How to Regulate Your Nervous System
Stress isn’t just an emotional experience — it is a physiological process. Whether you are nervously preparing to Facetime a potential friend or having a full-on panic attack about the state of the world, the physical symptoms that come with stress can range from a minor annoyance to a debilitating reaction.
The nervous system acts as the control center of your body. It connects to all parts of the body, including your heartbeat and digestion, and even the way you feel. Two components of it are the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system, both of which use hormones to help prepare you for what your brain perceives as your needs.
Our body’s stress response — also known as the fight, flight, or freeze response — is the nervous system’s way of ensuring a person survives danger. The process begins when the brain perceives a threat through the five senses. For example, if you hear someone scream, your amygdala (the brain’s security system) sends a message to the hypothalamus (the brain’s command center). The hypothalamus then triggers a cascade of hormones that cue the body to fend off the threat. This is when the physical symptoms of stress kick in.
The fight and flight responses usually involve a process of ramping up to get moving — think a racing heartbeat, faster breathing, and tingling extremities – all of which contribute to the urge to physically fight or run. In the freeze response, panic can cause feelings of numbness or paralysis. Day-to-day emotional responses, such as arguing with a co-worker or being stuck in traffic can feel out of proportion to the actual event.
These automatic, physical reactions are often overwhelming, but the fight, flight, and freeze responses are well-advanced survival mechanisms. They have functions that serve a purpose. For example, sweating is believed to make people slippery to potential attackers. The increased heart rate is meant to maximize oxygen supply to keep people on alert in the face of danger. Thousands of years ago, these autonomic responses would have come in handy for fending off a saber-tooth tiger or a nearby enemy. But modern threats are not always physical. Emotional stressors like a confrontation with your boss, an argument with a friend, or even being late for class, come with out-of-proportion physical reactions, which are not conducive with life’s demands.
Thankfully, humans are not at the mercy of the body’s big, defensive responses. That’s where the parasympathetic nervous system comes in — the process that hits the brakes on all the physiological components of the fight, flight, or freeze responses. Normally, the body reaches homeostasis on its own, within 10 or 15 minutes of the threat passing.
If your fight-or-flight response has been in overdrive all day, or for weeks on end, don’t be surprised if you snap out over the smallest, seemingly insignificant detail. In fact, there are many ways to dampen this response and get back to a state of calm. Here are 11 effective ways:
1.Practice Breathing Techniques:
Taking calm breaths during the fight, flight, or freeze response can reduce the duration of the emotional response. While sharp and frequent inhales have an activating effect — meaning they will keep the body in “go” mode — deep exhales from the diaphragm (rather than the chest) calm the body, triggering a “rest and digest” state. In times of high stress, concentrating on exhaling can help the body to relax.
2. Practice When You Are Not Dysregulated:
During an overwhelming physical reaction, it can be hard to stay calm. That is why preparing the mind and body ahead of time is so important. Incorporating meditation and mindfulness practices into a daily routine, can do wonders in training the body to achieve a calmer state. Practicing calm breathing, when not stressed, is important because in the moment of stress, it can become just as habitual as the fight, flight, or freeze response.
3. Practice Self Talk:
Tell yourself, “You have got this”. Physiological responses are often triggered by misperceptions. Reminding yourself as to when you were resilient in the past will offer a reminder that you have the resources to manage whatever is happening now — and even if you don’t, you can ask for help.
4. Normalize the Physical Response:
Physical engagement can cue the body to turn off the stress response, but the way people think also feeds into behavior and physiology. If you are thinking about how terrible it is that you are sweating before a big speech, that is not going to help you feel less stressed. Rather than fixating on how scary the physical symptoms are, keep in mind that what is happening is a totally normal physical process that will eventually end. It can be helpful to remind yourself that these sensations might be uncomfortable, but that they are manageable.
5. Exercise:
This is a high priority for managing anxiety, anger, panic and many other forms of emotional distress. The fight-or-flight response is meant to be followed by a burst of activity. It preps you to fight or run for your life, so it expects you to do just that. Our ancient ancestors would have done this; the moment they stopped to breath, their brain would know they had survived and would switch off the response. However, in these times, we don’t run, we don’t fight. We sit with stress building up in our bodies. This does not allow the response switch to turn off. Exercise is, therefore, a simple and effective way to calm the nervous system. It not only uses the energy created in the body, but it also breaks down excess stress hormones. Lower levels of stress hormones mean a calmer body and mind. If you are in a crunch for time, and around a lot of people, slip into a private space and do 25 jumping jacks. Even a quick burst of energy can be effective.
6. Use a Weighted Blanket:
A weighted blanket may activate your parasympathetic nervous system through deep pressure touch. This form of therapy uses touch and feeling sensations as a calming technique. The combination of a weighted blanket and the activation of your parasympathetic nervous system can help to naturally relax your body and calm your mind.
7. Remind Yourself That You Are Safe:
When your fight or flight response is activated, it can feel scary. Therefore, it is important to understand the physiology behind each physical symptom. This will remove some of the fear and the catastrophic misinterpretation of physical feelings that can occur, such as, “My chest is tight,” “I am having a heart attack” or “My thoughts won’t stop, I must be going mad”. When anxiety causes your stomach to feel strange or your chest to feel tight, say to yourself: “I am physically safe. This is my body preparing to run or fight. That is all”.
8. Practice Mindfulness:
This means paying attention to the moment, non-judgmentally. There are many apps and classes that dedicate themselves to teaching people how to be mindful through guided meditations. After some practice with mindfulness, you will start to recognize when your survival response is occurring. Use mindfulness to center yourself. When you notice anxiety, shift your attention to something you can see or feel. Look at an object and concentrate on its details or place your hands on a solid surface to notice how it feels.
9. Place Your Feet on the Earth:
Preliminary evidence suggests that direct contact with the ground (known as earthing or grounding) may help calm the nervous system and bring it back into balance. This can be as simple as placing your bare feet on the earth.
10. Take a Cold Shower:
The shock of a cold water shower can jolt the nervous system. This may help reduce stress.
11. Use Co-Regulation:
Co-regulation is where people tune into each other’s emotional states, which can stabilize the nervous system. Being with friends, sharing what you are experiencing, and laughing, all increase endorphins. They can help you to feel nurtured and show your brain that you are not in danger. If you tell your friends what is making you panic, it is likely they will relate to this, and you will not feel alone.
“The truth is that stress doesn’t come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges, or other circumstances. It comes from your thoughts about your circumstances.”
―Andrew Bernstein
