Are You Out of Whack? 10 Ways to Rebalance a Dysregulated Nervous System.
- Mindart
- Jun 22, 2024
- 1 min read
Updated: Jul 10, 2024
Feeling stressed and anxious?
It's perfectly natural to get stressed from time to time or lose our balance and ground when we are faced with new challenges. However, getting stuck in high or constant stress can have a negative impact on various systems of our bodies, including our nervous system.
When our nervous system is regulated or in balance, it promotes a state of relaxation, and the body can efficiently respond to stressors and maintain equilibrium. Sometimes, the body's way of responding to certain situations can fall out of sync. This off-balance state of the nervous system is called a dysregulated nervous system. A dysregulated or imbalanced nervous system can lead to a wide range of conditions and issues that can have a negative impact on both physical and mental health: troubles sleeping, feelings of tiredness and exhaustion, troubles concentrating, anxiety, aches and pains, high blood pressure. It can also impact negatively our relationships and ability to co-regulate with a partner.
Getting to know the nervous system and how to regulate it effectively can help you hack it and bring many positive benefits to your life.
The role of the nervous system
The nervous system is the control center of your body and brain. It regulates everything from basic bodily processes like breathing and digestion to complex ones like moving, memorizing and thinking.
This complex command center looks like this:
The nervous system consists of two different parts - the central nervous system (that is where our brain, brain stem and spinal cord are) and the peripheral nervous system (our autonomic and somatic parts).
The autonomic nervous system has two branches of its own - parasympathetic and sympathetic and they are in a constant dance.
When the brain perceives a threat (real or imaginary), the sympathetic part turns on our survival mechanism and stress response to help us adapt and respond to the stressor. We feel our hearts racing, our breathing getting shallowed, the muscles getting ready to flee, fight or freeze in order to survive.
The parasympathetic system activates when our brain decides the danger has passed, that we are safe and can now calm down, let go, recharge and recover.
This two-way street system is built perfectly to keep the body in balance.
We need one part in order to continue to handle stressors well, adapt, survive, grow and expand. We need the other in order to recover, rejuvenate and build resilience, so we can actually enjoy life, celebrate our successes and have more strength to handle the next challenges coming our way.
However, once in a while, the nervous system can get very imbalanced and out of sorts - when one of the systems is not working properly. This can affect our normal bodily, mental and emotional functions, and in the long-term can lead to bigger, life-threatening problems..
The stress factor
The nervous system is a well oiled machine, carefully wired to handle the stressors we experience and come up with the best possible survival response. Stress is not always negative - positive stress (known as eustress) can actually be very good for our growth and development.
However, when we experience too many stressors, or stressors that are constant, our system doesn't have the opportunity, time and space to go into reset mode. As a result, our entire nervous system stays trapped in fight or flight mode and is unable to self-regulate.
When we undergo periods of stress for too long, our nervous system accommodates through heightened activity, leaving us feeling overstimulated and generally “frazzled”. This overexcitability is a biological advantage when facing acute stress, but when your sympathetic nervous system is persistently activated by internal or external stressors it can lead to symptoms like anxiety, muscular tension, and insomnia.
What used to be a minor inconvenience, like forgetting where you put your car keys or an annoying text message, now elicits an emotional and physical response that may take hours (or days) to recover from. Over time, a dysregulated nervous system can become an overlooked cause of brain fog, chronic pain, hormonal imbalances, dizziness, and fatigue.
Are you out of whack? Symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system
Sometimes, this well-oiled system can get out of whack and stop functioning properly.
One of the best things we can do for our health and life is to get to know the signs and symptoms when our nervous system being dysregulated. Usually, with those signs, the body is telling us that there is something that needs our care and attention. Recognizing these signs is the first step in taking charge. After that we can take further steps to restore and replenish it to harmonize blood pressure, breathing, digestion, thinking and emotions.
For example, if you are having troubles sleeping, feeling fatigued all the time or having constipation issues, it might be useful to explore if a nervous system imbalance is contributing to the problem.
Here are some of the signs that your nervous system may be imbalanced:
Feelings of constantly being stressed, overwhelmed or on edge.
