5 Tools to Help Regulate Your Nervous System

A note from Dr. Jen: Neurowellness is about to explode in a big way and I, for one, am happy about that. If you don’t know much about the topic, don’t worry: I’m going to be covering it a lot in Today’s Ajenda. That starts today, with our guest author, Maris Pasquale Doran, a psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker.

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Here’s the good news. Most of what I am about to recommend, you are already doing throughout the day, or it is pleasant enough that adding it feels like a gift rather than a chore. Now you have the extra nudge, because it turns out it’s good for you. (As well, a regulated nervous system does not require staying calm all day. It requires the tools to notice activation and bring you back.)

Let's begin by describing the landscape. The autonomic nervous system has two branches. The sympathetic branch is our fight-or-flight system, and the parasympathetic is our rest-and-digest system. They don’t work exactly like a seesaw, but that image is helpful for our purposes. When the sympathetic branch fires up, we are in threat response, and one way to cool it down is to activate the other side.

The goal is not a nervous system that never activates. The goal is one that activates, adapts to the moment, and then cycles back to a regulated state. Think of a pot of water on the stove. When our burner stays on without ever fully cooling, the water is much more apt to boil over with any added heat. Many of us have not turned our burners off in days or decades. Regulating through the day turns the burner down, and with repetition, it trains the whole system to cool.

Start with your breath

The breath is the most powerful tool you already carry. You are breathing all day anyway, so make it work for you. Take long, deep breaths, all the way through the belly with even longer exhales. This is not the condescending "take a breath" someone tosses at you mid-argument. This is science. Our brains are in a continuous and cyclical conversation with the body and read it for cues, so labored or held breath signals danger, while slow breath signals safety and tells the fight-or-flight system that it’s safe to relax.

Scan your body for tension

While you are breathing, notice where the tension sits. The usual hot spots are the jaw, neck, and shoulders. Breathe into them and let them soften. Traffic and arguments do not require a clenched stomach or raised shoulders, and releasing them sends your brain that same message of safety.

Ground yourself in the present

Feel your feet on the floor and your back supported, and identify what you sense. Describe what you see, smell, hear, and touch to maintain focus on the moment. Activation is threat-detection mode, so the brain is busy scanning what just happened and what might happen next. Even our remarkable human brains struggle to do that and fully receive the present moment at the same time. This tool is useful in a period of overwhelm as well as in routine practice. Smelling the soap in the shower, tending a garden or a small bonsai, and rubbing a stone from your own yard or a favorite vacation spot create small pleasures. They also train you to be mindful. They make presence more available to you when it is hard, not as a distraction but as a direct signal to your nervous system that you are safe.

Name the feeling

When we put words to a feeling, we take some power back from the threat response and create a little distance from the pattern. For example, saying to yourself or out loud, "I am feeling anxious," helps you notice and identify the emotion rather than being blindly driven by it. We activate the thinking brain and remove some of the power of the amygdala.

Co-regulate with a friend

Sharing your overwhelm can help loosen its grip. A friend's calm voice, facial expression, and presence pull you gently toward your own regulation. Hugs work! Being held by someone who is calm and steady when you are frazzled or emotional can create the safety to release your emotion and to regain your own steadiness. I will caution that sharing the experience and ruminating together are not the same. A friend can still validate, agree, or even experience the emotion with you without being in heightened activation. If your friend stays regulated, they can ground you. If they activate alongside you, the two of you will spin in tighter loops.

Know when to get extra support

I advise you to talk with a professional about your own situation, because what helps one person may be the wrong approach for another. Focusing on the breath when you’re anxious about your breath may backfire, and breathwork with a trauma history can be activating. If a parent or partner spent years minimizing you with "relax, take a breath," it may take some gentle reframing to approach it as a tool. Approachability is key because these tools are meant to be easy and accessible.

My strongest recommendation

Practice and then notice your own tension, your own reactions, your own responses, and what seems to work for you. Spending even a few minutes right now engaging in these steps can provide a nice activation for your parasympathetic system. And remember, the study of one, of yourself, is one of the strongest predictors of a successful outcome.

Photo by Danielle St. Laurent

Maris Pasquale Doran, LCSW, is a Columbia-trained psychotherapist, former Columbia University faculty member, and midlife specialist with 20 years of clinical experience supporting individuals as they navigate identity, stress, and value exploration. She is a speaker, a New York Times bestselling author, and the founder of Midlife Mothers: Pause. Reset. Reclaim.™ Learn more.

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