Blog

The Vagus (wandering nerve) plays a critical role in our mental and physical health. From regulating digestion, heart rate, respiration. Facial expressions, eye contact. Connecting to vital organs, from the brain, heart, lungs, liver, stomach, calming our organs after a stress response.

Trauma and chronic stress can cause its activity to become reduced or suppressed leading to a multitude of health issues from inflammation in the gut, to depression.

Craniosacral therapy directly addresses the vagus nerve, to help shift the body out of its stress state and into a calmer one.

At home you can help to improve your vagus nerve function through:

• Daily movement, yoga and exercise
• Cold showers
• Humming or singing

** Please note this is not a substitute for medical advice so do ensure you have discussed your symptoms with your doctor before embarking on any form of exercise or change of regimen.**

He wanted what I thought was impossible – but it worked.

“I am in agony… I tore my rotator cuff…I need to see you urgently.”
This was how many of my client relationships began.

I booked him in. No problem, I thought, I can help reduce the inflammation, ease the pain. 🤕

But then I saw him.

For ease let’s call him The Cuban. (He actually was.)

The Cuban had been shot. (Not that day fortunately for me.) He had banged up his knee badly and it was permanently swollen, there were metal plates in his spine, he had trouble walking and was on a waiting list for a very serious and urgent surgery that had been postponed due to covid, couldn’t sleep…and the list went on. The rotator cuff tear was the cherry on the cake. He was frustrated he was no longer able to live his best life. And this towering 6ft 2” debonair gentleman in his 60’s was in excruciating pain.

“I think you need a surgeon, doctors, physio, hydrotherapy, a team.” I tried to talk him out of seeing me.

Three times.

He had been down that route. The Cuban had the finances and access to some of the best doctors in the country. Many private surgeries and disappointments later he had by some alchemy found me.

The Cuban looked at me sternly with one finger pointed and authoritatively declared:

“No! I know YOU can help me! I’m in your hands.”

Ok….

Checking off code of ethics, crossing t’s and dotting i’s and yes – saying a Hail Mary, I agreed to work with him.

In the coming weeks and months, as I tuned into his system his body began to tell me its story. The Cuban was a charismatic jovial man. A wealthy entrepreneur who used to hang with the rat pack, A listers, the champagne, the fights, every experience was etched in his system as it began to unfold, release, and resolve.

He turned up to every session. On time. 🕙 He gave me the privilege of complete trust. When things weren’t working we tried something else.

Faced with such unwavering belief in my abilities I began to up my game. He had commit to the process. So I commit to the process. Not just in clinic but outside it. Anything I couldn’t do that was required – I learned.

It wasn’t always pretty, healing never is. Mentally and physically he hit roadblocks, new injuries due to life, emotional setbacks, I hit roadblocks, but we stayed the course and he continued to improve. Looking back it seems dramatic. But the weekly changes were incremental. He managed to avoid certain surgeries altogether!

Like Tom Hank’s remaining FedEx parcel in Castaway, we said we’d go for dinner to celebrate when he had achieved his big goal. A year since he started his journey with me the day has come!

When you commit to a process, and invest in your health, there’s no limit to what can be achieved.

Anything is possible.

I feel adrift…and I can’t find an anchor

We feel the physical effects of gravity. When we get out of bed, we know our feet will be pulled down to touch the floor.

Similarly, we are energetically anchored by our parents.  We grow in the earth of our mother’s womb from a blueprint infused with all the experiences, thoughts, feelings, traumas, and joys supplied by seeds from both of our parents. Containing the thoughts, feelings, memories of their parents before them. And their parents before them, stretching back generations since man began.

That is the earth we grow from.

A tree that grows tall from the ground, retains its roots to survive, so physical distance from our parent(s) and time do not prevent us from feeling their departure when they pass.

Like an invisible fabric covering the family, when there is a tug at one end, it will always be felt at the other.

Whatever our age, life stage, whether they were loving and close, or had a more complex relationship with us, or none at all, when we lose a parent, it is felt deeply in every cell of our body. We can feel like we are losing essence, or a part of us is leaving. We may wish to leave with them. The everyday can feel meaningless. The world is different.

We search for our anchor, but it cannot be found.

It is a rite of passage. Losing a parent’s material presence on earth can be extraordinarily painful and indescribable. We can look for them in crowds, that familiar face knowing it can’t be them, we still search.

Doing a seemingly mundane task, emotion can rise and surge like a wave then subside. Without control.

But in time, remembering that our parents exist in our physical and energetic selves, we can find the anchor we are looking for within us.

How craniosacral therapy can help if you are grieving the loss of a loved one.

Grief is personal although there may be shared characteristics with others who grieve. There is no one way to grieve or a time limit. But the trauma of a loss of a loved one may cause you to feel disconnected from the outside world. There may be held grief or an inability to cope.

