Befriending your nervous system for ease and control
by Françoise Gallet, coach & facilitator (with the wordsmithing help of Perplexity AI)
August, 2025
In today’s fast-paced world, feeling overwhelmed or chronically stressed is not uncommon. Our nervous system — especially the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which includes the sympathetic (“fight or flight”) and parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) branches — plays a key role in how we react to stress. Learning to regulate your nervous system can support greater resilience, ease, and well-being.
Understand your nervous system
Our nervous systems chief job is to keep us safe. It does this by calibrating the body’s levels of arousal, ensuring we have energy and bodily resources (hormones, oxygen, blood) where and when needed to survive.
If we detect a threat (a car rushing towards us or a snake in our path) our ANS engages its sympathetic branch, and all resources are mobilized to ensure we can fight or flee. We don’t need to think too much about this. Rather, it’s better we act instantaneously and automatically, without forethought.
When the threat to our physical safety has passed, the parasympathetic branch kicks back in and we move from a sympathetic state of fight, or flight, into a parasympathetic state of rest-and-digest. At this point our capacity for higher-order thinking comes more fully back into play and we may think things through, learn, and make meaning, from the experience.
This is a brilliant way to ensure our physical survival.
The ‘bug’ in the system
The problem is that our nervous system isn’t very good at distinguishing between a threat to ‘self’ (a threat that is literally life threatening) and a threat to ‘sense of self’ (psychological threats to our emotional or social ‘self’ — like a sense of failure or a loss of social status).
Even imagined or remembered threats can trigger a full-blown stress response. This is why social anxiety, worry, or trauma can leave your body feeling as if it’s under physical attack, even when you’re perfectly safe. Both types of ‘threat’ activate the same biological pathways.
This can lead to strong reactions to things that aren’t physically dangerous, such as criticism, rejection, conflict, or even sights and smells that trigger memories of physical danger. To our nervous system, the experience feels just as serious and so it responds automatically. So, in response to a psychological threat, you might:
- Fight: Confront the danger.
- Flight: Try to escape.
- Freeze: Shut down or feel unable to act.
- Fawn: Try to please or appease others if you feel threatened socially.
These automatic responses maximized survival in our ancestral environment, where threats to our social standing or group membership could be just as deadly as physical threats.
But when it comes to modern-day emotional and social threats, these automatic reactions can be associated with what we call overwhelm. Because, quite literally, in the heat of an intense emotion, a part of the brain called the amygdala takes over and the ‘thinking brain’ — our pre-frontal cortex responsible for empathy, logic, problem solving, and impulse control — temporarily disconnects from the amygdala and for the most part, goes ‘offline’.
Instead of meeting our psychological challenges by drawing on our higher-order capacity for thinking and learning, we become reactive and act in ways that can be unhelpful.
Life has inevitable
ups and downs
But being human is about weathering life’s inevitable ups and downs. After all, we all face what we perceive to be social and emotional threats — a critical boss, a loved one’s illness — or we might make a mistake and fail at an endeavour. So, understanding this unique wiring can be empowering. Once you know that your nervous system may ‘overreact’, you can learn how to better regulate it, increasing resilience and responsivity in the face of perceived psychological threat.
Because when optimally aroused, our nervous system beautifully affords us the physical and psychological balance to meet these challenges. At thrivelife, we draw on Dr Dan Siegel’s model of the Window of Tolerance (WoT) to describe this state of optimal psychological and physical arousal.
Living life from
your Zone of Resilience
It feels good to be in in our WoT. When we’re in this zone, we can think clearly and regulate our emotions. We are approachable and socially engaging. We’re better able to make good decisions. We feel as if we have more control, or a greater degree of choice, over our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
But this doesn’t mean that we don’t experience a range of emotion in our WoT. Depending on the situation, we might be more excited and more energized or calmer and sleepier. We can also experience stronger emotions, such as joy, sadness, wonder, even anger or grief. However, when we are in our WoT, we have these emotional experiences without being completely overwhelmed or shutting down.
Tracking your sense
of wellbeing and threat
Knowing about the WoT helps us track, recognize and understand our physical and emotional responses to stressors. We can also learn strategies for expanding the WOT — strategies that help us befriend our nervous systems and self-regulate.
Self-regulation techniques are grounded in body awareness. So a simple way to begin doing this is with a practice we sometimes call body scanning/tracking or energy mapping. It involves regularly checking in with yourself to notice your current energy or arousal state.
