What This Practice Helps With
Spasticity — involuntary muscle tension, gripping, or movement — is one of the most common and disruptive effects of spinal cord injury, and it follows its own daily pattern: often gentler after waking, building through the day, sometimes dramatic at night. This practice targets that pattern directly, working with the body's calming system rather than the motor system the other four practices use.
It works by rehearsing a signal of safety along the vagus nerve — a pathway that stays intact after spinal cord injury, since it runs outside the spinal cord. It doesn't replace spasticity medication or your clinical team's management plan; it's something to try alongside them.
This practice works best when you're not in a high-spasm moment. If your spasticity is currently severe, wait until you're in a calmer phase to begin. Spasticity often gets worse when you're tired, stressed, in pain, or rushed — and gentler when you're warm, calm, and unhurried.
The practice doesn't try to fight the tension or push it away. It works by adding another signal to your nervous system — a signal of safety, gradually, without force.
If at any point a part of this practice increases discomfort, stop. Try a different practice, or come back another day.
This practice uses an asymmetric breath: in through the nose, out slowly through the mouth, with the out-breath longer than the in-breath. This isn't decorative. Long out-breaths activate the vagus nerve — the body's main calming pathway, which remains intact after spinal cord injury. The breath itself is part of the work.
The Four Parts
This practice uses three different ways of working with your mind. It is structurally different from the motor practices on this site — the work is about softening rather than activating, and the script never asks you to fight or force anything.
Breath and Light
You begin with the breath, letting the out-breath lengthen. A soft light enters the top of your head and begins to move slowly downward through you, unhurried.
Nothing is asked of you yet. This opening creates the calm state the imagery needs in order to land — and the long exhale is already a small message of safety to your nervous system.
The Ideal Being
A figure appears in front of you. It might be Jesus. It might be the version of you who feels strong and whole. It might be a being made of light. Whoever feels right.
Unlike in the motor practices, this figure is not performing a movement. They are at rest. Undefended. Not trying to relax — simply not holding anything they don't need to hold. Their body is at peace with itself. You watch them at first. Then they step into you, and you become them.
The figure introduces a different signal alongside whatever your body is doing — not fighting your spasticity, just adding softness. The brain treats this introduced signal as data, gently, over time.
The Vagus Nerve
This part traces a different anatomical pathway from the other practices. Spasticity comes from a particular pattern in the nervous system — when the spinal cord is injured, signals from the brain that normally tell the muscles to stay calm have trouble getting through.
The vagus nerve runs outside the spinal cord — from brain through neck, chest, and abdomen — carrying calming signals from your brain down through your body. It's intact in spinal cord injury. It's a different pathway. You follow it, breath by breath, sending signals of safety.
You then bring warmth and quiet attention to wherever your spasticity is most active. With each long out-breath, a quiet message: you are safe, you can soften, you don't need to grip right now.
A simplified schematic rather than an anatomical reference. The vagus nerve is paired and its branching is far more extensive than shown; branches to the lungs and heart are drawn on one side only. The spinal cord is included solely to show the contrast — the point of the drawing is that this route runs outside it.
Breath and Light
You return to the breath — long out-breaths still doing their quiet work. The warm light continues moving slowly downward through you — the same imagery you opened with, returned to deliberately, framing Parts II and III rather than only following them.
The closing rest gives your brain space to consolidate what just happened. Each long exhale during the day is a small message of safety to your nervous system, especially around sleep.
Recorded in Jeremy's own voice — no AI or synthesised narration is used anywhere on this site. The full written script is below if you'd rather read than listen.
The Script
The text below is the script for the audio above, word for word. It's here if you'd rather read than listen, or if you'd like to follow along while the recording plays.
Read the script
Part I · Breath and Light
Find a comfortable position. This practice works with spasticity. The aim isn't to fight the tension — it's to soften gradually into a more rested state. Best practised when you're in a calmer phase, not during severe spasms.
You can hear these words. Your body is being held by whatever you're resting on. Your breath is moving without being asked. And as you notice these things, something in you can begin to settle.