Held grief needs to be expressed. Craniosacral therapy can help you to feel more embodied and provide a space for your system to express itself in the way it needs to. Through facilitating a deep sense of relaxation and stillness the body can begin to talk.

Giving ourselves permission to feel what we feel and appreciating our own mortality and that time on earth is finite, we can start to find joy again.  

Relief with Craniosacral Therapy^[1]

If you suffer from migraines, you know how incapacitating they can be.

Varying from person to person, the pain can be so intense you may want to knock yourself out. If you suffer from the aura: the zig zagging lines, partial loss of vision, nausea, diarrhoea you simply cannot get on with life until the migraine has run its course. If you have children to take care of or elderly dependents, life goes on hold for them too^.[2]

For some a dark room, and 24 hours of rest will help. For others the migraine will linger for days. Silent migraineurs avoid the pain but the visual disturbances persist. Being unable to work, drive, cook, cross a road, renders many sufferers helpless for the duration of the attack.

Current conventional options for migraine sufferers are a variety of pharmaceutical drugs from paracetamol to triptans, for management of pain. ^[3]

However,  Craniosacral Therapy has been shown to produce robust effects on pain in sufferers of migraine and other pain related illnesses. This conclusion was formed by a 2020 systematic review and meta analysis of randomised controlled trials from Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Spain and the United States^.[4]

Through gentle touch and manipulation, the release of cranial bones, membranes and fascia enables greater movement and fluidity in the craniosacral system, releasing any impingement on nerves. This can have a significant impact on the frequency and intensity of migraine attack.

If you suffer from migraines and are looking for an alternative approach with proven results please contact me: raj@rajlehl.com

**Please note this is not a substitute for medical advice. Appropriate medical diagnosis must be sought. Migraines can often be confused with a Transient Ischemic Attack^[5] where oxygen is cut off to part of the brain, so it is important to get a prompt medical diagnosis.**

---

[1] Haller, H., Lauche, R., Sundberg, T. et al. Craniosacral therapy for chronic pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 21, 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-019-3017-y

[2] Seng EK, Mauser ED, Marzouk M, Patel ZS, Rosen N, Buse DC. When Mom Has Migraine: An Observational Study of the Impact of Parental Migraine on Adolescent Children. Headache. 2019;59(2):224-234. doi:10.1111/head.13433

[3] Weatherall MW. The diagnosis and treatment of chronic migraine. Ther Adv Chronic Dis. 2015;6(3):115-123. doi:10.1177/2040622315579627

[4] Haller, H., Lauche, R., Sundberg, T. et al. Craniosacral therapy for chronic pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 21, 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-019-3017-y

[5] Nadarajan V, Perry RJ, Johnson J, Werring DJ. Transient ischaemic attacks: mimics and chameleons. Pract Neurol. 2014;14(1):23-31. doi:10.1136/practneurol-2013-000782

---

For the human species to thrive it needs touch.

We experience the richness of the world through our senses and our tactile sense is the first to develop. Numerous receptors in our skin communicate with our brain.

Having touch is critical to our mental and emotional well-being. 

From the moment you are born and held to your mother’s chest, the feeling of knowing where you are in space, anchored, the smell of the milk, the softness of her skin helps you to organise your nervous system. The lack of this touch, this support, will lead to a failure to thrive or even death.

Touch engenders a sense of safety and security in newborns. One only needs to look at the result of the Romanian orphans in 1989 who were so deprived of touch their brain development had been severely affected, to know how devastating the lack of touch can be.[1]

In recent times, the surge of social media means we can see each other, words can be exchanged (a little less fluently) over time and space. Where our parents’ generation had to wait weeks writing letters to families across the world, and wait to hear back, we have the luxury of being able to see and speak instantaneously no matter where on the globe they are. However, this type of contact leaves us hungry.

Communication is so much more than words, all the non verbal subtleties that convey a multitude of meanings that words cannot possibly express, actual eye contact, a touch on the hand or the arm to say “you are ok.” A caress on the neck from a partner, an empathic squeeze.

Touch can be reassuring when you pat your son on the back for missing a goal, or congratulatory when he wins, kind, when someone rubs your back to soothe your distress, sensual, sexual and at the other end of the spectrum harsh or violating.

A drop of rain on the neck can cause goose bumps down the body. The cool rush of air against a runner’s skin is invigorating. Numerous nerve receptors in the skin are stimulated providing the brain with information not just about temperature or humidity but also pleasurable sensations which are of course needed for procreation.

