17 Completely Underrated Techniques for Regulating Your Nervous System
Article Published for The Reinvention Series — Written by Our Editorial Director, Casey J. Balon
Photo by Jernej Graj
What if we could support the health and function of our nervous system (and improve our vagal tone over time) by intentionally engaging in activities that are right in front of us?
Written by Casey Balon
(click here to read about Casey)
Welcome to The Reinvention Series.
By now, I’m sure you too have been flooded with online videos demonstrating somatic exercises, breathwork, cold exposure, and meditation practices — many of which do come from reputable practitioners. While some of these videos are a tad bit questionable, most of these techniques are valuable and, when integrated into our daily routines over the long-term, hold the potential to help us process our emotions and downregulate or upregulate the state of our nervous systems…
But what I believe to be a “missing link” in the important (yet somewhat-watered-down) nervous system conversation is this: There are a plethora of everyday activities that also support our ability to regulate — some of which I’m certain you already weave into your daily life.
While holistic healing can be layered and complex, it doesn’t have to be complicated. So let’s dive in…
Photo by Drew Dau
Creating access to underrated approaches for soothing our nervous system is important for 2 reasons:
#1) It bridges our perception of how we can move from where we currently are to where we desire to be (in relationship to feeling our feelings, navigating stress, developing emotional intimacy, and improving our vagal tone).
#2) It gives our logical mind a “valid reason” to prioritize restoration and play, and to make room for — or even luxuriate in — the simple activities that are right at our fingertips, as well as the ones we may already enjoy incorporating into our daily lives.
Photo by Uby Yanes
Let’s refresh with some basics:
What is our nervous system?
The human nervous system is the network responsible for communication, control, and regulation throughout the whole body. It is comprised of the central nervous system (the CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (the PNS).
It’s a Full-Body Conversation
“What unifies all the systems of the body — thinking, feeling, action, digestion, temperature regulation, metabolism, muscular force, muscular endurance, dreaming, waking, all of it — is the nervous system.” (Andrew Huberman, Neuroscientist and tenured professor at Stanford University)
At risk of oversimplifying things — the CNS consists of the brain and spinal cord, while the PNS consists of all of the communication running from the CNS to the body and from the body to the CNS.
The PNS branches into 2 divisions:
#1) The Somatic Nervous System, which is responsible for:
a) controlling motor function (reflex arcs and voluntary movements)
b) processing our senses (such as sight, smell, taste, and touch) as well as our sensory experiences (such as pain, temperature, proprioception, and touch).
In others words, the somatic branch takes care of motor output and sensory input. Afferent neurons carry sensory information from the body to the CNS, and efferent neurons carry information from the CNS to the body to initiate motor function.
#2) The Autonomic Nervous System, which is responsible for our involuntary physiological functions, such as breathing, digestion, heart rate, blood pressure, immune function, and sexual arousal.
Photo by Semen Zhuravlev
K — just a little more refreshment of the basics:
The autonomic nervous system can be further categorized into:
a) The “rest, digest, and restore” functions of the parasympathetic branch (also known as autonomic calming)
b) The “fight or flight” functions of the sympathetic branch (also known as autonomic arousal, or a hyper-aroused, mobilized state)
c) When we experience a deeply activating response to a perceived threat, our systems can also become hypo-aroused — shifting into what is referred to as a dorsal vagal state, often known as the “freeze” response, which is an immobilized state dominated by parasympathetic functions. In some ways, this can sound counterintuitive, as we most commonly associate parasympathetic faculties with restoration.
d) Additional nervous system responses to severe threats can include patterns such as “fawning” and “fainting”.
When we’re speaking about “supporting our nervous system health, flexibility, and capacity” or “regulating our nervous system”, we’re typically referring to affecting the function of our autonomic nervous system.
To gain a clearer visual understanding of the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system, you may desire to access the diagram and article linked here: ANS Balance.
(Another fascinating conversation point is that which includes the vagus nerve, ventral vagal state, and vagal tone… and we’ll definitely get into that a little bit below.)
Photo by Harper Sunday
An elegantly weaved, incredibly intelligent labyrinthine of nerves:
Why do we desire to regulate, affect, or heal the nervous system’s function?
This is somewhat of a loaded question, with a loaded answer.
Our nervous system does not exist in a silo. It is elegantly weaved throughout our body as an incredibly intelligent network of nerves that connect our central nervous system to our peripheral nervous system.
Our bodies are naturally designed to process information from the sensory world and respond. When something interferes with its intrinsic function, our ability to respond and return to homeostasis is impacted.
Photo by Averie Woodard
What leaves an imprint on such an exquisite bodily system?
Factors that can influence our nervous system’s ability to appropriately respond and then return to a healthy baseline (an optimal state of homeostasis) can include:
nutrition
medical conditions & injuries
genetic inheritance
generational patterns
neurodivergence
epidemiological factors
prenatal and postnatal health
chronic stress
microbiome health
the grieving process
childhood events and experiences, especially those we perceived to reflect our inherent sense of worth
our support systems and communities
our choices
our patterns in love, relating, and attachment
other forms of acute, chronic, and complex trauma
our current depth (and load) of emotional processing or subconscious reprogramming work
The good news? We can establish a new baseline, and a new normal.
Photo by Nataliya Melnychuk
Our cardinal capacity, our cardiac vagal tone:
What is vagal tone, and why do we care about it?
The vagus nerve (the “vagal nerves”) extends from the brainstem all the way down to the digestive system. This is the main nerve responsible for parasympathetic functions.