Take a slow breath in through your nose, and let it out through your mouth — slowly, with the out-breath longer than the in-breath. The longer out-breath quietens the nervous system. In. Out, longer. In. Out, longer still. Settle into this gentle pattern.
Bring attention to the top of your head. The crown. Just above it, a soft point of light — felt, not pictured. Each in-breath, brighter. Each long out-breath, the light spreads gently downward — soft, slow, unforced. And wherever the light touches, that place can rest a little more.
Part II · The Ideal Being
A figure begins to form in front of you. Whoever this figure is for you. This figure has a body that knows how to rest. Their muscles hold what they need to hold and release what they don't. Their body is undefended — no fight, no grip, no anticipation of attack.
The figure isn't trying to relax — they're simply not holding anything they don't need to hold. The figure moves toward you. Steps into you. And gradually, perhaps without noticing the exact breath it happens on, you're no longer watching. You are them. Their softness is yours. Whatever your body's pattern is right now, the figure's calm settles into it. Not fighting the spasticity. Not pushing it away. Just adding softness alongside it.
Part III · The Vagus Nerve
Spasticity comes from a particular pattern in the nervous system. When the spinal cord is injured, signals from the brain that normally tell the muscles to stay calm have trouble getting through. The work isn't to fight that firing. It's to add another signal — a signal of safety.
Begin at the brain. The vagus nerve — long, wandering — carries calming signals from your brain down through your throat, chest, and belly. Even after spinal cord injury, the vagus nerve is intact. Each long exhale activates this calming system. Each long exhale tells your nervous system: you are safe. You can rest.
Now bring awareness to wherever your spasticity is most active today. Forcing an area to relax tends to make spasticity worse, so the work here is gentler. Bring warmth there. The light from above. The breath from inside. Soft, friendly attention. With each long out-breath, send a quiet signal: you are safe. You can soften. You don't need to grip right now.
Part IV · Breath and Light
Return to the breath. Long out-breaths. The vagus nerve doing its quiet work. The light still moving slowly downward. The signals of safety you sent are real.
Spasticity often gets worse with stress and rushing, and gentler with calm and warmth. This practice is a way of nudging the nervous system toward the calmer state, on purpose. You can return many times during the day — not as a full practice, just as a few long out-breaths.
At night, drifting toward sleep, your nervous system naturally moves toward this calm state. A few long breaths deepens that shift. When you first wake, your body is in its softest state — the most precious window for this work.
Take one more slow breath in. Let it out, longer. Notice the room. The light is yours. The pathway of rest is yours. The practice continues. Thank you.
When to Practise
Spasticity often follows a daily pattern — gentler in the morning, often building through the day, sometimes dramatic at night. The morning waking window is the most precious for this work. The other moments below also help.
Most precious window
Spasticity is at its lowest immediately after waking, before muscle activity begins. A few long breaths and quiet attention here can shift the whole day's pattern.
A few long breaths
Each long exhale during the day sends a small signal of safety to your nervous system. You don't need to sit down. Just three long breaths, anywhere, can help.
As you drift off
Your nervous system naturally moves toward calm in the minutes before sleep. A few long breaths with attention on warmth deepens that natural shift.
This practice is based on published research into mental practice, brain plasticity, watching someone at rest, and vagal regulation — the science of how the vagus nerve calms the nervous system. Several proper studies — the kind with a control group, so researchers can trust the results — support mental practice and breath-based vagal techniques as genuinely helpful when added to normal rehabilitation after a spinal cord injury. Spasticity specifically hasn't been the direct target of that research; the practice extends findings from other domains to this one.
The specific four-part structure used here — Part I (breath and light), Part II (the Ideal Being), Part III (the vagus nerve), and Part IV (breath and light again) — is my own creation. Nobody has tested this exact combination in a clinical trial. Each piece on its own is backed by research; putting them together like this is a reasoned choice, not a proven method.
This is not a treatment. It's a free practice, meant to sit alongside — never replace — spasticity medication and your clinical team.