Anxiety
Depression
Unexplained weight gain or loss
Over or under-eating
Inability to enjoy life - feeling like everything is gray
Onset or inflame chronic pain
Nagging injury
Unending feelings of stress
Trouble falling or staying asleep
Generalized fatigue
Mental unrest (depression, anxiety)
Bloating, diarrhea, constipation, and other gut issues
Changes in fertility
Changes in sexual desires
How to regulate your nervous system? 10 amazing ways back to balance
Pausing & Assessing Giving yourself time to pause throughout the day is shown to improve self-awareness, the ability to cope with stress and generate the needed energy to move forward, as well as help prevent depression and anxiety. When we take intentional breaks and integrate pausing, we enhance our ability to give quality attention and focus. Pausing can also help to get us out of automatic pilot and assist us to directly regulate the relaxation part of the nervous system. In the past pausing (rest and integration) between activities was normal. But now there is constantly new tasks, a colleague interrupting or asking a question, personal interactions, phone games, the vast interenet, new articles to read, and endless scrolling of youtube, new tictocs or instagram reels and quite literally no space for pausing. Notice what you usually do when you have to wait or when transitions in your day are happening - are you using the moment to be present and pause or are you on automatic pilot? What are you thinking, feeling, or doing while you wait for your coffee, or wait for the light to turn green? Instead of trying to get through these moments as quickly as possible or distracting yourself from the down time, embrace the pause!
A Physiological Sigh or Regulated Breathing Our breathing system is a very powerful friend - we can use our breath to directly and almost immediately impact the nervous system. There are various breathing exercises that can reset or calm it down. A physiological sigh is one such exercise. It's very quick and effective, and you can do it anywhere. Other breathing patterns that you can try are ocean breathing and equal breathing. Here is how to do it:
Pause what you are doing.
Relax your shoulders and the muscles in your face.
Feel your feet on the ground.
Take two quick inhalations through your nose.
Exhale longer through the mouth.
Repeat for 1-2 minutes
3. Mindful Meditation Mindfulness meditation works in a very paradoxical way. Instead of doing something, fighting and trying to fix, mindfulness encourages acceptance and tuning into the present moment. By releasing the extra self-generated stress, (the mind's reactions, thoughts and stories that further our misery) we can switch out of automatic pilot and come back to the senses, the breathing and being in the now. We ease the need to react and control, and place our focus on an anchor (such as the breath), and that actually allows the relaxing part of the nervous system to turn on and we get back to balance. Here is how to do it:
Pause what you are doing.
Relax your shoulders and the muscles in your face.
Bring your attention to your breath and where you sense the breath movements in your body - the nose, the belly, etc.
Focus all your attention on just following every inhale, exhale and the pauses between them without controling or trying to change the breathing.
If any thoughts arise and distract you, without judging them or yourself, kindly bring your attention back to the breathing.
Repeat for 1-2 minutes.
4. Vagus nerve exercises The vagus nerve is the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system and the longest of the 12 cranial nerves. The term “vagus nerve” is actually shorthand for thousands of fibers. These fibers are organized into two bundles that start from the brain stem and continue down down through each side of the neck and into the torso, where they branch out to touch our internal organs.
Imagine a tree web that interact with the organ systems in the body. Through this web, the vagus nerve collects information about how the organs are working and sends messages back to the body that help to regulate heart rate, digestion, voice, mood, immune system, breathing, etc.
Intentionally activating the vagus nerve when we sense that the system is dysregulated can help to send soothing and regulating messages to the rest of the body and organs. What's more, activating the vagus nerve can be done with very simple things like laughing, singing or humming.
How to activate the vagus nerve in 5 easy steps:
Singing
Laughing
Humming
4-7-8 Breathing exercise
Listening to music and calming vibrations
5. Proprioceptive Stimulation
Proprioception is the body awareness sense. This awareness tells us where our body parts are without having to look for them - for example, sensing little stones or bumps on the way when walking through a dirt path in the forrest or sand on the beach. Proprioception provides information about the location of various parts of the body in relation to each other and the surroundings. To understand and feel what proprioception is, you can close your eyes and move your arms and hands around your body. Even with your eyes closed, can you tell how far or close your hands are from your body, or what shapes they are making? That’s your proprioceptive sense at work.
