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Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
The Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) is an evidence-based hearing therapy that can reduce noise sensitivities, improve auditory processing, regulate behavior, and increase social interaction. This can reduce stress and increase resilience. The physical and emotional state can calm down, opening the door to social communication and supporting ongoing or pending psychotherapy.
A practical application of the Polyvagal Theory, the SSP acts as a non-invasive, acoustic vagus nerve stimulator, helping to retune the nervous system to support connection, collaboration, and resilience.
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Specially treated collections of music ("playlists") are part of the SSP program and all help prime the nervous system by exposing it to different frequencies of sound. Listening to these playlists through circumaural headphones and with the help of an app on your smartphone helps the nervous system achieve balance or "homeostasis" more easily.
SSP is used (as of November 2021) by more than 10,000 therapists and providers in more than 60 countries with hundreds of thousands of adults and children.
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Learn more about the components or "pathways" of SSP here:
To feel better
Feel safer, calmer, more grounded and resilient. Feel less irritable, anxious and overwhelmed.
Better thinking
Think clearer, more attentive and more creative. Think less rigid, disorganized and distractible.
Connect better for sure
Connect more openly, sincerely and fully. Connect less cautiously and distantly.
What you hear and how you hear it affects how the body responds.
Listening is connected to the vagus nerve, the body's internal control center for processing and responding to cues and signals from the world around us. SSP uses specially filtered music to train the neural network associated with hearing to focus on the frequency range of the human voice.
We look, speak and hear with the same system. When the voice changes, the body reacts. When we learn to focus on the sound frequencies of human speech through the SSP program, the vagus nerve is stimulated and the state of feeling safe and calm becomes accessible.
​SSP helps calm the unconscious autonomic nervous system. Overexcitation of the sympathetic nervous system (as part of the autonomic nervous system) adversely affects learning, alertness, behavior, and health. SSP is understood as a passive way to bring the autonomic nervous system back into balance.
I offer the Safe and Sound protocol as a package. This may be of interest to you if you:
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only want to apply SSP
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want to use SSP as the beginning of therapy or coaching with me.
The package includes appointments with me. These can be carried out at my practice or remotely using a video conferencing application. SSP as a remote application has proven its worth during the lockdown pandemic. It can also be used remotely if you live too far away for my appointments.
Learn more about the SSP package here:
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