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HELP YOUR CHILD THRIVE AND FLOURISH
HELP YOUR CHILD THRIVE AND FLOURISH
Network Care, also known as Network Spinal Analysis (NSA), is a gentle chiropractic method focused on enhancing the body’s innate healing abilities. It involves light touches along the spine to help release tension in the nervous system, improve energy flow, and promote healing.
For children, this technique can be particularly beneficial in addressing common issues such as stress, anxiety, poor posture, and developmental delays.
Discover how Network Care can be tailored to meet the unique needs of children at different stages of growth.
Network Spinal Care is a gentle, holistic way to take care of your child’s health and lead them on a path to wellness.
Starting as early as the birthing process, our bodies are potentially subjected to various traumas and stresses, and that causes stress and strain to the developing spine and nervous system. The result is a fight/flight pattern that develops in the infant’s nervous system, and can interfere with their sleep, latching and feeding, digestion, mood, and meeting developmental milestones.
With Network Spinal Care, a gentle precise touch to the spine releases tension in the nervous system, resulting in a quieting and calming effect on the stress response of the nervous system. Network Care is a relaxing experience for infants and toddlers as their nervous system moves into the healthy, healing parasympathetic rest/digest mode
As a child gets older, chronic postural and health problems can occur from prolonged sitting, lack of physical activity, sports injuries, carrying heavy schoolbags, extended time using a computer and electronic devices, peer pressure and school stress. These common stresses of childhood activate the fight/flight stress response of the nervous system.
Network Care helps to relieve this stress, moving the nervous system back to the rest/digest healing mode, which leads to more resiliency to stress and improved posture, more energy, better ability to focus and concentrate, fewer headaches, improved ability to handle stress, better sleep, feeling more relaxed, and enjoying better heath in general.
Parents report to us that their child gets sick less often than their peers and are more resilient to stress. They also see improved and enhanced sports performance because their reflexes and ability to heal are much quicker.
Teenagers are subjected to many physical, mental, and emotional stresses. Peer pressure, social media, school stress, college admission, family dynamics, sports injuries are all examples of common stressors a teenager experiences.
As a result of these daily stresses, teens can experience chronic fight/flight nervous system response. The resulting effect can be:
Anxiety
Headaches
Back pain
Poor sleep
Depression
Digestive problems
Difficulty focusing
Network Care helps teenagers overcome these challenges.
Current research points to the fight/flight/freeze survival mode of the nervous system, instead of the rest/digest mode, as being engaged and activated in children with Autism.
The parasympathetic (rest/digest) and sympathetic (fight/flight/freeze) parts of the nervous system make up the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The Vagus nerve controls the parasympathetic, or rest and digest mode, of the heart, lungs and digestive system. Under stress, the functioning of the Vagus nerve is suppressed. When in a calm state, the Vagus nerve works closely with the social engagement system.
The social engagement system involves neural pathways embedded in several cranial nerves that develop in utero. These nerves essentially control the muscles we need to engage with our world — social gesture and orientation, voice prosody, smiling, laughing, chewing, ingesting, seeing, looking, and, engaging. As a parent of an autistic child, you will quickly recognize that these behaviors are reduced in your child. If a child is in the “safe” rest/digest mode of the nervous system, they smile, observe faces, listen, talk, raise their eyebrows as they communicate verbally and non-verbally. If a child has the fight/flight/freeze mode activated, they do not engage socially or make eye contact.
We smile, speak, look, listen, laugh, turn our heads. We breathe easily and let the world in. The social engagement system operates when we feel safe, or put in another way, our parasympathetic nervous system is engaged. It enables friendly, social interaction and this helps us to be in a calm state for good health and restoration of cells. However, the social engagement system does not work so well when we are in Fight/Flight/Freeze or immobilization. It goes offline as we are more focused on looking after our safety.
When our parasympathetic NS and the Vagus nerve are functioning in a healthy manner, we are calm, we interact, our heart rate is normal, we can digest food easily, and we breathe calmly. Additionally, we can speak easily, make good eye contact, smile, turn our heads, and listen to the nuances in a conversation. We can move and interact with grace as well as digest food and repair our cells. When we are calm, there is enough energy to go around.
The social engagement system develops during infancy. But if an infant’s nervous system had been in distress and all energy had been diverted to safety, the fight/flight/immobilization response became the primary mode for the developing child, and will feel painful, agitated, difficulty with digestion, and the social engagement system does not get developed and integrated.
According to researchers, the individual nature of the nervous system and its response to the world can account for the vast nature of the autism spectrum.
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/nerves-control-heart-rate-may-contribute-autism/
Today, there is a significant body of research that points to a wide-ranging number of benefits resulting from mindfulness interventions. In children and teens especially, breathing techniques common to mindfulness practices help relax the body and mind; thus enabling access to a more focused mind. By enabling young minds to achieve a state of calm through breathing exercises in the classroom or at home, our children can be empowered to gain self-control and focus.
Today, there is a significant body of research that points to a wide-ranging number of benefits resulting from mindfulness interventions. In children and teens especially, breathing techniques common to mindfulness practices help relax the body and mind; thus enabling access to a more focused mind. By enabling young minds to achieve a state of calm through breathing exercises in the classroom or at home, our children can be empowered to gain self-control and focus.
Children and teens hold their breath when distressed, and breathe more fully when relaxed.
During the SRI exercise, their hands are placed on three specific areas of the body where the Vagus nerve innervates. The Vagus nerve controls the parasympathetic, or “rest and digest” mode of the heart, lungs and digestive system. When the Vagus nerve is stimulated, parasympathetic, or “rest and digest” activity is restored. This connection to the Vagus nerve through gentle breath and focused attention signals the brain that you’re not under attack and interrupts the fight or flight pattern.
Living in a nervous system that is easily triggered, vigilant, or shut down creates more fear, discomfort, and lack of fulfillment. Practicing SRI, children and teens experience greater relaxation, reduced anxiety and nervousness, increased ability to focus, and better overall mood.
Breathwork, such as SRI, activates the Vagus nerve and, therefore, the parasympathetic nervous system. It helps to ease anxiety, re-focus the mind, and ground the body.
Contemplative practices have been shown to have many benefits to mental health. Not only are somatic practices such as SRI linked to decreased brain inflammation, better memory, and increased ability to learn new information, but it is also linked to healthier vagal tone. Specifically, mindfulness has the ability to activate the Vagus nerve, especially when there is breathwork involved.
As an added bonus, mindfulness practices, such as SRI, can help to increase interoception (the ability to monitor internal states like hunger, thirst, sleepiness, etc.), which many Autistic people and people with ADHD struggle with.
The NIH recognizes that low Vagal tone is present in children with autism and that significant improvements in quality of life have been documented when vagal tone improves which benefits children with autism.
Please contact our office today for a complimentary consultation or to schedule your child’s exam.
8250 165th Avenue NE Suite 203
Redmond, WA 98052
Monday: 9 AM – 1:00 PM & 3pm-5:30pm
Tuesday: 12 PM – 3 PM & 4:30pm-7pm
Wednesday: Closed
Thursday: 2 PM – 6:30 PM
Friday: 9 AM-1 PM
Saturday, Sunday: Closed
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Ask about our new patient 2 visit special