way they had been i.e. the vagotomized mice were more anxious, more stressed, more depressed and had higher corticosterone levels.

You can find the abstract of the paper here: Ingestion of Lactobacillus strain regulates emotional behavior and central GABA receptor expression in a mouse via the vagus nerve.

What does this mean for you? It means that good bacteria in your diet could well improve your anxiety and depression symptoms and even have an impact on your adrenals and cortisol levels. This could be in the form of a good probiotic and should always include fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, yogurt and kefir (if dairy is tolerated), water kefir (if dairy is not tolerated).

Have you observed an improvement in your anxiety and stress levels since adding a probiotic or fermented foods into your diet?

Stress, aging and turning off your bad genes: with Dr. Sara Gottfried

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At age 44, my friend and colleague Dr. Sara Gottfried, M.D., got a research opportunity few people would want. She performed a simple blood test of how fast she was aging, and she failed.

She was aging 20 years faster than her chronological years, as measured by her telomeres. Those are the protective caps on your chromosomes that determine how your cells age. You want telomeres that are long and lovely. Dr. Sara’s were short and stubby.

Despite what we’ve been told, it’s not normal to age fast, gain weight, feel anxious, and become disease-ridden. Just as the number on the bathroom scale isn’t always a simple reflection of calories consumed vs. calories burned, the number of years you’ve lived isn’t always a reflection of your biological age (meaning the age of your cells).

Dr. Sara’s telomeres and body needed rescuing, so she dove into the science and created a breakthrough protocol to slow down aging.

Dr. Sara also had adrenal fatigue, a slow thyroid, estrogen dominance, disrupted sleep, and insulin resistance. Because her cells were numb to insulin, her blood sugar was climbing. Not in the diabetes range, but prediabetes. These hormone problems added up to faster aging.

During the past five years of research, Dr. Sara discovered crucial truths locked in our genes—truths about how you age, how you gain weight, how your body handles stress, and so much more. In her new book, Younger: A Breakthrough Program to Reset Your Genes, Reverse Aging, and Turn Back the Clock 10 Years, she reveals important yet little-known truths to slow down aging and reverse anxiety. She helps you create hormonal harmony and turn on and off the appropriate longevity genes. Here are just a few highlights:

  • Breast cancer runs in her family, so she learned how to turn off her cancer-promoting genes using her fork and wine glass.
  • Sara doesn’t detox well—neither do half of Americans—so she needed to add a specific B vitamin to her daily regimen. Hint: we talk about the MTHFR gene and detox in our interview below).
  • Her grandmother died of Alzheimer’s disease, so Dr. Sara was thrilled to learn about the functional medicine protocol that preserves cognitive function regardless of age. Hint: it involves a specific way of eating, exercising, practicing yoga or meditation, flossing, brushing teeth, and sleeping.

In her new book, you’ll learn what happened to Dr. Sara’s telomeres over the past 5 years as she tested and refined her protocol, first on herself, and then on 1,000 other women.

I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of Younger and loved it so much that I wrote the following endorsement:

The brilliant book, Younger, by Dr. Sara Gottfried MD is mesmerizing, cutting-edge and a must-read! It teaches how you can turn your good genes on and your bad genes off via a healthy mix of science and gene information, together with simple assessment tools and powerful lifestyle changes. You’ll feel happier and calmer, look and feel younger, and actually reverse age-related diseases – even if you have anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer, heart disease or obesity in your family. Why wouldn’t you want to influence your genes for the better? I know I do and so do my community of anxious women. We will all benefit immensely from Dr. Gottfried’s wisdom!

~ Trudy Scott, nutritionist and author of The Antianxiety Food Solution

I also had the opportunity to interview Dr. Sara about this topic and you can watch and listen below as we discuss some of the following:

  • Telomeres and aging (at 44 Dr. Sara had the telomeres of a 64 year old woman)
  • Healthspan and feeling fantastic
  • Walking on the beach for the adrenals, earthing and vagal toning
  • Forest bathing and the effects on cortisol levels [this isn’t in the book]
  • Ikaria “the island where they forgot to die” – herbal teas, tight social community, long lunches, no watches, 7.5 hours of sleep
  • Date night and chanting in the infrared sauna
  • Finnish study: saunas, longevity and the FOXO3 gene (a panacea? and even a form of exercise for those with heart failure)
  • MTHFR “detox” or methylation gene (depression and alcohol detox)
  • We can impact how our genes talk to our bodies in such profound ways
  • The FKBP5 Gene is turned on by severe trauma (studied in Holocaust victims) and affects how we handle stress
  • The TH gene is turned on by the cold
  • rs6330 – NGF/nerve growth factor gene and vagal tone (CC form = more anxious females; TT form = more anxious males) [this isn’t in the book]
  • Genetic testing is optional but can be done with 23andme, Pathway and SmartDNA (in Australia)
  • Testing telomeres with Lifelength and SpectraCell
  • Vagus nerve and parasympathetic system – affects anxiety levels, the gut, voice and brain – improved with meditation, prayer, chanting, social connection, singing, call girlfriends, sleeping on your right side
  • 7 day Younger challenge (most powerful levers from the book)
  • 7 week Younger challenge
  • Thing about your 75 year old self: “I want to make decisions that are kind to her” and “How can you kind be to your future self”