From upper respiratory disease to Alzheimer’s, studies have shown that “touch” has a beneficial effect in preventing or lessening disease symptoms.[2] Primates need touch. Many studies and experiments have shown that appropriate touch leads to mind body and spiritual health. Even stroking a pet can lower blood pressure.[3]

A 2015 study by Cohen et al exposed a group of volunteers to the common cold and monitored their symptoms in quarantine. The study found that those who had more social interactions with more frequent hugs showed less severe signs of illness.[4]

Safeguarding of the vulnerable population during times of COVID-19 has sadly led to a denial of touch – our innate need and sense, which risks compromising the immune system and is counter intuitive. Touch from a trusted source is associated as a buffer from pain. Romantic touch from a partner has been shown to reduce subjective pain ratings.[5] Yet those isolating without a partner and those who become ill have been left unable to have this critical need addressed. There are wide reaching mental emotional ramifications of this. And once society has resumed some sense of normality, many will be needing therapeutic help.

Therapeutic touch has much to offer those who have been traumatised, suffer from ill health or disease of any kind, or have lack of touch in their lives.

Skin hunger is a very real phenomenon. When we don’t have touch we crave it.

Both forcing touch and refusing touch are a violation and abuse of our human rights. A marriage can be annulled if not consummated and divorce has been granted where sex has been refused by a partner. The denial of a basic human right being seen as abusive and cruel.[6]

Therapeutic touch has many valuable benefits.

For those bodies who began life without knowing the intimacy of a mother’s touch, perhaps they were whisked away to NICU incubated due to ill health, maybe their mother was depressed and unable to hold and connect to her child, or those who have suffered from abuse treated roughly, who are hardwired to only know rough touch, Craniosacral therapy has much to offer.

Craniosacral therapy forms the bridge between the past and the present. The memories retained in our cells, and tissues can be accessed, brought to the surface and safely released. The hands on the body listen attentively but without judgement to the story the energy body tells. By providing, sometimes for the first time, a sense of safety for the recipient, the body can begin to unwind and release and speak out. Most importantly, in time, re-integrating towards the original blueprint of health that it entered the world with.

To book a Craniosacral Therapy session once lockdown has eased please contact:

raj@rajlehl.com BA BSc LCHE, RSHom, RCST

Bibliography:

Allen, K., Shykoff, B., & Izzo Jr., J. L. (2001). Pet Ownership, but Not ACE Inhibitor Therapy, Blunts Home Blood Pressure Responses to Mental Stress. Hypertension, 38, 815-820.

Attlee, T., Face to Face with the Face. (2016). Singing Dragon.

Berscheid E. (2003). The human’s greatest strength: other humans. In L. G. Aspinwall & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.)A Psychology of Human Strengths: Fundamental Questions and Future Directions for a Positive Psychology, pp. (37–47). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association; 10.1037/10566-003.

Cohen, S., Janicki-Deverts, D., Turner, R., & Doyle, W. (2014). Does Hugging Provide Stress-Buffering Social Support? A Study of Susceptibility to Upper Respiratory Infection and Illness. Psychological Science, doi: 10.1177/0956797614559284

Harlow H. F., Dodsworth R. O., & Harlow M. K. (1965). Total social isolation in monkeys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC285801/pdf/pnas00159-0105.pdf

Mohr V M. Krahé C., Beck B., Fotopoulou A. (2018). The social buffering of pain by affective touch: a laser-evoked potential study in romantic couples. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 13:11, 1121-1130. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6234321/#idm140458270981392title

Singh, C., & Leder, D. (2012). Touch in the consultation. The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 62(596), 147–148. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp12X630133

Upledger, J.E., (1997). Your Inner Physician and You. Craniosacral therapy and Somatoemotional Release. North Atlantic Books. Florida.

Woods DL, Craven RF, Whitney J. The effect of therapeutic touch on behavioral symptoms of persons with dementia. Altern Ther Health Med. 2005;11(1):66‐74.

Vardags 2020. Denying Sex is grounds for divorce says Delhi High Court. Available online: https://vardags.com/family-law/denying-sex-divorce-grounds

---

[1] Juffer F., ‘The effects of early social-emotional and relationship experience on the development of young orphanage children.’ Mongraphs of the society for Research in Child Development 2008.

[2] Woods DL., Craven RF, Whitney J. The effect of therapeutic touch on behavioral symptoms of persons with dementia. Altern Ther Health Med. 2005;11(1):66‐74.

[3] Allen K., Shykoff, B., & Izzo Jr., J. L. (2001). Pet Ownership, but Not ACE Inhibitor Therapy, Blunts Home Blood Pressure Responses to Mental Stress. Hypertension, 38, 815-820.

[4] Cohen, S., Janicki-Deverts, D., Turner, R., & Doyle, W. (2014). Does Hugging Provide Stress-Buffering Social Support? A Study of Susceptibility to Upper Respiratory Infection and Illness. Psychological Science, doi: 10.1177/0956797614559284

[5] Mohr V M. Krahé C., Beck B., Fotopoulou A. (2018). The social buffering of pain by affective touch: a laser-evoked potential study in romantic couples. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 13:11, 1121-1130. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6234321/#idm140458270981392title

[6] Vardags 2020. Denying Sex is grounds for divorce says Delhi High Court. Available online: https://vardags.com/family-law/denying-sex-divorce-grounds