Day 1: Nervous system regulation

📚 Reading

Today we are going to learn how your thoughts are governed by your nervous system (not your mind!).

This means you can change your thoughts by changing the state of your nervous system.

Before we start transforming our lives, we need to learn how to regulate ourselves. Otherwise, we’ll be making decisions for the wrong reasons.

Regulate the nervous system

Five years ago, before I began my journey with meditation and spirituality that led me to starting The Heart Space, I was working in London in the corporate sector.

Yes, I was chasing all the trappings of material success.

Something was off but I didn’t quite know what…

I seemed to have 3 main emotional states.

I would either be feeling fine, stressed or depressed.

I moved around these states but, frankly, I mostly felt stressed.

I had a very busy life and when work became too much I would see it flare up in the form of eczema, anxiety, and trouble sleeping.

On top of these symptoms, I’d have negative thoughts. They seemed to spiral out of control and I would feel overwhelmed.

They would tell me that I couldn’t handle it, that I was an imposter, that I was miserable.

All the self-help literature talked about the importance of positive thinking. But my thoughts seemed uncontrollable.

A few years later, I discovered polyvagal theory.

It explains how our nervous system regulates our physiological responses to different situations.

And I realised that I had got it backwards.

It’s not that my thoughts were making me feel bad. It’s that I was feeling bad and this was leading to negative thoughts.

In other words, story follows state.

The autonomic nervous system is at the heart of our experience.

It is not our brain that runs the show

The vagus nerve, which goes from our gut through our heart and lungs up to our brain, sends 80% of signals from the body to the brain. Only 20% of signals go the other way.

In other words, the body feeds information into the brain and the brain’s job is to make a story that makes sense of this.

Here’s an example…

The symptoms of nervousness and excitement are similar: sweaty palms, racing heartbeat, jitters or butterflies.

Professional athletes can interpret these signals positively as excitement and hype themselves up before a game.

Whereas others might perceive these signals as nervousness and create thoughts of fear and anxiety.

The bodily signals are the same but the story is different.

What’s going on here?

Well, the nervous system is constantly looking for safety and connection to ensure survival.

To catch our attention, it communicates through symptoms, both physical and physiological.

These symptoms could be things like anxiety, headaches or a temper.

These symptoms are triggered by events that make our nervous system feel unsafe.

But these triggers - and the stories that our brain overlays - are based on past experiences.

If we were attacked by a dog as a child, we may be pulled into survival energy upon seeing a dog as an adult.

And our brain will tell stories based on old experience that is no longer true.

We’re following old, familiar pathways.

Your triggers and pathways are personal, unique, big and small.

But we are all bombarded by signals of disconnection and danger through the news and media.

Many of us are living in heightened states of nervous system activation that prevent us from functioning properly.

It’s no wonder that we tell ourselves stories that we’re not capable, that it’s too difficult, that we won’t succeed.

But remember, story follows state.

We can update our nervous system pathways and the stories we tell ourselves.

We just have to tune into our nervous system and bring ourselves back to feelings of safety.

What are the 3 states?

There are three states you may be familiar with: “fight or flight”, “freeze” and “safe and social”.

When we are in ‘fight or flight’, we activate our sympathetic nervous system.

Our blood pressure, heart rate, and adrenaline increase.

This is an ideal response if a tiger is chasing us but in today’s modern world we are experiencing mental activity as physical danger causing the same response.

When we’re in a stressed or anxious state, our ability to be curious and empathetic is compromised.

Additionally, we struggle to engage our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive function and coordinating different brain functions.

As a result, we find it difficult to regulate our attention and focus.

We have a second state you may be familiar with: ‘freeze’. This is activated by the parasympathetic nervous system.

This is our primitive response to ‘play dead’.

We shut down, feel depressed, conserve energy, dissociate, feel overwhelmed, and feel like we can’t move forward.

The final state is ‘safe and social’

This is where we feel calm and connected. It’s the place of health, growth and restoration.

The goal isn’t to be in this place all the time - that ignores all of the inevitable challenges that life presents.

But we do want a nervous system that’s flexible enough to bring us back here.

It’s important to note that we move through the three nervous system states like a ladder.

At the top we experience safe and social. We move down into flight or fight. And then we move down into freeze.

In order to return to rest and digest from freeze, we will need to go through the flight of fight state first.

📝 Journal prompts

Choose one word you would use to describe the state of sympathetic activation (flight or fight). Go with whatever feels right for you (e.g. stressed, nervous…). This will make it easier to recognise when it shows up.

Think back to the last time you felt this way. What was the trigger?

Now choose one word to describe parasympathetic activation (freeze). When was the last time you felt this way and what was the trigger?

Whereas triggers are things that activate our sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system, glimmers bring us back to rest and digest. What word would you use to describe this state and what are some of your glimmers (e.g. people, places or activities)?

🛠️ Tool

Deep sighs

Next time you notice you are in a sympathetic state (fight or flight), you can do a deep sigh. This allows you to reset your nervous system.

Simply breathe in deeply through the nose. And then let out an audible sigh as you drop your shoulders.

Do this now and repeat it 3 times.

🧘‍♀️ Guided meditation

Today’s guided meditation is on awakening the heart. By tuning into the heart, you’ll start to break the over-reliance on the mind.

Listen to the meditation here.

💫 Wrap-up

Today we’ve learned all about how the nervous system governs our thoughts, not our minds.

Understanding how to influence your state can have a dramatic impact on the quality of your life.

Tomorrow, we’re going to learn about the dopamine cycle and how it traps us in unhealthy behaviours…