If this resonates with you, I encourage you to join Dr. Sara’s slow aging revolution by ordering your copy of Younger.

I hope you’ll join Dr. Sara and me in our quest to continue resetting genes and reversing aging in 2017. The science is yours for the taking!

If you are like Dr. Sara and have issues with your adrenals, thyroid, insulin, or sleep, you could be aging too fast, as she was. And while the genetic hand you’ve been dealt may seem like a fait accompli, the greatest truth Dr. Sara discovered is that you can “turn on” good genes and “turn off” bad ones using the seven-week protocol she developed based on the latest research. Thankfully, she’s done all the research so you don’t have to!

When you order the new book, feel free to click here to submit your receipt and get several bonuses for a limited time, including Dr. Sara’s Younger Quick Start Guide. This guide includes an overview of the Younger Protocol, Dr. Sara’s Anti-Aging Prerequisites, and a sample menu so that you’re ready when the book arrives.

 

The Anxiety Summit – Anxiety and digestion: the microbiome, stomach acid, bile and the vagus nerve

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Liz Lipski_Anxiety4

Prof. Liz Lipski, PhD, CCN, CNS, was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Anxiety and digestion: the microbiome, stomach acid, bile and the vagus nerve

  • The microbiome – how these microbes are “us” and not different from us
  • Low stomach acid and the effects on protein/zinc/iron absorption, and candida
  • Low bile production and fat absorption issues
  • The vagus nerve, enteric nervous system and neurotransmitter production

Here are some gems from our interview:

So just to start the microbiome itself is not something separate from us but it’s the most newly recognized organ that we have in the human body.  And it’s comprised of viruses, bacteria and fungi.  And they’re like our rainforest and they live in every epithelial cell surface of our body so they’re on our skin, they’re in your lungs, in your hair, in your nailbeds.  They’re in your genitourinary system, in your digestive system, in your nose.  They’re really everywhere and I think that we’re also going to find that we have these microbes inside of our brain and inside of our liver and I think the more we learn we’re going to find that they’re really everywhere.

The thing that excites me about them is that they really help run our metabolism, help determine whether we’re fat or thin, help determine what our moods are like and how we feel. 

I just love this comment about the microbiome:

And honestly I never know are we just a big bag for carrying around these microbes and they’re really the intelligence in our body or what?  Because they’re kind of like the superstars and we’re really a super organism.  And without them we don’t function at all.

Here is some of what covered in the gut brain connection section:

We make a lot of neurotransmitters in our gut.  In fact we make about 80 to 90 percent of our neurotransmitters like serotonin.  We make most of it in our digestive system and not in our brain at all.  And when you start looking at it, it’s like wow, you look at dopamine and epinephrine and norepinephrine and all of these are made in great abundance in the digestive system itself and again they help modulate again the microbiome.  They help modulate gut motility, so how fast or how slow the food moves through our digestive system. 

Here is a fascinating article that covers much of the new research. The tantalizing links between gut microbes and the brain : Neuroscientists are probing the idea that intestinal microbiota might influence brain development and behaviour.

We cover hydrochloric acid and minerals:

So hydrochloric acid is really important for that.  It also helps us just break down proteins so that our digestive enzymes don’t have to work so hard.  And then it also in the beginning of the small intestine which is called the duodenum -it’s the first 12 to 18 inches – what happens is that the acid is still there before it get neutralized by the pancreas which secretes basically baking soda and neutralizes it because it’s done its job.  But in that first big part of the small intestine, the duodenum, is where we absorb iron and calcium and zinc and to a lesser extent magnesium and copper.  And so when we don’t have enough acid we’re more likely to get mineral insufficient.

This is the book she mentions in the interview – Why Stomach Acid Is Good for You: Natural Relief from Heartburn, Indigestion, Reflux and GERD by Jonathan Wright

why stomach acid is good for you

Here is Liz’s fabulous book Digestive Wellness 4th edition

digestive wellness

Here is the Stomach Acid/Hydrochloric Acid Test handout

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.

