5 Ways to Calm Your Nervous System
Photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash
What is nervous system deregulation?
I’m finding, more and more, that the difficulties most of us face - some more severely than others - are related to nervous system deregulation.
Nervous system deregulation, simply, is the inability to respond appropriately to stress. It’s an imbalance between the sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system.
Increasingly, we as a people, as a society, are less and less able to respond appropriately to stressors. I talk with many clients about outsized feelings and reactions to small things, for example, a panic attack triggered by an e-mail.
Why are our reactions and feelings outsized? Because we label so many things in our day to day lives as threats, and our nervous systems don’t know the difference between a real threat to our life and an imagined one. And if it really believes we’re under threat, our sympathetic nervous system (remember: fight or flight) is going to be activated (more often than it needs to be) and it’s going to respond to protect us.
5 Ways to Calm Your Nervous System
When this happens, here are five ways you can communicate directly with your nervous system to say you’re okay…
Mindfulness
If you’re feeling anxious, your mind is likely elsewhere, other than here, now, and it’s also very likely to be creating a threat in your mind, anticipating something negative that you think may (but actually won’t) happen.
So, we want to train the mind to be present, to be where your body is.
Anchor to your senses. Try the 5-4-3-2-1 strategy or check out the tools referenced in this prior blog post.
Breathwork
Your breath is one of the most powerful ways to communicate with your nervous system. When you’re anxious, you’re breathing shallowly, up in your chest rather than down in your belly, and your breaths are short and fast, rather than deep and slow.
Try box breathing, or simply lengthen your exhale (i.e., 4 counts in, 6+ counts out). These breath strategies are the exact opposite of how you’d breathe if you were under threat, so it tells your nervous system there’s been a false alarm.
The Body
As with the breath, you can use your body to directly communicate with your nervous system that there is no threat.
You can physically ground the body; allow your body to make contact with the ground beneath it. When you intentionally ground the body, you indicate that you are not running or fleeing; instead you are grounded and stable, communicating safety. Pairing this grounding with the breathwork described above can, often, be very soothing to the nervous system.
Or, you can also Meet the Mood. Sometimes when you’re anxious, you’re too agitated to meditate. In those cases, meeting the mood with movement can be more beneficial (i.e., moving your body with a walk, or perhaps something to get your heart rate up, like flights of stairs, a set of jump squats, or Breath of Joy).
Responding Appropriately to Negative Thoughts
Thinking negatively is one of the fastest ways to create a threat in your mind, and therefore your nervous system. If you believe something bad is going to happen, your nervous system believes you and responds accordingly.
Check out these three strategies to challenge negative thinking.
Challenging Avoidance Behaviors
Finally, the more you avoid the scary things … the scarier the things get. The idea of facing your fears truly is a very important factor in overcoming them.
When you stop avoiding, and instead approach, the scary things, you tell your nervous system they’re not actually scary. And when you do so consistently over time, your nervous system truly gets the message, and the fear recedes.
Challenging avoidance is a crucial strategy in calming the nervous system for long lasting and transformative change.
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Please note: this newsletter is disseminated for informational and educational purposes only and should not, in any way, be construed as medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice. Please be certain to check with your physician or personal therapist with regard to whether these suggestions are appropriate for your individual situation.