Nervous System Regulation: The Ultimate Guide

In this track, we'll explore how your nervous system shapes your stress responses and how you can use it to bring calm back into your life. I’ll guide you through the key aspects of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, helping you understand why relaxation can feel so hard and how to regain balance. Plus, I’ll share practical, scientifically-backed techniques that you can use to reduce stress, improve resilience, and cultivate inner peace. Tune in to reclaim your calm - no matter what life throws at you.

Transcript

Welcome!

So good to have you here.

My name is Melina.

I'm a psychologist and a licensed mindfulness and mental trainer and I'm really excited for today's episode because we're going to explore something that can truly make a difference in your day-to-day life.

We will be diving deep into the nervous system,

How it works and how you can use this knowledge to reduce stress and anxiety.

By the end of this episode you'll have a solid understanding of how your nervous system exactly functions,

How it's structured and which methods and strategies can help you regulate it.

You'll also be able to identify your predominant nervous system state.

Not every method works for everyone.

That's why,

Unlike many other approaches that offer just one technique which might leave you frustrated if it doesn't work for you,

I want to provide you with a broader understanding of the topic.

This way you can explore different options and discover what works best for your unique body and unique life.

Having struggled with panic attacks and anxiety in the past,

Even as a psychologist,

I quickly realized that rational thinking alone often isn't enough to regulate the physical effects of stress.

No matter how much we try to think our way out of it,

Our body has its own deep-rooted response system that we need to work with and not against.

And that's exactly why it is so important to understand how stress and anxiety function in the body and what role the nervous system plays in all of it.

Because if we're ignoring the body signals and we try to solve physical symptoms purely through cognitive strategies,

We often end up going in circles,

Missing out on the real progress and inner peace we are looking for.

Maybe you,

Like so many others,

Feel constantly stressed.

Maybe your mind sometimes feels like it's on overdrive,

Like it's about to explode.

Maybe you find yourself lying awake at night,

Wondering when you'll finally feel calm again.

Maybe you feel like you're always on high alert,

Like you can't even remember the last time you were truly relaxed or just did nothing at all,

Really nothing.

When we learn how to soothe our nervous system,

We don't just improve our well-being in the moment,

We also build long-term resilience and we improve our overall health.

I've mentioned in a previous episode of mine that our societal approach to health and well-being is often still quite dualistic.

Either we go to a doctor who primarily treats the body or we see a therapist who focuses on our mind.

But as we came to know now,

We're not just the one or the other.

And this is exactly where the nervous system plays a very critical role,

Because it is the bridge that allows us to consciously bring ourselves back to a state of balance and relaxation.

Through the body to the mind.

When our bodies are in full alert mode,

When we feel panicked or restless,

It's incredibly helpful to use the body as a grounding tool to bring us back down.

And that sense of calm will naturally translate into our thoughts as well.

So,

How exactly do we actually do this?

I want to explore this today with you and I'll be sharing a few practical techniques to help you regulate your body and emotions.

But first,

We need to understand what the nervous system actually is.

After all,

You cannot control or influence something if you don't understand how it works,

Right?

Of course,

I won't overwhelm you with the full complexity of the nervous system.

Instead,

We'll focus on the key elements that matter most for today's topic.

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

These two systems work as opposites.

If you imagine your nervous system as a kind of control center for your body,

The sympathetic nervous system acts like an emergency button.

It's responsible for making sure you're ready to act in stressful or dangerous situations.

When it's activated,

Your heart beats faster,

Your muscles tense up,

And you're primed to react at any moment.

You enter what's known as fight or flight mode.

And you can feel it in your mind,

Too.

Your thoughts raise,

Your focus narrows.

They jump around more,

They are more anxious,

And they are more critical.

Maybe some of you can relate to this.

For example,

When you have to give a presentation in front of several people.

For many,

This is a typical moment where the nervous system tends to switch into fight or flight mode.

On the other hand,

As a counterbalance to the sympathetic nervous system,

We have the parasympathetic nervous system.

It is essentially the calming button of your body.

The one that ensures that you can really relax again,

That you can regenerate and restore your balance.

It basically resets the emergency button and your heart rate,

For example,

Starts to slow down.

You feel more refreshed when it's activated and your immune system works better.

We simply feel good.

We are relaxed,

We are more creative,

We can store new learning content more easily,

And we just notice our nervous system calms down again.

The natural flow of life is for the sympathetic and the parasympathetic systems to be in balance.

And in the past,

It used to be more like this.

To simplify this a bit,

A caveman would rest,

So the parasympathetic system would be active during that time.

Then maybe a tiger would appear and the caveman would be chased,

Which would obviously trigger the sympathetic system.

