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Suggested Listening

"Guided Imaginings" by Elizabeth Nelson

Follow along with these recordings, using your imagination to slow your mind and body, and increase your sense of peace and wonder.

Music

Make a "polyvagal-informed" playlist

Gather into one playlist a variety of songs.  Include songs that take your nervous system into all of these states: 

1) feeling good about yourself and full of loving peace (ventral vagal activation) 

2) being energized in ways that feel good but might also feel a bit stressed, angry or nervous (sympathetic nervous system activation), and 

3) quiet, stillness, and perhaps even sadness or longing

Play this playlist on shuffle to improve your nervous system's fluidity in moving back and forth through various levels of activation, feelings and sensations.  It's a kind of "training" to increase the responsiveness of your nervous system, so you can more easily move to a regulated state (rather than getting stuck in fight, flight or freeze).


"Do the Next Right Thing" (from Frozen 2, search on your favorite music app)

Give this a chance. It is an elegant and heart-felt description of what it takes day-to-day to deal with grief and loss, doubt, and depression.


Podcasts & Episodes of Note

The Science of Happiness

Practical tools for improving your mood and your life, based in the most current research.


From NPR re the grieving process: