Understanding Nervous System Entrainment: A New Approach to Health
Understanding Nervous System Entrainment: A New Approach to Health
What is Nervous System Entrainment?
This is a question I get asked A LOT, so it felt like the best place to start in this blog series. ELAN Healing utilizes a form of light touch spinal neurology to read the nervous system, map out patterns of tension and ease, and then queue the nervous system to respond. This process evolves the brain and develops the body as it changes the inputs directly through the spine and nervous system into the brain. (Zimmerman, A., Bai, L., & Ginty, D. D. 2014) We are working directly along the spine, primarily in the cervical spine (neck) and in the sacrum / tailbone. Clients find that their posture changes over time while being in care. This process both improves their health in major ways, and connects a person more intimately to their inner world and inner compass.
Benefits
ELAN Nervous System Entrainments give us an opportunity to improve physical health in very real ways, while also improving mental/emotional health and reducing stress. For clients who have a spiritual or meditative practice, they also report a deeper connection to their practice.
The benefits of utilizing ELAN nervous system entrainments as a foundational personal healthcare practice are unmatched. Most wellness modalities will only truly address one of these areas (if you're lucky), and most wellness modalities do not work directly with the brain and nervous system which means results will likely come at a slower pace.
There are many benefits to being in care and we like to track the average results clients are receiving through a handful of methods:
Spinal + Neurological Intake: A spinal + neurological exam to assess the state of your spine and efficiency of your nervous system and how these tension + ease patterns are contributing or detracting from your wellness journey.
ORNeurological Intensive Intake: Includes the Spinal + Neurological Exam + a GAIT assessment to map out inefficiencies in your stride and the correlations to regions of your brain, + a full neuro intake questionnaire. 1 hour of additional research are included with this option. This is good for someone experiencing a wide array of physical symptoms or dealing with a medical diagnosis that they would like to better understand from a nervous system based lens.
Postural Assessment: We will take your photo in front of a posture grid to map out how your posture correlates with the experiences you are navigating in life
Quality of Life Surveys: A quality of life survey allows us to track the experience you are having in 5 key areas. These areas are: Physical State, Mental / Emotional State, Stress, Life Enjoyment, and Overall Quality of Life.
When in care we will do re exams approximately every 3 months, or as needed and we will put your results side by side so we can track your progress.
On average clients see the following improvements in their first 3 months of care:
Physical State: 30% improvement
Mental / Emotional State: 40% improvement
Stress: 34% reduction
Life Enjoyment: 20% improvement
Overall Quality of Life: 29% improvement
How it works
To truly understand the benefits of ELAN, we must understand a bit of what the nervous system IS and how it works. You can think of your nervous system as akin to the operating system of your body and the conscious part of your mind. It is also akin to the lens through which you view the world.
Your nervous system is responsible for holding in place every area of tension and/or ease in your body. People tend to see muscle tension as a muscular issue, and then work directly with the fascia - often overriding the nervous system in the process which will likely yield minimal long term results. If your body is being held tight, it is tight for a reason! While there may be some very real things you need to be doing differently with your body to support its optimal functioning, it is helpful to begin to think about these issues from a new perspective, like: WHY is my brain telling my body to keep this area tight and constricted? VS what is wrong with my tight muscle? One of these is focused on the symptom and one is focused at the root.
Your nervous system also holds in place the past experiences you have been through, both the ups and the downs of life. If someone has gone through a particularly hard time(s) and did not bounce back well from the experience, the stress and trauma of that experience are living in the nervous system and reflected in the body as defensive physiology.
One way to take note of if this is happening with you is to look at the ways you view yourself and the world. Do you have high levels of inner trust, or do you find yourself often thinking negatively about yourself in some way? Is your inner dialogue of you speaking to you uplifting and encouraging or is it critical and shaming? Do you see the world as a place full of opportunity or do you only see danger and all the bad things that could possibly happen?
With ELAN, we consider this the illness to wellness spectrum and how you answered the above questions gives you and indication of your nervous system health. If you found yourself more on the illness end of the spectrum this lets you know that stress from the past is interfering with the optimal functioning of your nervous system. A 2020 study titled: The healthy personality from a basic trait perspective describes a well adjusted person as:
"Individuals with high scores on the healthy personality index were psychologically well-adjusted, had high self-esteem, good self-regulatory skills, an optimistic outlook on the world, and a clear and stable self-view. These individuals were low in aggression and meanness, unlikely to exploit others, and were relatively immune to stress and self-sufficient." (Bleidorn, W., Hopwood, C. J., Ackerman, R. A., Witt, E. A., Kandler, C., Riemann, R., Samuel, D. B., & Donnellan, M. B. 2020)
Someone who finds themselves to be ill adjusted, or experiencing a lot of physical symptoms is an ideal candidate for ELAN nervous system retraining. Full and complete health includes physical wellness AND mental / emotional fortitude.
When we can understand that the brain and nervous system are the underpinning to EVERYTHING happening in our body AND in the way we think about and view the world, it makes a lot of sense to start tapping directly into this system and making improvements. This is really a method of efficiency as the brain has a hierarchy of importance of all the functionings in the body, and when we improve the functioning of the brain, the brain will improve the functioning of the body as a whole, naturally, without us having to think about it.
Scientific Backing
The primary type of defensive physiology we are mapping with ELAN and working to reduce is Adverse Mechanical Cord Tension (AMCT). This type of tension is seen with posture of the head pulled forward and/or the sacrum /tailbone tucked under.
Additionally, each section of the spine has innervations that connect to all of our organs. Excess tension in the spine will interfere with communication from the brain to these organs.
Using the ELAN Healing system to read the nervous system, and then queue it to respond we over time begin to unwind defensive physiology in the spine. As this happens the ELAN Healing Facilitator guides clients to bring breath and movement to various parts of the spine. This breath and movement will evolve into a spinal oscillation between two or more points. This type of spinal movement retrains and develops the nervous system to become progressively more and more optimized. (Senzon, S. A., Epstein, D. M., & Lemberger, D. 2016)
ELAN Healing facilitates a learning and growing environment for the client that significantly impacts the way the brain is functioning. (Tuhin, M. 2025) The neurological "hot spots" we are working in literally evolve the communication within the brain and this optimizes its functioning resulting in changes in the clients health, state of consciousness and how they perceive themselves and the world around them. In conclusion, ELAN Healing Nervous System Entrainments are a cutting edge, ahead of the curve, healing and wellness modality.
If you would like to explore how nervous system entrainments can support you on your journey to an extraordinary body and life you can sign up for a complimentary consultation here
References:
Bleidorn, W., Hopwood, C. J., Ackerman, R. A., Witt, E. A., Kandler, C., Riemann, R., Samuel, D. B., & Donnellan, M. B. (2020). The healthy personality from a basic trait perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(6), 1207–1225. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000231
Zimmerman, A., Bai, L., & Ginty, D. D. (2014). The gentle touch receptors of mammalian skin. Science (New York, N.Y.), 346(6212), 950–954. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1254229
Senzon, S. A., Epstein, D. M., & Lemberger, D. (2016). The Network Spinal Wave as a Central Pattern Generator. Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.), 22(7), 544–556. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2016.0025
Tuhin, M. (2025) The Brain Rewired: How Learning Literally Reshapes Neural Circuits. Science News Today https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/the-brain-rewired-how-learning-literally-reshapes-neural-circuits
