How I Transformed My Stress with Nervous System Work

Real Tools for Nervous System Regulation

To listen to an audio version of this blog click here.

Looking back on the last few years, I can see a clear line drawn in the sand of my life. 

On one side is the way I used to handle stress and attempt to self-regulate before I knew much about my nervous system – and the other the way my stress and self-management strategies changed after I took a deep dive into the land of nervous system regulation. 

Before I started intentionally studying and practicing nervous system regulation, I was definitely using exercise and outdoor time to manage my nervous system activation. What I know now is that I was lacking the skillfulness, education, patience, and support (this is a big one!) to understand and navigate my body’s response to stress.

What follows are three ways that I’ve used nervous system work to help myself through stressful times. These are excellent entry points for anyone curious about or new to this work. 

Don’t be fooled by their simplicity – these tools are relatively easy to comprehend intellectually but the real magic of them is in their impact on the body. 

This is bottom-up work, helping the state of the nervous system shift spontaneously from the conditions and quality of attention we provide it. When the body recognizes that it is safe-enough, the nervous system will organically move into a more open place. This is not something we make happen, instead something we support by creating the right conditions (safe-enough surroundings, support, resources, and time) and then giving the body enough space to fully notice them. 

Because the body flags modern life moments like close calls on the road and social media news influx as 🚩potential threats 🚩, consciously knowing we are safe is not the same as the body recognizing safety. That is where nervous system work comes in.

Orienting 

Our first nervous system strategy comes straight from our time evolving as humans living in nature. 

Think about hearing a rustle in the bushes when you’re outside. Your body immediately stops, listens, and turns to face the sound—it’s a natural response. When you realize it’s just a squirrel, there’s a wave of relaxation. Learning how to replicate this response intentionally is called orienting.

It’s especially helpful when consuming stressful media or facing non-immediate threats. To practice, slow down and take in your surroundings. Look around, and really see what’s around you. Notice how your body responds. You might feel your breath deepen or your heart rate slow. This is your body deactivating.

To practice orientation, get ready to slow things down, like way down! Look around your space and allow your eyes to really see what they are seeing. Look over your shoulders or better yet turn all the way around to take in the full view. 

You can also orient with your other senses. Listen now to which sounds you can hear – close, and then farther away. Or tune into what your skin feels – how is the fabric on your skin, or the temperature of the air on your face? 

As you orient, notice what happens in your body. We’re especially interested in tracking any signs of deactivation like spontaneous deeper breaths, increased salivation, or the slowing of heart rate or thought patterns. 

Coregulation 

One of the big misconceptions that people have about nervous system work is that self-regulation is the gold standard, but that’s not necessarily true! 

One of the truest and fastest ways that our nervous systems find safety is through being supported by others. Expanding our repertoire of different ways to coregulate can be a spectacular way to help navigate nervous system regulation. 

Coregulation comes in super handy when we’re going through something extra stressful, hard, or scary. 

For example, if I’m doing a hard ski run that is on the edge of my ability levels, it requires a lot of my nervous system. I might notice that I’m feeling pretty activated in anticipation of this effort – there might be tension in my jaw, a furrowing of my brow, and a fast pace to my thoughts. 

One way to work with this is to coregulate with the partners I’m out with. I might share what I’m noticing in my system, and relay that I want to use this activation for good (skiing down an aggressive slope requires healthy activation) and not in a way that overwhelms my body or that I have to ignore & push through. I might intentionally sit close to a friend on the chairlift up and notice the comfort of her presence, or ask her to match pace with me as we skin up so I can feel the ease of shared rhythm. 

As I spend time letting my body notice the support I have in my team, I might notice some deactivation happening. My thoughts might slow and my vision might expand, colors brightening. I might notice my posture changes, without me having to make it happen. 

This is the beauty of bottom-up nervous system strategies – we don’t have to pressure the body to be different than it is, but when we support the nervous system we often benefit from a change that is deeply aligned and coming from the inside. Not just one we’re forcing on the outside. 

There are tons of different ways you can coregulate - here’s a short list of options to play with: 

Nature: 

Go on a slow walk in the forest. Pay attention to the interwoven network of trees and leaves and small plants that are coexisting in the environment. Notice what happens in your body as you feel into the relationship between these trees and how your body is a part of this network too.

