What Is Nervous System Regulation?
It’s no surprise that we find it hard to regulate our thoughts and emotions when we feel stressed or upset – they come from a place that is not under our direct control. When this happens, it’s important to acknowledge and accept the feelings even if they are unpleasant. Doing this, instead of denying the feelings and trying to force yourself to feel better, can help the feelings resolve themselves and put you back in sync with your nervous system.
The Three Pathways
There’s so much of our communication that’s nonverbal, subconsciously “felt” instead of verbally said. Your nervous system is constantly sending messages to others. Our autonomic nervous system is built with three pathways of response – ventral, sympathetic, and dorsal. Each pathway, depending on where we are at or what we’re experiencing, will bring in its own set of thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and body sensations. Ventral is the place of well-being and regulation. When we are overwhelmed and stressed, we go into fight and flight, which is sympathetic, to help us cope with the situation. If this doesn’t help, we go into dorsal collapse.
Nervous System Regulation
Let’s go back to Ventral. Ventral is the system of connection and regulation. In this state we are calm, grounded, and connected. We are ready to engage with others, to connect. And that’s very important not only for our own well-being, but for our relationships as well. We listen better, we communicate better, we are able to be more vulnerable, engaged, and open in this state. This is where true relational intimacy happens. This is why it’s key to try to develop strategies to ease ourselves into this comfortable and connected pathway when we feel ourselves becoming emotionally aroused. When we help our nervous system remain calm, we keep arguments from becoming fights, we solve problems more efficiently, and we keep ourselves open to possibilities.
Nervous System Regulation Techniques
Do you constantly feel stressed, frazzled, overwhelmed, burnt out and exhausted? Developing distress tolerance skills is essential for freeing ourselves from stress cycles. While it may be difficult to share difficult experiences, even in an environment of safety and support, there are several strategies that can help manage overwhelming emotions. Some of these strategies include:
- Regulating your breathing.
- Grounding yourself in reality by focusing on physical sensations.
- Regulating your tone of voice when talking through difficult emotions.
- Validating your emotions.
- Engaging in self-soothing activities.
- Creating a list of things you can do when feeling overwhelmed.
These strategies can help create a sense of calm, allowing you to move forward with your healing journey.
Anxiety Therapy Healing
If you have lived your life in a contact state of fight or flight, learning to regulate your nervous system may be unknown territory for you. It would make sense that you need to be taught these tools now if you were not taught them in childhood. If this is the case for you, I highly encourage you to reach out to an anxiety therapist in your area. A therapist can help you along this journey of unlearning negative coping mechanisms and implementing nervous system regulation techniques into your daily life. Don’t hesitate, reach out to a therapist in your area or contact us for referrals.
