You’re not imagining it.
The irritability. The tight chest. The shallow breath.
The way everything feels just a little too loud, too urgent, too much.

This isn’t just “stress.” It’s your nervous system quietly calling for regulation.

While most of us are taught to manage our thoughts, few of us are taught to care for the system underneath them and the part of us that decides whether we feel safe, grounded, and emotionally available… or stuck in survival mode.

And if your nervous system has been running on high alert for years. From trauma, overstimulation, anxiety, or chronic over-responsibility, it doesn’t just bounce back on its own.
It needs tending.

What Your Nervous System Actually Does

Your nervous system is the control centre for your body’s responses.
It decides how you react to life whether you feel calm, connected, frozen, hyperalert, or shut down.

You have two main branches:

The sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight): helps you mobilise, protect, act.

The parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest): helps you calm, connect, restore.

When you live in a state of chronic stress; emotionally, mentally, or even digitally, your body often gets stuck in “on” mode.

This creates:

Constant tension

Digestive issues

Insomnia

Emotional reactivity

Hormonal disruption

And sometimes, total shutdown or burnout

It’s not in your head. It’s in your system.

Science Note

Polyvagal theory, pioneered by Dr. Stephen Porges, shows that the vagus nerve is central to how safe or unsafe you feel. When stimulated, it shifts the body out of fight-or-flight and into calm and connection.

What a Reset Looks Like (And Feels Like)

Nervous system healing isn’t about bubble baths or productivity hacks.
It’s about safety. Slowness. Signals that tell your body: You don’t have to fight anymore.

These might look like:

Breathing slowly, with longer exhales: activates the vagus nerve and lowers cortisol.

Humming, singing, or gentle chest touch: vibrational input stimulates vagal tone.

Cold water on the face or wrists: research shows cold exposure helps reset stress responses.

Weighted blankets or body scans: increase a sense of physical safety.

Grounding practices like barefoot walking, stretching, or lying on the floor.

Saying no: protecting your bandwidth tells your nervous system it is safe to slow down.

Nature exposure: time outdoors has been shown to reduce sympathetic activation and improve heart-rate variability (a key measure of resilience).

It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing less intentionally.

A Nervous System That Feels Safe Changes Everything

When your nervous system feels regulated, your whole life starts to soften:

You sleep more deeply

Your digestion improves

Your emotional reactions slow down

Your hormones stabilise

You feel less overwhelmed by everyday life

And most importantly: your body begins to trust again.

That’s when the healing deepens. Not because life gets easier, but because your body feels safer navigating it.

Science Note

A 2021 study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that training heart-rate variability (HRV) — a marker of nervous system flexibility — improves emotional regulation and reduces anxiety. Practices like paced breathing and biofeedback are powerful tools for this.