My Nervous System Self-Regulation Toolkit

As I’ve mentioned on YouTube, my goal in 2023 was to make a habit of living a “35-mile-an-hour life” – to create muscle memory for slow-and-steady and easy-does-it. 

When I see memes and stuff about “How do I tell my body that flight/fight is for a predator, not an email”, I feel it in my bones. Those were the questions I have been living in for the past few years. I shared this kind of meme on Instagram a few weeks ago, and asked whether others might be interested in my journey to get here. The response was 100% yes, so I’m writing this post.

I’ll get into the nitty gritty below, but overall what you need to know to start this for yourself is:

• Recognize environmental, cultural, and familial situations that cause you to feel flight/fight responses regularly, and assess whether any of them can be changed
• Recognize your own emotional responses to ease vs stress
• Notice when you’re generating stress because it’s familiar or feels safer
• Learn ways to activate the parasympathetic nervous system

Environment, work, and cultural causes of stress

First, it’s important to address the fact that none of us live in vacuums. We are tied to the cultures that surround us – be it family, work, or society. You may not be able to achieve full self-regulation without it impacting some or all of these elements of your life. You can achieve some level of stress relief, and some level of self-care, but sooner or later, the more stress-inducing elements may have to be addressed.

In my case, I was set up for success. On top of the racial, class, and systemic privilege that I had going into this, I also had the right environment for myself.

This journey began when I moved from Atlanta to rural New Mexico. When I first arrived here, I was impatient for any delay. I was frustrated with how long it took for phone calls to be returned, and I struggled to consciously force myself to drive the speed limit on slower roads. My environment was urging me to adopt a more relaxed pace, but it took several months for that to sink in. (It was interesting to feel myself have to respond to the faster pace when visiting Atlanta last November. I didn’t like it!)

I moved here by myself, so there were no familial dynamics involved with my time commitments or how I handled stress. I know a lot of parents who struggle with balancing the demands of childcare, school events, and family needs against their own needs. This process is challenging for people who have kids, which may be why it’s often a project for Empty Nesters later in life.

Living alone also helps. My autism is one of the bigger sources of sensory distress and an overwhelmed nervous system. So it has been incredibly helpful for me to be in a physical environment where I can control noise levels, light levels, ambient scents, the overall tidiness of the house and clutter, and a very long list of other sensory stressors.

My primary relationships with people in my daily life also support this change. The guy I’m seeing is a big fan of “just being” and hanging out together without doing anything at all. This is great modeling for me, and it’s nice to have someone else to do that with.

My job was remote, and I was the head of the department. So to some extent, I was able to control some of my work demands and stress to make these inner changes. Eventually, I ended up leaving this job because it was the only part of my life that I couldn’t adequately limit the stress levels within. I am saying this to both acknowledge my massive privilege to be able to do that financially, and also as a word of caution.

If you really commit to this, it’s likely that stressful people, situations, and social groups are going to either adapt to your new normal, or they will fall away. This is life-changing stuff, not to be taken lightly.

Self-Awareness of Anxiety Caused By Rest

After I noticed my driving speed and tried to shake off the impatience with the slowness of the pace of life here, the next thing I noticed was my boredom. I was not getting the same levels of stimulation I was used to, and that made me begin to seek it out.

I journaled a lot during this time and channeled that sensory-seeking energy into exploring my environment: taking walks, taking photos around my land, walking the dog, doing plant identification in my yard. These slow, curious acts allowed me to give myself new sensations and “input” without also adding to my stress levels.

Then, one evening, doing nothing but watching the fire in the fireplace, I realized that what I’d been interpreting as “boredom” was actually “contentment” and “peace.” Because my stressed-out state was the norm, my brain framed the downtime and relaxation as a bad thing. With new eyes, I began seeing how my emotional state was tied to my stress levels.

Because I was so used to feeling adrenaline and cortisol, I would start feeling anxious while I was resting and doing nothing. I began waiting for the other shoe to drop – for something to go wrong – for me to be able to rev back up into action to respond to it. The problem with that anxious anticipation is that we can easily create that external situation to mirror the internal state. It’s as easy as poking the fire carelessly and having a few live embers spring out onto the rug.

