Your nervous system governs so much of how you move through your days, how you interact with the world, and how easily you "roll with the punches".
You may have heard people talking about regulating their nervous system, and wondered what the heck that even means.
Let's keep it very basic for the sake of this post. A lot of you might be familiar with what is called the "Fight or Flight" response. This is governed by the sympathetic nervous system, it is an essential mode in which our body gets ready to do just that, fight or flight. This comes in handy a lot, but can also cause some issue when our brains perceive smaller events as as risk.
The more relaxed part of our nervous system, the parasympathetic system, is called the "Rest and Digest" system. We are supposed to spend time here so we can recover, heal, and generally handle stress better.
So what does it look like when we have a regulated stress response and nervous system? It can look like this:
You have the ability to move out of states of stress
You are able to spend time in a truly relaxed state
You have awareness of your flight or fight response
You have a good sense of your helpful coping tools
You have the ability to be gentle with yourself
You know what calm feels like and how to get there
After reading this list, what do you think? Are you living with a regulated nervous system? If not, don't worry! This kind of healing is a work in progress for most people, and let's face it, the world we live in does not set us up for being stress free.
Take one or two things from this list and work towards them.
As always, be gentle with yourself.
Dr. Lisa