5 Tips for a Healthy, Balanced Nervous System
In today's episode, we're talking all about nervous system regulation in the context of emotional wellbeing.
As many of you know, I'm a big advocate of incorporating bottom-up, somatically focused tools and awareness as part of the bigger picture of growth and healing. And a key piece of that work is understanding how to understand and support your nervous system.
WHAT WE COVER:
why a healthy nervous system isn't about being calm all the time
how to expand your comfort zone and resilience in a safe, sustainable way
how to make a daily practice out of nervous system regulation
how to counteract feeling powerless and overwhelmed
building a toolkit for nervous system regulation and self-soothing
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.41 → 0:00:24.96
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship Coach Stephanie Rigg and I'm really glad you're here.
0:00:28.49 → 0:01:13.34
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing five principles or tips for a healthy nervous system. So if you've been listening to the show for a while, if you've done any of my courses or you've been in my world, you'll know that I wax lyrical about the importance of understanding your nervous system and building a level of fluency and literacy with regards to your nervous system and the way that it shapes your experience of life. And that might seem like a big statement, but it really is so pervasive in the way that it influences our thoughts, feelings, emotions, energy, everything.
0:01:13.52 → 0:01:55.64
It is so foundational. And as I've said many times before, and I will say again and again, it is so often the missing piece that prevents people from making lasting and meaningful change in their lives. You may have listened to a recent episode that I did with Sarah Baldwin on Understanding Your Nervous System. And if you haven't listened to that episode and or you are interested in learning more of a 101 about the different states of the nervous system, I really encourage you to go back and listen to that, either before or after listening to this, as it'll give you some really useful context and background. So in this episode, I'm going to be giving you some principles and some tools.
0:01:55.75 → 0:02:30.26
Ways to think about nervous system regulation and ways to weave that into your day to day life so that it becomes just part of what you think about when you reflect on how you're feeling and what you need and all of those pillars of self care making nervous system regulation. One of those is really, really supportive and will really upgrade the way that you experience your life. Again, I know that sounds like a big statement, but I wholeheartedly stand behind it. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements.
0:02:30.40 → 0:03:09.53
You will have heard me speak about my Homecoming Mastermind, which is my six month small group programme. It is the most intimate way to work with me. I've had quite a number of people inquiring recently, about one on one coaching and unfortunately I'm not accepting new one on one clients for the foreseeable future. I'm trying to manage my capacity with a lot of other projects that I've got going on. This podcast plans to write a book, lots of other exciting things, but it does just mean that I'm somewhat capacity constrained and my Mastermind is a beautiful way for me to work really closely with people in a small group setting.
0:03:09.63 → 0:03:48.03
In a way that allows for a level of intimacy akin to one to one coaching over the long term. So I really do get to know you and everything that you are experiencing and struggling with and give you that one to one support, but in a small group setting over a six month period. So if you are interested in working with me and you're ready to really invest in that longer term high level support, definitely go and cheque out all of the details and the link to apply, which is in the show notes. Okay, the second quick announcement is just to share the featured review, which is my eyes are open. The on attachment podcast is fantastic.
0:03:48.11 → 0:04:09.06
I had some understanding of attachment styles, but I wanted to find out more about myself, my partner and friends and family. I'm definitely anxiously attached and have realised that after a few moments of conflict, my partner is an avoidantly attached person and I am hoping to work on myself. I'm on the weightless field programme. I really want my relationship to work and your information, tips and guidance is really giving me lots to work with. Thank you.
0:04:09.08 → 0:04:34.50
Stephanie, thank you so much for that review. I'm so glad that you are finding the show to be a supportive resource in understanding yourself and your partner better. That's always great to hear. If that was your review, you can send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into these five principles for a healthy nervous system.
0:04:35.19 → 0:05:17.49
So, the first one that I really want to get out of the way and emphasise is having a healthy nervous system is not about being calm or relaxed all the time. I think that this is a misconception that we can have that once you reach some place of having a regulated nervous system or being really grounded and having that capacity, that you're just going to be like a Zen Buddhist monk all the time. That is really not the case. I think that a huge part of understanding our nervous system is understanding how beautifully fit for purpose it is in keeping us safe from threats, from danger in the world around us. That is what it's there to do.