I remember in January of 2023 having to soothe that anxiety by breathing slowly and deeply and telling myself out loud, “It’s okay to do nothing. It’s okay to just sit here and enjoy the fire.” That was when I set the goal that I did – to make that resting and stillness feel safe, and to make driving at the speed limit my norm, rather than something I consciously had to think about every time I drove into town.

Self-Awareness of the Payoff of Stress

On the flipside, there were tremendous payoffs for feeling stressed out. Fight/Flight responses and their rush of hormones come with some pretty big energy boosts. I noticed when I had an adrenaline response at work, I felt more assertive, more powerful, and more capable of doing my job.

I learned over time that being at ease and relaxed didn’t make me passive or weak as I’d feared, but rather less reactive. I was able to respond to situations thoughtfully, rather than react explosively. Yes, it felt strong and powerful to have that surge of energy, but it also meant I wasn’t always the best manager or the most level-headed colleague. By cultivating peace and contentment, I was able to hold space for others and create a sense of safety that wasn’t there before.

The stress response is self-protective. It temporarily boosts the immune system (while tearing it apart in the long term), increases energy levels (for a cost), and can even increase sensory acuity and focus. But the cost for these benefits is steep. Burnout, chronic illness, poor sleep, weight gain, and even just getting sick every time you get a four-day weekend are some of the prices we pay for it.

The Sympathetic nervous system

The Sympathetic nervous system is the one that triggers the Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn response when we are stressed. This is the response that should kick in while driving behind a swerving driver on the highway or meeting a bear in the woods.  This “lizard brain” part of our biology is intended to help us survive.

Unfortunately, modern life kicks this kind of response in for reasons that are not tied to survival. We can have this response – heart racing, system flooding with hormones – when we get an unexpected email, or when we’re missing a deadline. We get this kind of response because someone might be angry at us. Sometimes this response is triggered by a memory of something scary that happened when we were very young, that we have never really contextualized or processed as adults. Whatever the reason, our adrenal systems are working overtime, and it’s hard to stop them from doing that. All they are doing is trying to help us survive.

In a more ideal scenario, we would have the ability to use this kind of response in a truly stressful situation. Last month, while walking the dog, we both smelled a mountain lion in the woods near the house (it was on my nearest neighbor’s cameras the next morning).  With our heads on swivels, we high-tailed it back indoors. My heart was racing, and adrenaline coursed through my body (I always feel it in my chest and abdomen) for the first time in months. The dog was lightly panting, like he’d had the same response. We got inside, locked the door, and stared at each other for a moment in mild freak-out.

Adrenaline that sits unused in the body can be painful (I get a super upset digestive system). In this case, we had both used that surge of power to get our buns back inside the house, but now we were both fired up on rocket fuel. So, I grabbed LowKey’s toy and took off running through the house, giving us a case of the zoomies for the express purpose of shaking out that adrenaline. Using it for physical activity is way better than trying to tamp it down with food or medicate it with alcohol. I don’t usually go around trying to trigger my sympathetic nervous system into action. It happens a bit more often than is entirely necessary.  When it does get triggered, there are some things you can do to work the adrenaline, cortisol, and endorphins through your body safely – most of which amount to exercise. Punching bags, running, walking, tree climbing, and other physical activities can help it move through your body.  Ideally, these activities would be followed immediately by some of those listed below for soothing and activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System

The parasympathetic nervous system is sometimes called the “Rest and Digest” nervous system. I like the cruder, but more alliterative “Feed/Fuck” because it continues the “Fs” from the sympathetic mnemonic. As described, this is the set of hormones and responses that happen when we’re able to relax. When we aren’t being pursued by a predator.  This is the series of physical hormones and activities that allow food to digest better in our guts, that allow us to feel peace and stillness, and that makes it more appealing to have sex. This includes oxytocin, the “love hormone” that helps us feel more connected to those we’re near.

This nervous system is equally necessary for survival. Someone who is chronically in Flight/Fight is not going to produce the correct digestive enzymes to be able to digest and absorb nutrients from food. The disturbed sleep of the sympathetic nervous system means that we never have the deep, restorative healing sort of sleep necessary for long-term health and well-being. If we aren’t creating enough of the hormones around sex and connection, we end up feeling lonely, disconnected, and separated from those around us.

You can see just by this description why, when looking to achieve a sense of well-being and wellness, I am focused on being in a parasympathetic nervous system state more often than anything else. This is what I’m going for with my 35-mph life.