And then,

For example,

The caveman might successfully and hopefully escape the tiger.

So the danger is averted and the parasympathetic system kicks in again.

The thing is,

The threats we face today as a society and people no longer have a time limit.

It's not a tiger we can simply outrun.

Our threats are omnipresent.

It doesn't matter whether it's a war or it's the increasingly bad economic situation,

Or perhaps the fear spreading in the media,

Or maybe fear of losing our job or not being able to pay rent.

None of these things are time limited.

All of these things accompany us day and night,

For weeks,

For years,

And as a result,

Our parasympathetic system,

The relaxation mediator,

Is often hardly active anymore.

And instead,

The sympathetic system is constantly in crisis mode.

Of course,

Depending on how you were raised as a child,

You may have a stronger or a weaker predisposition,

In other words,

A natural tendency.

So for some,

The sympathetic system kicks in more quickly from childhood,

Or maybe not at all.

That means a nervous system that has been shaped from the start to always be in alert mode and experience many dangers,

Will have to spend more time in adulthood,

Learning again how to regulate itself and learning again how to actually activate the parasympathetic system.

Every nervous system is a bit different,

None is like the other.

So each one of us has different predispositions and we are thus more or less prone to stress.

But everyone of us can learn to relax and everyone can tense up.

It's just sometimes,

Yeah,

It requires more than a little practice and a little more regulation habituation for some of us.

For others,

It's very easy.

So,

What exactly can we do to activate our parasympathetic system,

The relaxation mediator,

More?

We can apply scientifically backed relaxation techniques,

Such as progressive muscle relaxation according to Jacobson,

Autogenic training,

Body scans,

Yoga nidra,

Breathing techniques,

And much,

Much more.

All of these have proven effectiveness and they are used in stress management,

Also for depression or anxiety therapy,

And all these methods induce relaxation in the body.

There are tons of online resources for them,

Including InsideTimer,

Including from me.

It's important that you just try out what works best for you individually,

Because different things work better for different people.

For example,

Progressive muscle relaxation,

Which involves a lot of physical movement and muscle tension,

Is usually good for people who are a bit more restless and physically agitated,

Who may not focus as well cognitively on things,

Such as guided imagery or meditation.

Those,

On the other hand,

Can work really well for others,

And they might not enjoy the muscle tension of progressive muscle relaxation at all.

In fact,

This principle of tension and relaxation,

Which progressive muscle relaxation uses,

It also explains why exercise works so well and is recommended for stress prevention.

Because it restores the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.

Because it's first tension and then the relaxation.

What I can also share with you for now,

Even while you are listening to this podcast episode,

Are simple breathing techniques.

They are also quite effective,

Because your body cannot be tense if we physically,

Let's say,

Credibly communicate to it that we are safe.

One such breathing exercise is to double breathing.

You can perform it really easily,

Even if you are a beginner and have never done any breathing exercises or relaxation techniques before.

Just try this.

Take a deep breath in,

Through your nose,

And while inhaling,

Breathe in again,

Even deeper.

If the concept is still hard or difficult to grasp,

Think of what a baby does when it cries.

You'll notice how your chest rises and falls,

And you'll feel a little calmer and more balanced right after.

This is a form of self-regulation that babies are naturally born with,

And we somehow forget as we grow.

But when we are in a very emotionally stirred state,

For example,

When we are sobbing or crying,

We actually do this breathing automatically,

This double breathing.

If you haven't tried before,

I can really encourage you to do it right now.

The second simple breathing exercise you can do on the side is boxed breathing.

In this,

You inhale through your nose for four seconds,

Then you hold your breath for four seconds again,

And afterwards,

You exhale for eight seconds through the mouth.

In this exercise,

It's important to exhale twice as long as you inhale and also having this pause in between that's as long as the inhale.

You can experiment with the exact times a bit if you want.

So maybe for some of you,

A 5-5-10 seconds rhythm or a 3-3-6 rhythm works better.

The key to it is that it's proportional.

Just try it for a minute or two minutes and see how you feel before and after.

For many,

Including myself,

It might have been hard to believe at first that these techniques really do something and really change something.

But when we understand that this form of breathing directly impacts our nervous system and communicates to our parasympathetic nervous system,

Hey,

You can turn on now.

I am safe.

I am relaxed.

It suddenly all makes a little more sense.

Another very easy hack you can use in your day-to-day life to balance out your nervous system is to make a habit to breathe into your belly instead of your chest.

Most of us tend to breathe into our chest,

Which is a very shallow type of breathing and which evolutionary normally happens when we are in a sympathetic state,

So distress or crisis mode.

Nevertheless,

We made a habit out of wanting to appear slim and not putting our bellies out too much,

Even if this is exactly what belly breathing should do.

