Calming the Body

Are you looking for a trauma therapist to help you bring calm to your body and mind? Nervous system regulation has become a huge buzz word in mental health circles. You’ve probably seen a Tik Tok or reel about it recently. But what is it?

Well, let’s start by talking about what the nervous system is. Your nervous system is made up of your brain, spinal cord, and nerves. It basically runs your brain and body in the sense that it tells the brain and body what to do. Your nervous system uses something called neuroception that constantly scans the outside world for danger (is this person safe? or are they going to hurt me?) and it also uses something called interoception (what am I feeling emotionally? or what sensations am I noticing?) that scans internal signals within the body. These things happen without your conscious awareness. It’s just the way your body was made – to try to keep you safe and alive!

There are two primary parts to your nervous system – the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS reads signals between your brain and spinal cord to help you move, think, and feel. The PNS is made up of two parts: the somatic nervous system (helps with movements you are aware of) and the autonomic nervous system (which guides activities that you are unaware of).

In the autonomic nervous system (ANS), there are two more parts that are a part of it – your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS). The SNS gives you the energy you need to fight or run away. When your SNS is activated, blood flow is diverted away from your organs and digestion to your arms and legs to get you moving. Your body begins pumping cortisol and adrenaline into your blood stream, and all of this happens automatically, without thought. It’s a part of your body’s survival system!

Let’s take the scenario that you think you see a poisonous snake. Your body immediately jumps into gear and gets your body ready to move. You run to safety and realize that it was only a stick. Your body (with the aid of the PSNS) begins to calm itself and your heartrate and breathing return to normal. You may even laugh at yourself! The SNS is only meant to give you a burst of energy to get you to safety.

Trauma can affect us a little differently if we don’t have resources for repair. When you experience trauma, your body can stay in an activated state especially if you are still living in what we call “little t” traumas (although I don’t like that word because what trauma is ever little?!?!). These types of traumas can happen when they don’t technically meet the definition for “Big T” traumas that are considered life-threatening. Things like bullying and emotional abuse may be considered “little t” traumas, but they have a profound impact on our brains and bodies. Repeated exposure to this type of trauma can cause more harm than “Big T” traumas; and in addition, many people do not receive the care, comfort, or support they need when they experience them. It’s kind of like a snowball that keeps getting bigger the more you roll it in the snow.

All these experiences affect the way your body operates. One way that the body communicates is with the vagus nerve which is the longest cranial nerve in your body running from your head all the way down into your organs. The vagal nerves are a part of the parasympathetic nervous system which have fibers that send information to the brain from the body and from the brain to the body. This is why it’s important to have good vagal tone which helps to regulate systems in your body like your heartrate and breathing to bring you back to a state of feeling safe and able to connect with others.

So, nervous system regulation doesn’t mean that you are always in a state of calm because that would be no one ever! It’s more like you can feel intense anger or deep sadness and come back into a calm regulated state where your breathing and heartrate return to normal levels. Nervous system regulation allows you to increase your emotional bandwidth without being overwhelmed and going into a state of hypervigilance or complete shutdown. Regulation with a good vagal tone means that you move up and down between states of sympathetic activation and numbing out, but you can return to what is known as ventral where you feel safe and are able to socially engage with others. The more you come back to a ventral state, the more you can train your body to come back to it after feeling intense emotions. This comes from being regulated from our earliest attachments, but that’s a different article for a different time. I’ll sum it up to say that those who had healthy attachments with their primary caregivers are usually able to regulate their emotions easier than those who had insecure attachments with their primary caregivers. However, being in an unhealthy relationship can alter emotional regulation patterns over time even if you grew up with a healthy attachment system. To learn more, click here.

1. What are some ways to practice coming back to that calm and collected state? One way is mindfulness or noticing. Mindfulness/noticing is coming back to the present moment without judging yourself. It looks at right here, right now and can begin by focusing on your God-given breath. What sensations do you feel? What emotions are you noticing? What thoughts are you having? If you need help with breathing, click here to learn the 4-7-8 method.
2. Another way that people of faith find helpful is to meditate on a Scripture – like one that reminds them God is with them as they do some deep breathing and noticing how they feel as they speak those words out loud.
3. Staying connected to healthy people who we know want to be with us, engage us in our interests, and are responsive to our needs keeps us in a state of ventral because when we feel safe, we have less stress.
4. Last, but not least, laughing and singing also stimulate the vagus nerve to activate the parasympathetic nervous system to calm us.

There are lots of ways that you can train your brain and body to come back into a ventral state; but sometimes, the stress response has been activated for so long that you need help to rewire what was formed initially as an adaptive trauma response. Overtime, that trauma response has become unhealthy and is affecting you in the present. Everyone needs help sometimes so don’t hesitate to find a good therapist who can help you to regulate your nervous system and allow your body the space it needs to heal.

Cleveland Clinic. (2023, November 11). Nervous System. (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/21202-nervous-system).

Kase, R. (2023). Polyvagal informed EMDR: A neuro-informed approach to healing. W. W. Norton.