Anytime your muscles, tendons or joints receive active input against gravity, you are also activating the proprioception system and receiving proprioceptive input.
Proprioceptive input includes movements like: pushing, pulling, climbing, lifting, carrying and any weight-bearing activities. Also hugging, squeezing, massaging, swaddling.
When deep pressure input is provided firmly throughout the entire body, it has a calming and organizing effect on the central nervous system.
How to soothe through proprioception:
Push (the wall, pushups) and pulling activities.
Mindful movement.
Dancing.
Walking barefoot.
Balancing activities - balance on one leg, upside down, sideways, etc.
Lifting weights.
Household Chores: vacuuming, washing windows, or taking out the trash to stimulate your proprioceptive system.
Acro Yoga.
Juggling.
6. Self-Compassion & Kindly Awareness Practices
Research suggests that self-compassion may serve as a protective factor against stress-induced inflammation and inflammation-related diseases. It can also help us to soothe and calm down the nervous system and make positive changes in our brains. In a 2013 study (Leung, M.K. et al.), the researchers studied brain activity in people who practice loving-kindness meditations (LKM). The results suggest that LKM increases gray matter volume in the part of the brain that is associated with affective regulation.
“Self-compassion helps to down-regulate the threat response. When the stress response (fight-flight-freeze) is triggered by a threat to our self-concept, we are likely to turn on ourselves in an unholy trinity of reactions. We fight ourselves (self-criticism), we flee from others (isolation), or we freeze (ruminating). These three reactions are precisely the opportunity of the three components of self-compassion — self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness” (Neff and Germer, 2018).
Contrary to the myth that self-compassion would make people lazy, research shows that people who practice self-compassion are actually more motivated to improve themselves, and more resilient in the face of obstacles.
Compassion literally means “to suffer together.” It means feeling or showing sympathy and concern for others and also includes the desire to take action that will alleviate others’ distress. The Dalai Lama once said, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” When turned inwards compassion can help us to carve a safe and soothing place within ourselves, in which we can
How to get started with self-compassion and kindness practices:
Try a formal Compassion/Kindness Meditation.
Adopt a more compassionate self-talk. Try consciously saying compassionate, kind or loving affirmations and wishes, such as: May I be happy. May I be healthy. This is a stressful moment. I trust myself. I choose to support and be kind to myself right now.
Reappraisal Training: this involves recalling a stressful experience and trying to think about it in a new and less upsetting way.
7. Gratitude Practice
Gratitude - even if practiced for a few moments - can cause physiological changes in your body that initiate the parasympathetic nervous system, lower the blood pressure, heart rate, regulate breathing, improve organs work,
How to get started with conscious gratitude practice:
Writing it down: Take time either at night or in the morning to write down something that went well and what you are grateful for that day.
Fill in the empty "thank you's": Many of us reflexively say, “thank you” often. Next time you hear yourself say it, pause and notice precisely what you are thankful for, maybe even noticing where the feelings of gratitude are showing up in your body, like a lightness around the heart area or a gentle smile.
Redirecting your thoughts: You may feel negative or frustrated during the day. When that happens, step back and shift your focus to one thing you are grateful for in your surroundings while breathing slowly - the sun shining, the trees around you, being able to move or breathe.
Sharing your gratitude: Send quick note telling someone why you are thankful for them or encourage your close people or coworkers to share something they’re grateful for.
Gratitude meditation: Practicing a formal gratitude meditation can be really recharging and rejuvenating, as it provides a safe space in which the nervous system can nourish and relax.
8. Hugging.
Hugs are incredibly balancing for our bodies , minds and hearts. They activate the parasympathetic system and elevate feelings of connection, compassion and love via the release of oxytocin and serotonin. Hugs not only activate our proprioception but also offer a perception of support and being held, and increase our immunity. This vital combination of perceived support and touch decreased the level and severity of illness and infection. Hugs also reduce our negative mood and help to decrease interpersonal conflict and shift the mood.
