FAQ

With over 30% of Americans reporting that they suffer from what they describe as “extreme stress”, chronic stress is a serious and growing health problem.

An important contributor to the problem lies with the nature of the stress response itself. Our stress response evolved very early in our evolutionary history to help us deal with external challenges that demand physical action.

‍But humans also respond to stressors that are purely psychological in origin, that aren’t attached to any imminent physical threat or challenge.

‍Worse, psychological stressors can persist indefinitely, with no opportunity for resolution or closure. Consider our seemingly bottomless capacity to worry about our relationships, money, our work life, our status in social groups, the upsetting news of the day, and so on.

This is at least part of the answer to the question of why human beings are so vulnerable to chronic stress. Modern life provides a steady supply of psychological stressors, and our stress response is constantly being triggered.

Our brains interpret these stressors as threats to our survival, and activate a “fight or flight” response that may have been adaptive in our evolutionary history, but is no longer adaptive when it persists.

This is why it’s so important to develop a therapeutic routine that gives us regular opportunities to disconnect from daily stressors and give our bodies a chance to rest, relax and recover.

The “relaxation response” is basically the inverse of the stress response. It’s the set of neurophysiological changes that breaks the hold of the stress response and returns the body to a pre-stressed state.

The relaxation response is also commonly known as the “rest and digest” response. This is because it prepares the body to do the important work of digesting and metabolizing food, repairing damaged tissues, and eliminating waste.

Neurobiologically, the stress response is triggered and organized by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The relaxation response is governed by the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).

We move back and forth between stressed and relaxed states all the time. What we want to avoid is getting stuck in a stressed state for too long.

Unfortunately, persisting stress is a serious and growing problem for many of us.

A stressor is something that triggers a stress response in your body. The term “fight or flight” is one common way of referring to the stress response.

The stress response is all about preparing your brain and body to deal with a situation that will require focused attention or physical action.

When your stress response is triggered:

• your heart rate and respiration go up
• blood is directed to your brain and limbs
• adrenaline prepares your muscles for exertion
• bronchi in the lungs dilate, preparing for the need for oxygen

This is just a small sample from a long list of internal processes that alter your physiology, your cognitive abilities, and your emotions.

The term “fight or flight” is helpful because it points to the ancient survival value of this response.

But the term can also be misleading because it suggests that stress is only present when we’re preparing to fight or run from some external threat.

‍In reality the stress response accompanies any situation where we need to pay attention, analyze a situation, decide on a course of action, and then execute that action.

‍Playing a video game or engaging in a stimulating conversation can also activate the stress response. Neither needs to be interpreted as dangerous or threatening.

This is important: not all stress is bad. A certain level of regular stress is essential for healthy human growth and development. Many healthy activities that we enjoy also engage the stress response.

But if we stay in a stressed state for too long, that can lead to serious health problems. Our bodies are not meant to stay in this elevated state of arousal for too long.

Neuroglide feels great to use, but the therapeutic benefits of relaxation involve much more than a pleasant experience. Neuroglide therapy can help to trigger your natural relaxation response, providing regular opportunities for your body to rest and recover. There are at least two neurophysiological mechanisms that contribute to Neuroglide’s relaxation effects:

1. Neuroglide therapy can trigger the “rest and digest” relaxation response. The soothing action of waves of gentle pressure beneath your skin stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system, which helps the body transition from a stressed “fight or flight” state to a relaxed “rest and digest” state.
2. Neuroglide therapy can trigger the “affective touch” response. “Affective touch” is touch that is experienced as pleasurable and soothing.

Over the past 15 years we have learned that there are sensory nerve fibers in our body that only respond to slow, gentle stroking of the skin. The brain interprets these touch signals as a sign that you are in an environment of safety, security, and belonging.

These kinds of social signals have well-documented therapeutic benefits that include deep relaxation and improved immune response.

Eva Medtec conducted a pilot study to determine what effect the Neuroglide Back/Neck Pad had on sleep quality and recovery.

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Participants used a wearable device to monitor standard physiological measures of healthy stress response, relaxation and sleep quality, including:

• RHR—resting heart rate
• HRV—heart rate variability
• REM sleep
• Deep sleep
• Light sleep
• RECOVERY—calculated as RHR + HRV + Sleep

During the test period, the participants first used the device for seven days to set a baseline reading, then they used the Neuroglide Back/Neck Pad for 30 minutes prior to their regular sleep period.

‍The results of this study revealed a general improvement in RECOVERY (+14.6%), with a general increase in HRV as well as Deep and REM sleep overall.

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The pilot study supports our working hypothesis that using the Neuroglide Back/Neck Pad may increase a person’s parasympathetic response, which is known to promote relaxation that can lead to improved sleep and/or recovery.

