Regulate Your Nervous System

Your boss emails you asking for the client slide deck twenty minutes ahead of your meeting. You realize you forgot to complete it and now you’re headed into the meeting anxious and also worried about your next performance review. 

Sounds stressful right? My heart started racing extra just writing it. We’ve all been there - our fight or flight reaction activates these days in response to emails from your boss or texts from family members that raise your blood pressure.  A system that was designed to protect us from being eaten now seems to wreak more internal havoc than offer external protection. 

 

How can we reprogram our nervous system into working in our favor? How can we end this feedback loop and stop the anxious spiral before it begins? 

The first step is understanding that we are addicted to stress. As much as every person would deny that statement then why do we constantly replay scenarios in our mind that bring us right back into those same feelings? Why is an anxious spiral incredibly common and a positive spiral essentially unheard of? 

In simple terms stress is the dysregulation of the nervous system. Living with chronic stress is living in survival mode. The body cannot survive in this state perpetually and therefore chronic stress is linked to countless medical issues. 

That much we all know - the real question is what can we do about it?

 

Remember the first paragraph where just reading about upsetting your boss had the ability to get your heart racing? That’s because we can turn this system on simply by thought alone. If stress makes you sick and our thoughts can induce stress then therefore our thoughts can make us sick. Yup, you read that right. Our mind can impact the physical health of the body. 

Your brain cannot tell the difference between an event that is occurring in real time and an event that you are replaying in your mind. In both scenarios, living an experience and reliving the thought, creates the same chemical reaction in the brain. Meaning every time you replay that scenario with your boss your brain is experiencing it again and again. According to your brain you didn't just forget about the slide deck once but 50 maybe 100 times. 

The first way to build resilience to stress is understanding it is okay and normal to feel stress

Stress is a natural reaction and we will continue to experience stressful circumstances and situations in our life. In order to heal you have to feel - but the keyword here is feel and not get stuck. 

Reprogram yourself out of constant fight or flight by not feeding the addiction

 Replaying the scenario on an endless loop will not change the past, it can only disrupt the present. Allow yourself to feel the emotion but do not get stuck in the vicious cycle. Remember we are addicted to the arousal state that occurs when our body is experiencing stress therefore your unconscious mind will try to replay that scenario again and again. And every time you choose not to watch that movie in your mind's eye you are reprogramming yourself out of a state of constant stress. This is something that is easier said than done - you can also think of it as an exercise where each time you train your brain out of this spiral you are getting stronger and more resilient. 

Utilize a healthy coping mechanism to replace the anxious spiral

Now that we have felt the emotion and chosen to let go of the viscous mind movie that drags us back into the spiral of stress we can find a mechanism to release this energy from the body. Your healthy coping mechanism to stress will be whatever works best for you. There is not one that is inherently better than the other. The best one will be the one that brings you joy. Whether its meditating, exercising, venting to a friend, screaming into the void (I've tried this one its great), going for a walk, journaling, the list can go on and on. 

 

Because we are no longer spending time in the stress spiral we have more space in our day for healthy coping mechanisms and utilize that energy to regulate the nervous system and bring us back into homeostasis. 

 

Which coping mechanism is your favorite?