0:05:17.64 → 0:05:51.17
So a healthy nervous system is not one that is just always at ease. A healthy nervous system is one that is flexible and adaptable and responds appropriately to the world around us. So that might mean sometimes mobilising you into a sympathetic nervous system response into fight or flight mode. That is not something that we need to solve for, it's just something that we need to channel intentionally. So the problem is not that sometimes you feel stressed and sometimes you go into a stress response that is exactly as it should be.
0:05:51.23 → 0:06:30.28
It's just wanting to make sure that it matches the circumstances that we're facing. Where we really struggle and where we can get into unhealthy patterns is where we're responding as if we're being chased by a lion all day, every day and we are living with a level of chronic arousal or chronic stress or alternatively, chronic shutdown if we're in more of a dorsal vagal state. Again, if these terms are totally unfamiliar to you, definitely go and cheque out my episode with Sarah Baldwin a few weeks back. So just reiterating, it is not about being calm all the time. It is not about always being in regulation.
0:06:30.41 → 0:07:36.15
It is about understanding where your nervous system is at, getting curious about that, and then having the tools to move between states in a way that is adaptive and appropriate to the circumstances in which we find ourselves in our lives. Okay, so the next principle that I want to share with you on building a healthy nervous system is that we want to step towards discomfort incrementally. So a lot of more old school approaches to healing or to personal growth would have you kind of throw yourself in the deep end to really go to extremes of discomfort as a way to kind of shock your system into whatever effect you're looking for. But most trauma informed nervous system focused lenses or approaches to growth and healing would adopt a paradigm or a framework of taking steps that are uncomfortable but safe. So taking a more incremental approach to change or growth that is not within our comfort zone.
0:07:36.20 → 0:08:04.15
So it is stretching the edges of what is comfortable and familiar to us while also doing that in a way that isn't going to trigger a really strong protective response from your system. So to break that down a little bit, if we do something that is so far outside of what is known and familiar and comfortable to us, then our system is going to launch into a protective response. Again. That's not a problem, right? That's just your body keeping you safe.
0:08:04.49 → 0:08:33.61
That's what it does all the time and that's what it's designed to do. So the problem is, sometimes when we go to extremes of discomfort that are so far outside of what is familiar to us, we can actually trigger a really strong, kind of snapback response, almost like getting a rubber band and just pulling it apart too quickly. And then it's going to pull back in a very pronounced way and very quickly. Right. It's going to snap back.
0:08:33.73 → 0:09:07.32
So rather than doing that and pushing it to too much of an extreme where it's either going to snap or have an elastic response back, we want to stretch it slowly. So can I take a step that is uncomfortable but safe rather than uncomfortable and unsafe? So what does this look like in Practise? So an example might be if you're someone who really struggles with setting boundaries in relationships and you struggle with that in romantic relationships. You struggle with setting boundaries with a parent at work.
0:09:07.45 → 0:09:44.00
All of these different settings feel really vulnerable for you to set boundaries and you have a lot of fear and self protection around that. Setting a boundary with a family member, so say setting a boundary with your mother might feel like the top rung of the ladder and so we're not going to go straight to that, right? That's not going to be safe for your system. It's going to be uncomfortable and unsafe in all likelihood because it's just too much too soon. So can we find a way that you could set a boundary in a much more low stakes, contained environment so that you can teach your system through show rather than tell that it is safe to do that?
0:09:44.10 → 0:10:12.01
Okay, just 1% or 2% outside your comfort zone and we want to clock those easy wins so that your system will go, okay, I can do that. That was uncomfortable but I survived. I didn't die. The worst didn't happen. So we want to kind of run these controlled experiments to build up this body of evidence that we are able to do something that is uncomfortable rather than taking the risk and doing something that we really can't control.
0:10:12.13 → 0:11:04.25
So really putting yourself out there in a relational context, whether that's romantic or familial somewhere that feels intensely high stakes and where you might get a response that confirms all of your worst fears and cements that as being something dangerous and unsafe. So we want to take steps towards discomfort, incrementally. So recognising that we do want to build our capacity by getting uncomfortable. Recognising that what our nervous system wants us to do will always be biassed towards what is perceived to be safe, which is what's going to be familiar and known but that's not necessarily in alignment with what we want for our lives. So always balancing this strong bias towards the familiar with wanting to experience things that are uncomfortable but ultimately safe.