The Earth:

Feel your feet as they connect to the ground underneath them and the potential for rooting down into the earth. Feel gravity moving through you and into the earth through those roots. Notice how your body connects with this ancient energy.

Pleasure:

Let your eyes go where they want to go. Notice if they land on something that they like - something visually pleasing. Stay in connection with the experience of seeing something pleasant and notice what happens in your body.

Friends or Loved Ones: 

Call or text or talk with a trusted person about what you are struggling with and what you’re noticing in your body about it. Feel the support of this human and the attunement that is present as they listen to and receive your share. Notice if there are any changes in your system as you take in this support.

Touch: 

Imagine or remember the kind of touch you might want. Notice the areas of your body that might enjoy touch. You could put your own hand there or ask your co-regulation partner to help. Spend time noticing what it feels like for your body to be touched in the way it wants. What pressure does it like? What pace? This version of coregulation is a conversation between the part of your body being touched and the part doing the touching. Notice what it feels like to attune in this way.

Inner Child: 

When you recognize a younger part of you is activated, co-regulate by reminding it that your present adult self is also here. Let that younger part see your adult self and share its experience, just as a child would. Validate their feelings & let them know you're with them. Notice what happens next.

Check in with your body and notice what comes forward as you coregulate. Pay special attention for any signs of thawing (noticing sensations in the body) and deactivation (noticing nervous system settling).

If you're a visual person - I recently posted these coregulation methods on IG click here for the post! 

Noticing what the body wants to do

This is the most abstract of the three nervous system strategies we’re talking about today but can be so helpful if you can let go of how weird it might feel and proceed with curiosity. 

This is a good one for when we're dealing with stressors like politics, social problems, or work situations that are big and complex enough that they aren’t going to be easily resolved. It's the type of problem our animal bodies, with their fight, flight, and freeze responses, aren't adept at solving. 

This is challenging for our nervous systems because our animal bodies want to either run away, fight to fix the problem, or collapse to avoid it. 

These complex social problems require a different type of showing up from us—more of a long-term engagement. To maintain that, we need to tend to our nervous system capacity by recognizing what our bodies want to do and helping them meet that need. 

When we can help the body do that, it dials down the stress response and allows our prefrontal cortex (the problem-solving and executive function part of our brain) to come back online. We regain full access to our brain's nuanced problem-solving powers.

To practice noticing what your body wants to do, first start by spending some time orienting and tuning into your body. 

Ask yourself “If anything were possible, what would my body want to do right now?” 

See what comes up. 

When we practice this, we often find some primal urges. It might be the urge to run away, get aggressive, growl, or even curl up somewhere safe and sleep for a million years. 

One complication is that there are often multiple urges at the same time and that’s totally OK. 

Listen deeply, and identify any actions that come into your awareness. Then you can methodically let your body complete them in your imagination without harm or the limits of actual capacity, time, or space. 

Note: this exercise can be tricky for nervous systems that have trouble differentiating between imagination and reality. Often we need permission and an expanded container to access our body’s instincts. One-on-one sessions with a Somatic Practitioner could be helpful here. The expanded container of a group experience like Soft Strength could also be supportive.

If you're following those instincts and moving how your body wants, the invitation is to do it slowly and in an embodied way so you can feel the micro-movements and give your body a chance to recognize the process. This is different from catharsis. We’re looking to touch into instincts AND stay present with our body’s experience. And we’re watching for a feeling of successful completion afterward—the body recognizing that it was listened to, did what it wanted, and that it “got away” to somewhere safe, was able to protect itself, or was able to rest until the problem was less intense.

We can use the imagination to clue the body in and achieve a bit of what it's after, even when it isn’t realistic for our real lives. 

—–––

Nervous system work is slow and steady, because shifting the deep patterns our body has developed to keep us safe takes patience and lots of high-quality support. 

I imagine it as a slow walking pace through the mountains, instead of a 4-wheeler ride or an airplane flight above. We know the rewards of going at a human-powered pace outside; let me invite you to embrace this pace with our self-inquiry work as well. 

If you’re feeling the pull to go deeper with these practices or to learn more, I would like to encourage you to join my newest course – Soft Strength: Support for the Season, where I will be delving further into these strategies as well as others over the course of 4 weeks, beginning October 17th.