You might wish to check out the Insight Tab above for guidance on how to do this.
Getting stuck outside our WoT
Learning to check-in on your state of arousal is especially helpful because, at times, we can all get bumped out of the WoT.
Flipping your lid, flying off the handle, losing your cool… We’ve all had an experience where our ANS tips us out of WoT in response to an emotional or social stressor. Luckily, when this happens, our ANS will do its best to return us to our WoT.
But sometimes, we can get stuck outside of our WoT. When this happens, our nervous system becomes chronically dysregulated, and we can experience frequent and ongoing symptoms of over-arousal or under-arousal.
Understanding overwhelm
Over-arousal or hyper-arousal is characterised by overwhelming feelings of anxiety, anger, agitation, fear, frustration, mania, or feeling ‘on edge’ or ‘on high alert’. It’s an experience of being out of control. Physiologically, we may even experience trembling or shaking, rapid and shallow breathing, headaches, nausea, muscle tightness, indigestion, or changes in vision and hearing.
Likewise, when we are stuck in under-arousal or hypo-arousal, we experience intensely distressing or overwhelming feelings of low energy like ongoing lethargy, exhaustion, burnout. We may feel lonely, numb, checked out, depressed, hopeless and the absence of motivation, perhaps not even wanting to get out of bed or becoming uninterested in activities of daily life.
The practice of body tracking helps you notice whether you’re overly activated (anxious, restless), under-activated (sluggish, numb), or within your WoT — the state where you feel balanced and able to handle stress effectively. Noticing where you are on your own ‘wave’ of arousal, means you can also learn to steer yourself back into balance.
Learning to steer
back to balance
Because, there are also many self-regulation techniques that you can get familiar with and then, in time, draw on if you start to feel as if your energy is moving too high, or too low, or you are close to getting bumped out of your WoT.
In the Practice Tab, we offer a guided Grounding that can be helpful if you’re needing to lower (down-regulate) your nervous system’s level of arousal. And, from movement and exercise to breathing techniques, the Insight Tab, has practical guidance on these techniques. Alternatively you might be interested in our resilience training.
After all, these techniques are best learnt experientially and practised. As you get familiar with them, you can more readily draw on them.
Why is this useful?
The more real-time recognition and understanding of your stress and energy patterns that you can bring to your day-to-day life, the easier it becomes to catch shifts in your energy state early. This can help you sidestep meltdowns or burnout.
Additionally, learning to actively bring yourself into your optimal zone, affords more resilience in the face of daily stress.
For most humans navigating the pace of life’s demands, this is an essential skill. But perhaps more importantly, befriending your nervous system is a way of meeting yourself with kindness and care. And, a world with more kindness in it, offers the promise of greater ease for us all.
Insight is the place where we prompt you with questions, or offer activites, to catalyse your own ah-ha moments. You can try these activities before musing on the information we share in our blog. Or after.
Self-regulation – a self-reflection
Any self-reflection or insight practice is often best done by:
- Setting aside some quiet time.
- Being curious about what you discover, as best as you’re able.
- Being gentle with yourself, rather than harshly critical.
- Allowing insight to emerge in its own time, rather than striving for answers and solutions.
How does Body Energy Tracking work
Body Energy Tracking/Scanning or Mapping is self-regulation technique grounded in body awareness. It involves regularly checking in with yourself to notice your current energy or arousal state.
The Three-Step
Body Energy check-in
1. Pause and notice: Take a moment to turn your attention inward. Notice physical sensations (like muscle tension, heart rate, or fatigue), your emotional state, and the pace of your thoughts.
2. Label your state: Ask yourself:
- Am I energized or depleted?
- Am I calm or agitated?
- Do I feel present or disconnected?
You could try to describe your state as “high energy” (a lot or too much energy), “low energy” (not enough energy, shutdown), or “just-right” energy (optimally regulated).
3. Repeat Regularly:
Practising this throughout the day helps you become more attuned to your body’s signals and strengthens your ability to respond before you become overwhelmed or shut down.
Body scanning
to make a shift
1. Move your attention: Like a flashlight beam, move your attention from head to toe, noticing areas of tension, discomfort, or relaxation. You’re tuning into the field of sensation in the body and looking for bodily cues of your energy state. Is your breathing fast or slow? Are your muscles tense or loose?
2.Label your energy state: Ask yourself:
Am I in a “high energy” state (a lot or too much energy), or “low energy” state (not enough energy, shutdown), or optimally regulated (just-right energy)?