0:11:04.33 → 0:11:52.14
Okay, the next principle that I want to share with you is to treat your nervous system as a daily self care practise. Now I know that people can have a bit of an eye roll around self care and think that it's all about kind of bubble baths and lighting incense. That's not really what we're talking about here. It's more that can I cultivate a daily or even moment to moment awareness of what is going on in my nervous system and can I be attuned to and responsive to that as part of building up a really strong and nourishing relationship with myself? Okay, so the reason that we want to do this is a because it's so pervasive that it is affecting you on a moment to moment basis whether you like it or not.
0:11:52.19 → 0:12:31.20
So you might as well be aware of it and be working with it rather than ignoring it or totally shut off from it. But also that it's going to be much easier to build up a baseline level of regulation to build up your capacity, to build your window of tolerance. It's going to be much easier to do that with a framework of daily care and maintenance rather than a reactive approach of firefighting or constantly feeling like we need to down regulate when we're in a stress response. So I always get asked by people, how do I regulate when I'm triggered? How do I regulate when I'm in conflict?
0:12:31.23 → 0:13:05.61
How do I regulate when I'm freaking out and panicking? And of course that is something that we want to know how to do and there are plenty of tools for that. But we don't want to always be waiting for that, right? We don't want to let ourselves get to this peak stress response all the time and then have to go in as a firefighter and try and put out the flames. Ideally, we'd be catching ourselves as we start to notice activational stress and finding ways to really give ourselves that day to day care and maintenance.
0:13:05.79 → 0:13:47.65
It's like any other aspect of health, right? We would much rather take a preventative approach and weave in these daily practises of overall well being rather than having to go to the emergency room all the time to fix things once they're broken or once they're in a really acute state of stress or ill health. So the next principle I want to share with you for cultivating a healthy nervous system is to remind yourself and emphasise that you have choice always. Okay, so what do I mean by this? Our nervous systems love choice and they really don't like feeling like they don't have choice, like we don't have choice.
0:13:47.81 → 0:14:19.07
So this is why whenever you feel trapped or cornered or powerless, you are going to experience a big fear response in your body. And again, that makes sense, right? Of course we would. If we are as animals feeling like we're cornered and panicked and we don't have any choice and we're running out of options, we're going to go into a really fearful, stressed state. The trouble is that oftentimes we have that perception when it's not true.
0:14:19.14 → 0:14:59.91
And that might be a legacy of an earlier time in our lives when we didn't have choice or when we didn't feel like we had choice. Maybe as children that's for many of us we will have memories of being a child, whether they're conscious memories or more implicit memories of being a child and having certain fears. And we didn't have many options on how to deal with those fears at the time. And that experience of having no choice, of having no options, of being powerless can linger in our bodies and in our nervous systems into adulthood. And so we can respond to situations as if we don't have choice, when really we do.
0:15:00.00 → 0:15:46.53
So in building up your nervous system capacity, it's so important always to remind yourself right here, right now, I have choices, I have options. I might not have all the choices in the world, I might not be able to always do my most preferred thing, but I have choices and I have agency and I have options available to me. And so reminding ourselves of that and certainly as part of this, not wanting to perpetuate anything around self blame of shaming, forcing ourselves of criticising ourselves, of making ourselves do things in a really punitive way. Now, as a little side note, that is not to say that we can't have self discipline. If you know me and my work, I'm all about self discipline.
0:15:46.58 → 0:16:05.83
But to me that is something that we gift ourselves rather than something we punish ourselves with. So reminding ourselves we have choice, I have choice, I have options. I don't need to force myself to do anything. I don't need to force myself to go to a party that I don't want to go to. As soon as you feel forced, you are going to feel stressed and anxious.
0:16:05.93 → 0:16:56.03
So reminding yourself that you have choices, you have options, you have agency. Of course those choices may have consequences, but you also get to choose what path you take. And just offering that reminder to your nervous system in itself will create a lot of ease and space in your system where otherwise there might have been a sense of panic or feeling trapped or feeling powerless and the stress that comes with that. Okay, the last principle for a healthy nervous system, the last tip is build out a toolkit of resources for different states of your nervous system for different contexts, different environments, different emotional experiences, different triggers. Build up the toolkit so that you have before you this full banquet of options that you can draw from at any given moment based on what you need.
