How to Talk to your Nervous System

Me and my nervous system had a serious moment last night. To be honest, we are still in some deep conversation today. 

I woke up yesterday, on a Sunday morning, and my brain on rapid fire. Thoughts of childcare logistics, to do lists for the house, to do lists for the business were instantly swirling in my head.

 I caught  myself and remembered the thought “I am safe to slow down”. And that really, truly supported me throughout the day. But the second I tried to sleep, I felt it hit me. A little tightness in my chest, slight uptick in my heartrate, legs that wanted to move and not be still. I had told myself I was safe to slow down and that mindset shift supported me during the day. BUT I never passed that message to my nervous system and at night, my nervous system was like “hello, I need your attention". 

The following is a quote from a course and I don't have a direct source for it, but it rings true in my opinion…

“The amount of information our nervous system sends to our mind is 80%…the amount of information our mind says to our nervous system is 20%.” 

Basically, you can't out-think nervous system dysregulation and my body showed me just that last night. 

So what did I do?

At night I relied on all my nervous system tools that work when I'm laying in bed: 

-Get water, go pee, get a snack 

-Tap my foot gently

-Deep breathing: matching the cadence of my breath to my daughters

-Visualizing: planting the seed in my mind for how I wanted my nervous system to feel by visualizing me in a relaxed state

And eventually I did sleep, I woke up a lot and just went back through my tools. 

Today I knew I needed to give my nervous system the TLC it was asking for. 

I started with trying to understand where this was coming from. 

To be perfectly clear, you don't always need to know why you are dysregulated to move through it. But to me, this is comforting. It feels like I am saying to my nervous system, I see you, I care and I'm on it. Looking back, we went to Liberty Science Center on Saturday….long (fun) day, lots of lights, people and noise. My nervous system worked hard that day. I did go to bed very early Saturday night (more out of pure pregnancy exhaustion than anything else), but maybe my recovery time was a bit longer. I have a prenatal appointment Friday, I get pregnancy anxiety. And there were a few other personal occurrences that, in retrospect, I could see triggering some old nervous system patterns for me. 

Okay great, dually noted.

Now what?

Schedule in some serious nervous system love today. 

I texted my husband and made it clear that movement (one of my main regulating activities) was necessary for me today or tomorrow. Again, just doing this feels like telling my nervous system, I see you, I got you, I'm handling this. I feel better just knowing that. 

I looked for movement and sensory input alllll day long. Start of therapy sessions, we either went on a walk or did wall push ups.

 I will be taking a quiet car ride home. 

I really hope to squeeze in a meditation session at some point today. 

I gave myself so, so, so much grace. 

- I made a scheduling mistake at lunch time. Dysregulated, old nervous system pattern Jessica wants to beat up on me for that. BUT, I work with my nervous system. Which means, I know from a dysregulated state, mistakes will happen. It has nothing to do with my worthiness or value, it's just my brain managing many things as best it can. 

-Even looking back on yesterday, I'm not beating myself up about it. Maybe it was just a second recovery day for me after a busy Saturday and THAT IS OKAY! My goal isn't to be regulated all of the time, but to recognize when I am dysregulated and not get stuck there. 

And all of my daily tricks are in play, the ones I know support me on the regular (but today is a day I will make sure not to miss out on any of them)

-Drinking through a straw

-Eating every 2-3 hours

-Slight compression in my clothing

My evening routine will include a deep pressure massage with lotion and gua sha or facial cupping. 

All of this to say, dysregulation happens. Thinking a better thought is beautiful and will absolutely support you, I highly recommend it. But it isn't the whole story. And if I, someone who knows an incredible amount about nervous system regulation and focuses on it daily, can miss some cues, of course it can happen to you too. 

The good news is…there is so much you can do to support yourself in these moments.  You don't have to live here!