3. Prepare to shift: What’s needed now – a little more energy or a little less? Once you identify your current state, you can choose a regulation strategy:
- If you’re over-energized (or hyper-aroused), try calming techniques like slow breathing, grounding, or gentle stretching to down-regulate.
- If you’re under-energized (or hypo-aroused), try energizing actions like brisk movement, upbeat music, or cold water to up-regulate.
Self-regulation techniques
to down-regulate
These are helpful when you’re stressed, anxious, tense, or in hyper-arousal:
- Slow, deep breathing: Practise slow exhalations (such as extending your exhale), which activates the parasympathetic rest-and-digest system.
- Getting present: Engage your senses by noticing your environment. Try the 5-4-3-2-1 technique (five things you see, four you can touch, three sounds you can hear, two scents you can smell, one taste that’s available to you).
- Gentle movement: Slow yoga, stretching, or gently shaking out tension helps release stress while calming the system.
- Warmth and comfort: Take a warm bath, drink a warm beverage, or wrap up in a blanket for a soothing effect.
- Soothing scents: Soothing and calming smells (like lavender or chamomile) can help cue relaxation.
- Soft sounds or music: Listen to calming, slow-tempo music, nature sounds, or guided relaxation tracks.
- Social soothing: Spend time with someone who makes you feel safe, or cuddle a pet to promote calm.
Self-regulation techniques
to up-regulate
Use these strategies if you’re feeling tired, numb, spaced out, or disconnected (hypo-arousal):
- Movement and exercise: Brisk walking, jogging, jumping jacks, dancing, or even a quick stretch can elevate heart rate, increase blood flow, and boost alertness.
- Energizing breathwork: Try activating breaths such as the Bellows Breath (full and deep inhales and exhales through the nose. On the outbreath, contract the belly to ‘force’ the air out of the nose).
- Cold exposure: Splashing cold water on your face, taking a short cold shower, or stepping outside into cool air can provide a quick jolt to increase alertness.
- Uplifting music: Listen to fast-paced, rhythmic, or your favourite music to encourage movement and mental uplift.
- Social engagement: Interacting with an energetic or supportive friend, or joining a group activity, can raise energy through positive social contact.
- Vocal techniques: Singing loudly, humming, or chanting stimulates the Vagus nerve and can raise your energy state.
- Invigorating scents: Use stimulating essential oils (like peppermint or citrus) to awaken the senses.
Connecting with a felt-sense of resilience – a practice
Resilience is a multi-faceted skill set. One aspect of which is the capacity to self-regulate — to notice and navigate our inner world and to read the state of our nervous systems.
This practice is called Grounding.
Practising it over time, helps you become more fluent with scanning the body for sensations — the visceral cues that give us indicators about the state of our nervous system.
In particular, Grounding as a practice invites you to focus your attention on sensations of support or steadiness.
Giving these sensations a bit of time and space can help support a greater sense of inner ease and steadiness.
And, becoming increasingly familiar with this practice, helps you access the benefits of Grounding in everyday life — sitting in a meeting, or in a bus or even standing in a queue at the shops.
In small micro moments, you’re cultivating a sense of being a little more centered and stable in everyday life.
So, in small, incremental ways that you have direct control over, you’re nurturing a sense of inner resilience.
Self-regulation vs. emotional regulation:
Although self-regulation and emotional regulation are closely related terms, they’re not the same — each plays a distinct role in how we manage stress, impulses, and reactions.
Self-Regulation:
- Broad scope: Self-regulation refers to the ability to monitor and adjust a wide range of internal states and behaviors — including emotions, thoughts, physiological arousal, impulses, and actions — to meet personal goals or adapt to changing circumstances.
Body and mind: It involves both physiological (nervous system arousal, heart rate, energy state) and psychological processes (attention, motivation, behavior).
Example: When you notice you’re getting hungry and decide to take a break to eat (rather than getting irritable), or when you feel overwhelmed and use deep breathing to calm yourself so you can stay focused.
Narrower focus: Emotional regulation is specifically about identifying, managing, and responding to your emotional experiences in healthy ways.
Tools and techniques: This might involve strategies to increase, decrease, or maintain certain emotions, such as reappraising a stressful situation, soothing yourself when anxious, or expressing joy in an appropriate context.
Example: When you practice mindfulness to accept feelings of sadness without acting impulsively, or when you reframe a setback (cognitive re-appraisal) so you feel less frustrated.