Studies like these highlight the exciting potential of Neuroglide therapy stimulating our body’s natural relaxation, pain relief and recovery systems.

Chronic stress can be viewed as an unbalanced autonomic nervous system.

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When chronically stressed, your body is spending:

• too much time in a state of Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) dominance—a persisting “fight or flight” state, and
• not enough time in a state of Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) dominance—the “rest and digest” recovery state.

To promote long term health, learning and functional performance, our goal is to achieve an optimal balance of SNS and PNS activation, where brief periods of stress are followed by extended periods of rest and recovery.

The term “autonomic balance” is sometimes used to describe this healthy coordination of the SNS and PNS branches of the autonomic nervous system. It’s important to remember that this balance is really a dynamic coordination between the SNS and the PNS, not a static balance.

A helpful analogy is to think about what is required to drive a car without crashing. The gas pedal is like the SNS—it provides energy and drives the car forward. The brake pedal is the PNS—it slows  the car down. To successfully navigate the twists and turns of a winding road, you have to continually move your foot between the gas pedal and the brake, often making very subtle adjustments to properly control the car.

‍This is a better model of what adaptive autonomic balance looks like.

‍To successfully manage the challenges we face, our bodies have to modulate the relationship between the SNS and PNS, continually cycling between stress and rest states in a way that is calibrated to the situations we encounter and the demands that we place upon ourselves.

People who suffer from chronic or acute stress are unable to achieve this optimal cycling between stress and relaxation.

Daily use of the Neuroglide Back/Neck Pad can help to trigger your natural relaxation response, providing regular opportunities for your body to rest and recover.

With Neuroglide therapy there are at least two neurophysiological mechanisms that help your body with short-term recovery and long-term recovery.

‍1. Neuroglide therapy can trigger your body’s relaxation response, which generates short-term recovery benefits.

Neuroglide helps your body transition to a relaxed state, what is sometimes called the “rest and digest” state.

This is the state where your body sets to work repairing damaged tissues, delivering oxygen and nutrients to cells, clearing waste and toxins from the body, and modifying neural connections in the brain that are important for learning and skill development.

‍2. Regular Neuroglide therapy sessions can help to improve “autonomic balance”, yielding longer-term recovery benefits.

‍The term “autonomic balance” describes your body’s ability to adaptively switch between states of higher attention and arousal (dominated by the sympathetic nervous system), and states of rest and recovery (dominated by the parasympathetic nervous system), on an as-needed basis.

Improving autonomic balance has been shown to improve learning and performance, and reduces vulnerability to acute and chronic stress.

The Neuroglide Back/Neck Pad exploits several different physiological mechanisms for relieving pain.‍

Some of those mechanisms help to relieve pain in regions of the body that are in close contact with the pad as it applies pressure against the skin. This includes pain in the hips, lower back, upper back, shoulders, and neck.

Any pain relief you experience will typically result from local and global pain relief mechanisms operating together. Pain relief in the lower back, for example, may arise from a combination of:

• local pain relieving effects of Neuroglide’s gentle pressures against your lower back, and
• pain relief resulting from “analgesic touch”, where sensory signals inhibit the perception of pain throughout the body.

Note: The Neuroglide Back/Neck Pad should not be used to treat pain resulting from a condition that requires a physician’s care (acute infections, open wounds, lesions, tumors, bone fractures, spinal cord injury, etc.) or that is related to an underlying cardiovascular condition (heart problems, vascular problems, acute edema or thrombosis, etc.)

Please consult our full list of contraindications above.

There are at least three well-studied neurophysiological mechanisms that contribute to Neuroglide’s effectiveness in relieving and managing pain.

‍1. Neuroglide therapy uses gentle touch that can inhibit pain.

When you cut or bang your finger, a natural response is to grab and hold the injured area, because the pressure helps to dull the pain. This effect is known as “analgesic touch”—how sensory pressure signals inhibit the transmission of pain signals to the brain. The persistent, gentle pressures that Neuroglide applies below the skin provide a steady stream of pain-inhibiting touch signals that help to alleviate pain throughout the body.

‍2. Neuroglide therapy may reduce stress-related pain.

Stress can cause pain, tightness or soreness in your muscles, as well as spasms of pain. Stress can also lower your threshold of pain, leading to flare-ups. Neuroglide therapy triggers your body’s relaxation response, which helps to reduce pains that are aggravated by stress.

3. Neuroglide therapy may help manage inflammation-related pain.

Inflammation is vital to your immune response to injury and infection, but persistent inflammation can aggravate pain. Neuroglide therapy improves circulation in the lymphatics and dermal tissues that clears away chemicals and hormones contributing to inflammation, which may reduce inflammation-related pain.