The Anxiety Summit – Opening: benzos, electroshock, blueberries, sauerkraut and the vagus nerve

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Trudy Scott_opening_Anxiety4 other

The host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution opens up the Anxiety Summit Season 4.

Anxiety Summit opening: benzos, electroshock, blueberries, sauerkraut and the vagus nerve

  • My vagus nerve story and how GABA helped
  • Why we need an integrative approach: Electroshock, LSD, BPA, zinc deficiencies, medication side-effects
  • An update on benzodiazepines and what we can learn from the Swiss and Blue Zones
  • Anxiety: new research on blueberries, gluten, sauerkraut, low vitamin B6 and iron, foods rich in polyphenols
  • An overview of the speakers and topics on this summit

My vagus nerve story – the videos document the journey with GABA and vagus nerve exercises 3-6-6 breathing and happy birthday humming.

This article published just last month is just so distressing to even contemplate: American Psychiatric Association Lobbies FDA to Electroshock Children

While the APA looks to seizure-inducing, brain-disabling, electricity as a form of ‘treatment,’ lobbying the FDA to make ECT available for children, no one in medicine, let alone psychiatry, has a clue how ECT machines ‘work’ or how passing large amounts of electricity into a child’s brain ‘treats’ the subjective mental disorder.  

Also published last month is an article in the New York Times called: LSD Like Drugs Are Out of the Haze and Back in the Labs.

modern scientists are picking up where their forerunners of the ’50s and ’60s left off. They are studying hallucinogens’ potential to help smokers kick the habit, to undo addictions to drugs and alcohol, to cope with cluster headaches and depression, and to deal with obsessive-compulsive and post-traumatic stress disorders.

Earlier this year a bill was put forward in Massachusetts proposing informed consent for benzodiazepine use. They will be submitting it again in a future session.

Here is the blog post and research on blueberries and serotonin: Blueberries boost serotonin and may help with PTSD and anxiety

Rats that were fed blueberries saw an increase in serotonin levels and the study authors suggest that the neuroprotection offered by the blueberries may offer support for those with PTSD. Presumably this could help those with anxiety and depression too, since low serotonin can also be an underlying factor.

Here is the blog post and research on gluten and OCD: Integrative Medicine Approach to Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety 

The 7-year-old boy was put on a gluten-free diet and they saw a huge reduction in his OCD symptoms and anxiety and an improvement in social behavior and school work.

A paper published in August 2015: Fermented foods, neuroticism, and social anxiety suggests that:

consumption of fermented foods that contain probiotics may serve as a low-risk intervention for reducing social anxiety

Here are some of the other papers I mentioned:

Here is the master blog with all the speakers, their topics and their individual blog posts with additional information, links to studies, books and other resources – The Anxiety Summit Season 4: All the speakers and topics (keep in mind that the speaker blog links will be live/active from the day of the speaker interview)

If you already have my book The Antianxiety Food Solution: How the Foods You Eat Can Help You Calm Your Anxious Mind, Improve Your Mood, and End Cravings, I recommend that you skim through it again and review the chapters on the food basics, gluten, amino acids, pyroluria and digestion.  If you don’t yet have a copy, I highly recommend getting a copy so you can be educated as well as empowered.

trudy scott the antianxiety food solution

Here is my gift to you, a song called Top of the World (grab the mp3 at this link)

A new beginning, a brand new day
All of my fears are gone away
I feel so calm, so free, so whole
Right now, I’m feeling on top of the world

On top the world
Right now, I’m feeling on top of the world

 

And here is another special gift: transcript of this entire talk!
Download the transcript here (right-click on the link and select “Save link as” or “Save target as” to download the file to your computer)

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.

Music Therapy for Vagus Nerve rehab: on the Brain Summit

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Just a quick reminder that the Brain Summit airs May 2nd to 6th.

brain-summit

Here is a snippet from the interview with Alex Doman: Using Music to Rewire Your Brain. Alex is CEO of Advanced Brain Technologies, the third generation of a family of pioneers in the field of human brain development, co-founder of Sleep Genius, author of the best-selling book, Healing at the Speed of Sound and co-creator of The Listening Program, a sound therapy program.

alex-dorman

It’s a fascinating topic that I didn’t know much about until I heard this interview. Alex shares some of the basics of sound and sound therapy:

Sound affects us on a myriad of levels, from lower brain centers to the higher brain centers. So bottom-up and top-down processing, emotional regulation, moods. So it has a swath of impact on us as human beings, and, you know, the music that’s in our personal playlist we use, you know, to self-regulate, and, as you said, maybe an up-tempo piece for our cardio; a slow tempo, very calm piece when we’re in a stress state; maybe some baroque music to help focus us.