When you feel overwhelmed and your nervous system is imbalanced, stop the story you are telling yourself. Give yourself a hug or if that feels uncomfortable, place your hand on your shoulder or heart and just breathe into the sensations of touch and into the place of support. Feel your inner strength and that you can support yourself. You have successfully gotten through every challenge in your life so far, and you absolutely can get through this moment, even if it is very stressful.
9. Being in Nature
We instinctively know that spending time in nature is good for us and it can help us. Connecting with nature and spending time in the natural world not only lowers stress -also promotes psychological relaxation and calms our nervous system.
Scientists have demonstrated impact of visual contact with flowers, green plants, and trees. The sounds (birds, wind, leaves falling) and touch of nature (grass, stones, sand) helps us to reset and recharge.
If you have the time during the weekend, you can just spend a part of the day outside, go to a beautiful lake or ocean, or park nearby. During weekdays you can do your exercise outside, take your lunch break in a park nearby or go and watch the sunrise or sunset.
If that's absolutenly not possible, even exposure to stimuli depicting natural scenery, such as photos, virtual reality, nature sounds and videos, can induce more relaxed body responses, or adding more plants and flowers to your home.
10. Co-regulating
(The information below refers to relationships in which the other people are able to function, are not under chemical influence, and are generally healthy people who are just going through a challenging moment in which their nervous system is imbalanced.)
Co-regulation can be an amazing and very helpful tool for calming and connecting the nervous system during times of distress. Sometimes, we can't really handle life on our own and it all just gets too much. Co-regulation helps to create an environment of safety and understanding through limbic resonance - which is the sharing of emotions between two or more people. This shared experience of connection can help people regulate our nervous systems and reduce stress and anxiety, and cultivate feelings of joy and self-confidence.
Our nervous systems are not isolated and separate self-containing units. From the moment we are born our brains link with those of the people around us in a silent rhythm - that's how a baby can become dysregulated when the parents are upset, or how the baby can calm down their nervous system by being around calm parents. Like all herd-animals we regulate, change and stabilize our mood by being connected to each other. This is brilliant in myriads of ways. Through these invisible ties we share feelings, regulate our hormones and maintain our emotional and physical health. The limbic resonance we experience in close relationships also influences and changes the structure of our brain and alters how we perceive ourselves and the world around us.
That's partially why we feel so great sometimes after talking to a loved one, going to a concert or a favorite class, jam session, cuddling with an animal or stumbling across really calm and happy people. It's why it is also so beneficial for people whose relationships are struggling to engage in positive activities together.
The states of limbic resonance encompasses both the dopamine circuit-promoted feelings of harmony and empathy, and the norepinephrine circuit-originated emotional states of fear, anxiety and anger. If the people we are surrounded by are in a dysregulated state, it directly affects our biology and over time we can become dysregulated as well. This is also why it can be hard for us to help the close people around us when they are stressed or upset, and why many relationships fail. We want to reach a place, in which when our partners, friends or community members are dysregulated, we can sense that and help them with our care and love (given that they are also not clinically depressed, intoxicated and they are able to receive care). No one is perfect, and we can't always manage that but when we fail to be a loving or kind partner or person, it is further unfair to blame the person who actually needed our kindness. Instead, we can take responsibility and do something sweet for them later.
But often times, in our unhealthy reactions, we might snap at a friend or family member or close person, when they are going through a low moment "because they are making us feel bad" - because they are not feeling well and that upsets us (see the faulty logic there?), when in fact all of us go through challenges.
What could we do instead? We can recognize what's coming up for us and separate that from our care for that person. Perhaps, we can recognize that it's hard for us to watch someone we love suffer, but going back to the bigger picture, remember that our love and care for this person, and that actually they just might need us to witness and offer them care right now, not solve things for them. Perhaps, they just need a hug, compassion, to have us by their side to have a morning coffee together.
Maybe asking them to go for a calming quiet walk together in nature, making a little cute surprise for them or just smiling together for a few minutes a day can do a lot more than judging them. Moving into that loving space together, in the midst of challenge, we can help to co-regulate them, and in turn, when we are not well, they can help to co-regulate us. We are not meant to live alone, and we have the power of our loved ones and community for a reason.
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