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Nervous System Regulation
What does Nervous System regulation actually mean? You have almost certainly heard of the fight or flight response, sometimes called the Stress Response but understanding what a dysregulated nervous system feels like and how it impacts our day to day life can be an important first step towards taking back control of your body's responses to your environment which can leave you feeling overwhelmed.
A Protective System in overdrive
Humans, along with other mammals, have an instant 'on button' that protects us by causing us to fight, flee, freeze or fawn when we perceive a threat to our survival. The difference between humans and other mammals is that we do not just activate this system in the face of an actual danger. We activate this 'state of emergency' through thought and our perceptions of safety and danger. This means we can activate an emergency response state within our physiology because we are remembering a stressful event, because the tone of voice someone uses, or a raised voice in our presence triggers the response. All of this is happening below our conscious awareness and we may not even realise why we rarely feel completely calm and centred.
More importantly, we can remain almost constantly in a mildly or even moderately dysregulated state. Our perception of what is threatening has become affected by the accumulation of stress and trauma so the system perceives and experiences threat in situations which are not life threatening. Most if not all humans live in a state of some type of nervous system activation which leads to physical harm to the body as well as the loss of the calm, connected and safe state that is our natural state.
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The system that takes charge during a perceived emergency suspends all unnecessary bodily functions and activates only those essential for survival. During the activation of this stress response, we can experience a variety of sensations such as arousal, anxiety, panic, phobias, bracing of our muscles, tremors, high blood pressure, rapid heart beat. Our mouth can become dry and our extremities cold. Growth hormones, reproductive hormones and digestion are suspended in this emergency state. ​
This is exhausting for the body and the individual, but it is also creates a real and lived impact on their experience of life. When there is a high level of perception of threat the person can shutdown and withdraw, decision making becomes so challenging, doubt can permeate all aspects of life and the ability to engage, take risks and do new things, is severely curtailed and restricted.
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As you develop your practice with TRE, you begin to release the stored stress hormones and the deep tension patterns in the musculature. As well as the initial sense of relaxation and wellbeing this brings, you will notice the impact in all areas of your life as the background levels of anxiety and/or irritation start to reduce as a consequence.
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As the stored traumas and stresses are released they are no longer activation prompts for your nervous system so you will notice in situations that previously upset and provoked a reaction within you just do not have this activating and distressing effect anymore which is incredibly freeing.
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How does a dysregulated nervous system impact you?
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Why is it relevant?
Did you know that human beings co-regulate?
We align our nervous system states with those around us. As babies and children our baseline state was learned from and aligned with our parents.
Learning to regulate our own nervous system and release stored trauma and tension is a gift not just to ourselves but to our children and our loved ones.
As we become calmer and feel safer we share this state with those around us and they too are positively impacted.
Signs of Nervous System Dysregulation
The activation curve
The Activation Curve
The activation curve can be a useful construct to examine your own relationship with your environment. What is your baseline state? Are you irritated and frustrated throughout your daily life? Are you frequently losing your temper and patience with your children or other loved ones? Or perhaps you are often anxious and uneasy, this leads to avoidance of people and places, events that you are worried about attending? Decision making is really challenging as you jump from one possibility to another and feel uncertain and unable to trust your initial decision and stick with it!
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It is so important to bring compassion to this exploration. Turning away from this and failing to address it is an understandable way to cope. There is often so much shame tangled up in the system relating to these responses However if you continue to blame those around you for your responses whilst you don't have to do anything about it, at the same time you give away your power to change anything.​
I want to really clarify what I am pointing to here. I am not saying that external events and people are not difficult, traumatic, or that other people do not and have not caused you harm. I am saying that it is possible for someone to behave really badly in your presence and you can remain calm and centred enough to remove yourself and/or respond without being devastated and overwhelmed. You begin to see so clearly that their behaviour and actions are about them and their history and say absolutely nothing about you. This is very hard to see when you are coming from the place of your own stored habitual reactions and responses based in stress and trauma.​
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TRE is a simple practice, the tremors can be accessed quickly and easily as they are innate to your body. Your body has the ability to restore health and wellbeing. Learning to use TRE is really a process of remembering and developing trust in your body and letting go into that. Stress and trauma increase our need to take and keep control and as the physical trauma and tension in our body becomes increasingly uncomfortable we spend more and more time in thought and less and less time truly inhabiting our bodies. TRE reverses this so that we can come home to fully inhabiting our bodies and our minds and racing thoughts calm and slow down as a consequence.
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