0:16:56.10 → 0:17:31.24
Now, this one could be a whole episode in and of itself. It could probably be several episodes in and of itself. This is something that I teach in healing, anxious attachment and it's consistently the thing that people walk away going, wow, this really changes everything because I feel so much more empowered to soothe myself through those moments. So rather than just panicking and clutching at other people, needing something from someone in order to feel okay, we can go, oh, okay, I'm feeling really activated. I have a lot of sympathetic charge in my nervous system.
0:17:31.29 → 0:18:00.71
I have a lot of anxious activated energy. What do I need? And having five to ten options of things that you can go, okay, I know that when I'm anxious, these things help. So maybe that's going for a walk, maybe that's getting sunshine, maybe that's going to the gym and getting a good workout in, maybe it's some sort of movement dancing or shaking or beating your chest or doing any sort of thing that allows you to process some of that mobilisation energy. All of those are great options to have.
0:18:00.78 → 0:18:47.34
And the more that you can put together a list that makes sense for you and your life and your preferences and your body and the way that your system works, the more you have that at hand to draw. From whether you are at work and you feel stressed or you're on a date or you're at home and you haven't heard from someone and you're starting to panic, you can go, okay, what do I need in this moment? What's the thing that works? Because your ability to think of a solution when you're in that state might be hampered by the fact that you're in a stress response. So having kind of done the legwork prior and already figured out what works for you, then all you have to do is execute on the thing that you've already planned for and that is really, really helpful and really, really supportive.
0:18:47.40 → 0:19:09.52
So building up a toolkit for when I'm in a stress response and I'm feeling really anxious or when I'm in more of a dorsal response and I feel totally flat, unmotivated, hopeless. I feel like I can't even respond to an email. I'm so completely devoid of energy, I'm not even here in my body. What do I need when I'm in that state? Maybe I need to have a nap.
0:19:09.55 → 0:19:22.73
Maybe I need a hot water bottle. Maybe I need to lie with my dog. Maybe I need to go for a short walk. All of these different things that we can just look at and go, okay, what do I need? What might help me right now?
0:19:22.77 → 0:20:19.38
Maybe a warm cup of tea. But just having those things to hand rather than trying to come up with a solution in the moment is going to be so, so supportive for you in building that healthy nervous system. And of course, as I said in the third point, we don't want to just be doing these as reactive or kind of firefighting practises when we're already dysregulated. We also want to have a toolkit for what we do every single day to consistently be banking some money or filling up the tank in a way that feels really nourishing and restorative rather than running the tank dry and then having to do some sort of emergency response. So all of the things that help you on a day to day basis to feel grounded and supported and safe and connected and creative and loved and all of those beautiful things that contribute to our overall well being and that are so grounded in our nervous system.
0:20:20.71 → 0:20:48.67
Okay, so I hope that that's been helpful. To quickly recap those five principles were healthy nervous system is not about being calm all the time. It's about being able to move between states and feeling like we are kind of in control of that system. The second principle was to take steps that are uncomfortable but ultimately safe. So we want to incrementally stretch out our comfort zone rather than going to extremes and then having a big protective response.
0:20:48.85 → 0:21:30.58
We want to treat our nervous system regulation as a daily practise of care and maintenance, rather than running the tank dry and having to go into emergency mode. We always want to emphasise choice and remind ourselves that we have options and we have agency and we want to build up a toolkit for all of our different states, for different contexts, for different emotions, for different triggers. So that we feel equipped with a plan and we really feel empowered to, again, be kind of in the driver's seat of our experience rather than feeling like these things are happening to us and we don't have any control over it. So that was five principles for a healthy nervous system. I really hope you enjoyed this episode.
0:21:30.64 → 0:21:56.99
As always, I am eternally grateful for those of you who leave reviews, who leave ratings. As I mentioned last week, you can now leave little comments on Spotify for specific episodes. So if you're listening to this on Spotify and you want to give me some feedback for a given episode, then please do that. Underneath the episode description, it should be relatively easy to find otherwise. Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again later in the week.
0:21:57.06 → 0:22:18.69
Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much.
0:22:18.81 → 0:22:21.38
Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.