And the principles of using music and sound for self-regulation, there are a few components, right? One is frequency, which you mentioned, which is a big area of focus for us. Different sound frequencies have a different impact on our functions and performance, right? So we’ve learned that low-frequency sounds have a very calming effect on the nervous system. They have an effect on our motor functions within the brain; fine and gross motor skills, our sense of body and space, our left-right awareness, our coordinated movements, and our vestibular functions, primarily. Whereas, the mid-frequencies are very focusing, as opposed to the low frequencies being grounded, and they are more related to our communication with one another, our ability to receive and express language, both orally and through written communication. And then these high frequencies, which are rather magical, in a way, that are very stimulating and tap into our intuition, our beliefs, our creativity. And actually, in the brain, there’s more neural area for the high frequencies than any other range of sound frequencies.

So we are working with sound and the components of frequency to affect different functions within our lives — from the low to the mid to the high frequencies—in very specific ways, but then there are other features, like the tempo, the pace of the music, right? Slow tempos will entrain our body rhythms and brain waves to lower states, and fast tempos will activate us. So, in way, you can think of high frequencies like sonic caffeine that I have here in my cup, to get me activated, and the low frequencies might be like taking a lavender essential oil to help kind of calm our nervous system. So they affect us across a great range.

Once he started talking about stress, burnout and the vagus nerve, I was even more fascinated and really intrigued:

What’s happening is our stress resilience is getting lower and lower and lower. So what’s interesting is noise is a big contributor to that. But sound is also the antidote. So there was some research that was done in Europe a few years ago with child care workers that experienced burnout symptoms to the magnitude that many would qualify for a depression diagnosis.

So the investigators wanted to research the impact of Music Listening Therapy with a special mode of stimulation that would impact the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system with more impact—and we’ll probably talk about bone conduction later—and to use one of our protocols to see if, in fact, symptoms of burnout would be lessened in response to that intervention, compared to the standard care, that standard care being visits to a psychotherapist for these workers.

So they did a controlled study, and one group saw the therapist and one group, their therapist was themselves using sound as the input and to help heal and change their state. And what was miraculous is that those that did the listening had statistically significant improvements going from stress burnout to normal stress resilience, and those getting talk therapy made very little change. They stayed kind of stuck in their pattern of stress response. So it’s really a testament to the power of the right sound done in a very specific manner, right? This isn’t haphazard; this is a very focused, structured program to create a massive change to a very big issue that many of us face.

Later on in the interview, there is more discussion about the vagus nerve. If you’ve been following my blogging recently you’ll be aware of the issues I had with my voice and the breathing and humming work I did for my vagus nerve rehabilitation. Now I have a much better understanding of why it helped so much!  

And what’s interesting is the vagus nerve, which is a cranial nerve, has enervations within the ear, meaning connections, inner connections within the ear. So when we hear or experience sound, that sound carries along the vagus nerve. So it connects our central nervous system and our autonomic nervous system; that’s the main bridge, the main connector that happens. And it’s very important for emotional regulation; it’s the center of emotional regulation.

And what we’ve found with Music Listening Therapy, the observations are that it helps with that homeostatic state, that balance of acceleration when we need it and deceleration in the brake when we need it. So that we can have improved stress resilience and better emotional regulation

Erin Matlock is founder of Brain Summit, a mental health advocate and popular speaker. After overcoming a crippling battle with severe depression, she went on to create an online community where she openly shares her search for a better brain.  

During this interview she shares how much this music therapy helped her to feel joyful and more connected:

erin-matlock

I’d spent four weeks in the high frequency range, and that produced a joy. And I have never described myself as joyful, not since I was a little child, because of the history of depression. And I can’t remember – and I know I wrote about that – a time when I walked around saying, “I feel joy,” for no reason, none at all.

And then the other part was the connection. And this part was interesting. As an introvert, as someone who has always felt very out of place, like I was born in the wrong time, I used to describe myself like that saying, “alone in a crowded room.” That was me. And to feel connected — not to any particular person, just in a general sense— for me it was spiritual; it’s not that way for everyone else. I don’t know where that connection comes from, but it was something that my brain wasn’t giving me before. And that came directly as a result of this training.

Overall it is a fascinating interview and one I know you’ll want to hear! I look forward to checking out other interviews and hope you’ll join me on the Brain Summit. Erin interviews 25 global experts who present cutting edge information on brain health, mental health, peak performance, neurotechnology, nutrition and much more.

You can register here: http://www.brainsummit.com?orid=45505&opid=12