What is nervous system regulation?
Your nervous system is constantly working in the background, without you having to think about it. On one hand, it supports activity whether you are anxious and preoccupied, enjoy exercising, dancing, or getting really excited! On the other hand, your nervous system also supports rest, recovery, digestion and healing. How your nervous system shifts states—how you weather stressors, ups and downs— is based on how your nervous regulates itself.
Signs your nervous system might be struggling with stress and trauma-related responses
- Your alarm system is overactive, or stuck “on.” You feel edgy, jumpy or chronically bracing for something bad to happen. A sudden sound might make you jump, or a crowded room feels overwhelming.
- Your body holds the stress. You constantly feel tense, tight, even pain, and unexplained fatigue.
- You feel the need to prepare for worst-case scenarios. Your thoughts persistently expect and anticipate negative outcomes.
- You don’t remember things. Or some memories show up unexpectedly out of nowhere.
- You don’t know how to rest or relax. You may have a racing heart even while seated. Perhaps you feel frozen, unable to act when stressed. You feel exhausted even after resting.
The above may indicate that your nervous system struggles to recover from stress by balancing activity and rest, both of which we all need.
Many individuals in NYC seek therapy with me for anxiety and/or depression. More closely examining what makes up such conditions in the individuals I support, often complex trauma responses are in the mix. Many adult children of immigrants I support have grown accustomed to being high-achieving, in spite of: underlying chronic fear, self-criticisms, self-rejection, traumatic shame in addition to conflicting fight/flight/fawn/freeze responses.
Many individuals I see learned to endure stressors in childhood such as: financial insecurities, lack of safety at home, abuse and/or neglect. Some took on responsibilities at an early age that parents with limited language skills couldn’t navigate themselves, where feeling stressed and overwhelmed are familiar, chronic states. Some have also experienced bullying, social alienation and racial discrimination for many years.
How Somatic Therapy supports nervous system regulation:
If you’ve learned somehow to disconnect from your body, somatic therapy can help rebuild your connection to physical cues and sensations in the body, making it easier to recognize stress before you become totally overwhelmed.
In somatic therapy, you may be asked:
How are feelings of anxiety showing up in your body?
What are the sensations you are noticing?
If you weren’t fidgeting, what might happen instead?
What shape, gesture or movement does your body want to make?
Other inquiries will guide you to deeper understanding of how emotions may move through your body.
When your stress responses have become activated in some fashion, often the body remains tense long after the events have passed. Somatic Therapy will support you to pay attention to patterns in the body and gently support release. With greater body awareness, gentle movement, mindfulness, and grounding exercises, Somatic Therapy aims to support you in learning to reduce activated states and return to a calm.
There are many ways to shift out of physiological arousal into a more neutral baseline. As your practitioner, I will guide you in ways tailored to suit your nervous system. Over time, many individuals I work with share how they don’t spiral into old patterns as much and bounce back more quickly.
Emotions are experienced in the body. Many I see who have endured adverse childhood experiences found strategies not to feel, where feeling emotions were too overwhelming, confusing and certainly not supported.
Somatic Therapy can support noticing emotions in the body without immediately avoiding or reacting to them, which can be as gentle and slow of a process as you need. In this fashion, you will be supported to build tolerance for what’s felt challenging, gaining confidence over time, while also improving emotional capacity.
So often, individuals I support have struggled with boundaries. After growing up in environments where there weren’t boundaries, how could you possibly have had any opportunity to learn them?
Sometimes the therapeutic work needs to first address what the obstacles are to you setting boundaries. And then, if you’re up for experimenting with saying no, being aware of and asserting your needs, you may find how helpful boundaries can be! Time and again, I hear how clients feel less anxious and safer, after becoming more accustomed with setting boundaries.
A primary goal of Somatic Therapy is helping you, your body and nervous system recognize moments of feeling safer. Learning to recognize physical cues with feeling calmer, more connected and relaxed helps to shift you out of stress and trauma responses, instead into states that support healing.
5 books emphasizing body-based wisdom, learning to reset your nervous system and heal from trauma
Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma by Gail Parker
The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color by Natalie Y. Gutierrez and Jennifer Mullan
When The Body Says No by Gabor Maté
Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body by Peter Levine
Body-first Healing: Get Unstuck and Recover from Trauma with Somatic Healing by Brittany Piper
