Why does this matter? It matters for all the toned up, tweaked, anxious athletes/execs as well as the persistent pain and chronic fatigue people. So basically everyone. As resting system tone increases one becomes more rigid, disengaged, and invariant, with a limited ability to adapt and grow. Think of it as a spectrum between an open and flexible system vs a closed and rigid system (more on that in a minute). So how do we define resting tone and is it fixed?
Resting tone
Obviously, the opposite is true as well in that those with a healthy, capable vagus nerve (remember it’s cranial nerve X, the rest and digest one that decreases breathing rate and increases heart-rate variability) are able to engage with the environment in an open way that allows for flexibility and variance. There needs to be a healthy spectrum along which the person can function and meet all demands.
http://what-when-how.com/neuroscience/the-limbic-system-integrative-systems-part-1/. They have some great explanations on this site by the way.
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The Spectrum
- This is not necessarily a good vs bad spectrum. Athletes need to be able to quickly go from one end of the spectrum to the other depending on the task. However…
- In order to engage in the environment, make sound decisions, and be adaptable the athlete/client needs to be towards the open end. My argument is that the resting tone needs to be towards the open end in order to self-regulate and adapt. But…
- In order to perform and concentrate on a task there needs to be a certain level of stress – one cannot learn and perform a skilled movement without some degree of arousal and filtering of sensory input. Moderate, transient stress improves memory and plasticity. Higher sympathetic tone necessary for concentration and motor control – but may come at a cost if over-used (the far right of this spectrum).
This is what I see all too often: clients are chronically on the closed end of the spectrum, flooring it to a red light and losing the ability to oscillate across the spectrum. This limits the ability to engage in and improve with training. Those who are more open with higher parasympathetic tone at rest are better able to concentrate and use stress to their advantage when high performance and reactivity is needed.
So as coaches and physios we need to promote a sustainably low resting tone of the nervous system that is able to meet demands and respond to challenges in order to grow. How do we do this? Reduce threat and then work on these points I made in a prior post on high-tension movement strategies. More on this to come…
– Seth
* I also highly recommend reading this amazing text by Robert Sapolsky, PhD as we’ll continue to integrate much of his work going forward:
thanks…great stuff. and what an awesome book Sapolsky’s is.
interesting is that way back in 1910, the founder of Chiropractic stated: “Life is the expression of tone. In that sentence is the basic principle of Chiropractic.”
Hey Scott, thanks for reading. I had not heard that quote before but I love it. There’s truly nothing new under the sun, I’m always interested in how prescient many great minds were long before our “hard science” approach
Great read. It is also a great and simple explanation to those suffering from chronic pain that if they spend their time in the red (closed) they will continue to experience pain from perceived danger.
Hey Tony, thanks for reading/commenting! And you are correct, those who are in a perpetually threatened state will continue to their pain experience (and potentially worsen it). Not to mention prevent them from performing well in society. Until autonomic balance is achieved any efforts at eliminating pain are likely for nil.
I’m tremendously encouraged when I see commentary like this. Many of the same words show up in Koji Ito’s article “Dynamic Control of the Musculoskeletal System” (1996; I excerpted at http://floatingbones.com/KojiIto.pdf ). One note: a localized high/low tone is essential for activities, especially when the loads are changing in our bodies. For example, increased tension of lower muscles in the “Anatomy Trains” SFL/SBL is highly useful when transitioning from a sitting to standing posture.
I fondly hope that a musculoskeletal impedance model will be embraced by the manual and movement therapist community. It is a worthwhile revision to the rigid body dynamics model we’ve had for the last few hundred years. Our CNS would be hopelessly bored if our structure actually had rigid body dynamics and lacked the fluidity of stored elastic energy. This could be an element on the right/red side. While high-tone movements are boring, low-tone movements are playful/engaging. Both kinds of movement are essential for life, but we’re only happy if we live most of our time on the left/green side of the chart.
Hi Phil,
Thanks for reading and commenting. I agree high neural tone is required for generating power and handling load (whether just the body or externally applied loads). However, as you said most of our existence should reside on the open, parasympathetic side. I will check out the article you’ve linked.
-Seth
very interesting post！ thank you！regarding book, is it available in other language than english？
Hey Roger,
Thank you for the kind words. I am not certain if Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers is available in other languages or not but I would venture to guess it is given that it is such a well-regarded and relatively popular book. I am sure Google or Amazon can uncover that for you. Thanks for reading!
Nice article although a little too pain model focused as there are many tonal changes not driven by pain or threat assessment
Hey Dave,
Thanks for reading and I agree that it is too pain-focused and that there are lots of tonal changes that have nothing to do with pain. As you know, pain is an output and thus a product of an overly sensitive nervous system. I do think, though, that the perception of threat drives many tonal changes regardless of whether or not pain is an output. Pain is just a particularly salient output of a threatened system but by no means the only indicator.
I appreciate your comments!