Beyond the difficult and often unrealistic recommendation of “reducing stressors” in our lives – quitting stressful jobs, dumping stressful partners, taking a rest by the seaside for several months – we do have day-to-day tools that can help us activate this part of our nervous system.

• Breathing. I’ve described the way to breathe with a longer out-breath in a previous blog post. The out-breath belongs to the parasympathetic nervous system. (The in-breath to the sympathetic nervous system, so merely “taking a deep breath in” isn’t enough!)
• Slow, gentle exercise. While you can get adrenaline out of your system by smashing the weights and cardio, that’s not a good way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This requires low, slow kinds of work. Mind-body exercises like yoga, tai chi, and qi gong are really useful for this. Walking is also great.
• Slow, gentle housework. Beyond just exercise, I find that mindful housework does two things. It gets my body moving, and it reduces the stress caused by a cluttered or dirty environment.
• Slow, deliberate, and nutritious meals. Remember, this is the “digest” system. Eat something bitter early in the meal to activate enzymes. Eat slowly, and use all of your senses to enjoy the meal. Your gut is how you inform your body about the state of your world. It understands the environment through how you eat and what you eat.
• Pay attention to how you use light. Blue light on your phone and computer screens can disrupt sleep. High efficiency light bulbs can flicker unnoticeably and secretly create stress. Be sure to get outside in the sun for at least 30 minutes each day, especially in the winter months. And turn the lights down steadily in the hours leading up to bedtime.
• See green. Whether getting outside into nature and looking at living plants, or just having one little succulent doing its best on your desk, looking at plants helps us with this self-regulation!
• Spend time with pets. But don’t just take the dog on a walk and call it. Watch how much your pets rest on a daily basis. Notice how many naps they take. Emulate them. When I lay down to take a nap in the afternoon, all three of my cats usually join me. I call it “being mammals together.”
• Spend at least 20 minutes in a horizontal, reclining position at around 2:30-3:30 PM each day. Before working from home, I literally used to lay on my floor of my office under my desk to do this. Yes, it’s weird. But it triggers the parasympathetic nervous system and relaxes the body by tapping into the circadian rhythm drop at that time of day. It’s a good time for “being mammals” with pets if you work remotely.
• Have orgasms. By yourself or with a friend, this is a great way to keep your hormones and your nervous system regulated!
• Magnesium or Epsom salts. Supplementing Vitamin D and Fish oil is also useful, but magnesium is very nearly mandatory for this work. Don’t take magnesium supplements the same day you take an Epsom salt bath or it can cause diarrhea.

Yes, this is a long list, but it’s not outside the realm of reason for most days, even with a full-time job, and you don’t have to do all of the things all of the time. Even some of the time is helpful. Though I don’t have the studies and books that I found all of this information in, it’s all backed up by science, and the items above tend to work for most people.

There is more here, but much of it is individual and personal. For example, you can experiment with vagal nerve exercises, or meditation. These didn’t consistently work for me, but a lot of people have found great success with them!

One thing that does work for me is mending and tending the things I love and repairing the things I own (like darning socks). That has been a huge way to feel grounded, embodied, and regulated for me.  The key is to look for those activities that encourage a feeling of contentment and peace and that also feel sustainable over time.

Taking Rest, Play, and Recovery to the Next Level

Once you start a practice of encouraging your parasympathetic nervous system to be active more often than the sympathetic nervous system, you might notice yourself getting more serious about rest, sleep, and recreation.

You might look at your sleep hygiene, for example. I found Good Night by Michael Breus to be life-changing when I worked my way through it several years ago. Most of us know the basics of sleep hygiene, but this is way more detailed and specific.

You might start a new hobby, or pick old hobbies back up. There are a lot of studies about the health and psychological benefits of experiencing a flow state on a regular basis. Creativity comes with the parasympathetic nervous system. We tend to be a little more open to wonder and connection when we are relaxed so maybe taking classes would be useful.

Finally, you might find yourself unplugging more often, just being, and relaxing. It’s not what we’re used to doing, but it’s how we’re biologically wired to be. There are multiple kinds of rest, and we might seek each type out and assess which kinds we’re not used to getting regularly.

Good luck on your own self-regulation journey. I’d love to read comments about your reaction to this post, as well as any additions you have to the list above!