So try to check in regularly with yourself throughout the day and breathe consciously into your belly.

It might be difficult at first,

But really try to feel your belly widen as much on each inhale.

If your shoulders go up a lot when you inhale,

You know you are still pretty much breathing through your chest.

Remind yourself with small check-ins throughout your day.

How am I breathing right now?

I want to activate my parasympathetic system.

I want to be relaxed.

I am relaxed.

So I'll breathe like a relaxed person.

Another nice trick is vagus nerve massage.

The vagus nerve is a very long nerve that directly works with the parasympathetic system,

The relaxation facilitator.

It's basically directly connected to it.

So when we activate the vagus nerve,

We are signaling to our body,

Hey,

You can activate a parasympathetic system.

Everything is all right.

Since these two are so heavily linked.

For example,

The vagus nerve runs directly in the neck.

So we can give ourselves a gently neck massage.

For this,

You can simply grab your neck and massage the area in the middle of your neck,

Where it runs from your scalp down to your spine.

You can do this even while you are working,

Sitting at your desk and just take a couple of minutes for yourself.

Take a few deep breaths,

Maybe combine it with belly breathing or another breathing technique and gently massage your neck doing so.

You can also tie it to certain mantras,

If you wish,

Or affirmations or just positive sentences or thoughts in which you could tell yourself,

I am safe,

I am relaxed.

There is no reason to be stressed.

By the way,

The vagus nerve is also the reason why things like singing,

Humming and buzzing,

Anything that involves the vocal cords,

Helps us calm us down.

This is something we also know from babies who need to be soothed.

We sing or we hum to them and it actually calms down the person singing or humming as well.

This happens because when we make our vocal cords vibrate through singing,

Humming,

Buzzing or whatever,

It stimulates our vagus nerve and as a result,

It activates our parasympathetic system.

This is also one of the reasons why mantras are used and chanting as well.

You've probably already experienced the positive effect of singing,

Humming and other vocal cord vibrations on your state of being.

So this is something you can really consciously use and it works great,

Especially when you're taking care of a child or dealing with other things where you can say,

Okay,

I'm going to do half an hour of autogenic training or progressive muscle relaxation right now,

Because I instead need to keep my eyes open and watch this child.

In such cases,

You can simply hum or sing a little bit or massage your vagus nerve consciously to calm yourself down.

Another great way to activate the parasympathetic system and one of the reasons why I offer so many online resources on this is meditation and mindfulness.

It took me a long time to be honest to really get into these practices,

Because I always associated them so strongly with a certain kind of spirituality I couldn't connect with back then.

Given my very scientific background and being a generally skeptical person,

With everything I come across,

It took me a while to really access them.

And now I cannot imagine my life without them anymore.

So I've been meditating,

I believe,

For about six or seven years now and I also try to live mindfulness as best as possible in my everyday life.

It's a process and you'll never be fully finished with it.

And I have to say mindfulness and meditation have brought me much more personally than some therapy approaches or some self-help books.

I have really read a lot,

Done a lot and worked on it in my life,

Because personal development,

Psychology,

Mental health,

All of that has been my favorite topic for over a decade.

Obviously,

As a psychologist.

And there's now an overwhelming amount of studies out there that show the positive effects and effectiveness of mindfulness and meditation on our daily lives,

On our thinking and experiencing of the world.

There are studies where you can really see how our brains change,

How our perception changes and how significantly life quality increases.

So,

In today's episode we explored various methods for relaxation and learned different techniques that directly affect our nervous system.

We looked at classical techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation,

Autogenic training,

Body scans and so on.

And as I said,

I can only recommend that you experiment with these methods.

There are tons of free online resources and you should just find what works best for you.

Then,

You can also experiment with the short breathing techniques I've shared with you.

And don't forget to incorporate the vagus nerve.

You can give yourself a little vagus nerve massage or sing or hum or buzz.

And lastly,

Mindfulness and meditation are very powerful tools for bringing more relaxation into our lives.

In conclusion,

I can say that understanding our nervous system and learning how to regulate it is absolute key to improving our quality of life.

We cannot think away stress and we cannot run away from it either.

But we can face stress and for that we need the right tools.

To approach it at the body level,

Where the physical cause of stress truly lies and then combine that with a healthier mental approach to stressors is the most sensible thing you can do.

Today,

We've learned that there are diverse ways to bring more relaxation into our lives and that what works for one person might not be the same for someone else.

So,

We've come to the end of today's episode with this.

Thank you for taking the time for yourself and I also thank you for making the world a little bit better for everyone else through this.

If you enjoyed this episode,

Please don't forget to subscribe to my channel or leave a comment.

I would really appreciate it.

Until next time,

See you then.

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