Vagal Tone refers to our capacity to respond to the stressors in our environment; it measures our cardiac regulation. It demonstrates our flexibility and adaptability (aka our ability to regulate).
Increasing vagal tone is not only valuable for our heart health and organ function, it opens the door for us to establish greater degrees of emotional fitness (and emotional fluency), gives us a greater degree of choice (by allowing more space for our responses to external stressors to be reoriented and retrained into new neural patterns, aka rewiring our neural pathways), and allows our system to enter states of restoration, repair, and true rest — all of which play a significant role in longevity, quality of life, and more.
If this article is piquing your interest, I highly recommend checking out our post on how longform conscious connected breathwork can affect our nervous system. **Once you’re finished reading the 17 ways to regulate down below, of course.
From the lens of an effective regulating practice such as breathwork, the piece provides a deeper context and understanding of the nuances of our nervous system function. You can find Part 1 here: Building a Responsible Context for Conscious Connected Breathwork.
Photo by Mike Von
17 Completely Underrated Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System:
What if we could support the health and function of our nervous system (perhaps even improve our vagal tone) by intentionally engaging in activities that are right in front of us?
1. Let’s begin with one of my favourite pastimes — reading fiction.
When our bodies get overstimulated or dysregulated, sometimes even slowing down to read can be difficult for our already overwhelmed system. Here’s a tip for creating a small gateway (or an opening) into the activity in a way that helps to downregulate our stress response: Open your book to ANY page. Your challenge here is to read at least 4 lines. You’re going to expressively read the lines aloud. Your aim is to be as performative, dramatic, dynamic, and obnoxious as possible here. Let the energy move through you.
2. Instant neurotransmitter release: hug your pet.
Take a moment to really be with them. Look them in the eyes (well hello, oxytocin, old friend). Remind yourself how spectacular it is that you get to share space with this glorious creature. I mean, you live in a house with an entirely different species. How cool is that?
3. Open your front door for 20 seconds and feel the fresh air on your skin.
(That’s it. That’s the entire hack.)
Photo by Klara Kulikova
4. Place a towel in the dryer for 10 minutes, throw your hair up in a ponytail, hop in the shower for a 2-minute quick dip, and then dry off under your gloriously warm towel.
5. If you’re not into tip #4, try it with your coziest blanket. Warm it up in the dryer, and cuddle up in it on the couch with some tea.
6. If your body needs to move (if you’re feeling stagnant or stuck, craving energy, or feeling so overstimulated that you need to mobilize yourself), try a full-body wring-out or shake out.
Begin by gently rotating your wrists and ankles, move up your extremities, through your hips, abdomen, and chest. If it suits you better, use a shaking motion. If you want the full practice, see “Tool #2” in our previous article: 8 Intuitive Ways to Soothe Your Nervous System While Traveling
7. Go for a walk specifically to watch the sunset.
8. Sigh aloud. 3 times.
Bonus Points: Release a sound — or tone — with each purposeful exhalation.
9. Water 1 of your plants. Just 1.
The mere act of reorienting to a moment of service is enough to create a micro shift in your state. Further yet, pat the soil. How’s she doing?
Photo by Luiz Felipe
10. Dance to 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
Can’t choose a song? Go with Shake It Off (Taylor’s Version). Let yourself sing, love. Sing. And if you’re not into T-Swift, get that Fleetwood Mac record playing on your turn table or put on your favourite Noah Kahan track on Spotify.
11. Find 2 items in your current living space that you enjoy looking at. Bring your attention to each of the items.
What features do they possess? What is it about them that draw you to them? What gives them beauty?
12. Pray.
Photo by Max Ducourneau
13. Turn all your tech off for the next 90 minutes.
Bonus Points: Take a nap. Take a warm bath.
14. Fully express into your voice recorder app. Voice journaling is everything.
You can either a) revisit your voice notes at a later time/date when you are intentionally processing (or seeking to understand your patterns and emotional experiences more deeply); b) delete them immediately after recording; c) leave them saved in your phone, never to be revisited again.
15. Walk to your spice cabinet or pantry, and smell three of your favourite spices, teas, or herbs.
16. Peel off your socks and get those bare feet on the ground.
Poor circulation or persistently cold feet? Try an alternative approach — put on your coziest socks or slippers, and ground those feet in some fuzzy warmth.
Photo by Martin Lopez
17. Ok, here’s the big one: Give yourself 90 seconds. For at least 90 seconds, grant yourself permission to loosen your attempt at trying to figure out what the story is (or why you’re feeling some type of way), and give yourself space to feel.
Sad? Cry. Frustrated? Cry, stomp. Angry? Scream into your pillow. Envious? Let the sensation move through, move you, orient you. Ashamed? Locate that part of your body and let it speak —let it move! (You are not bad. You are human.) And it’s ok to feel some type of way. So often we jump straight to tracking our internal patterns and changing our behaviours (and that’s wonderful), but we often bypass the essential and natural step of feeling before we rewire into a ‘new and improved’ physiological story.
It’s time for some free-feeling time, and it’s time for some self-compassion!
As best as possible, create a conscious and private container to completely unleash. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, but let it be real — even in the presence of just you and your Creator.
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Photo by Nicole Romanoff
Article Written by Casey Balon, Editorial Director of Casey Jacque
Casey is a writer & creative director based outside of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. With a heart for literary journalism, an appetite for adventure, and a spark for creating dynamic — and deeply collaborative — environments, her aim is to bring Genuine Voices back to the Creative Table. When she’s not carrying out an interview, or writing about Creative Vitality through the lens of the body, you can find her hiking with her dogs, regenerating with her fiancé, diving deep with dear friends, or exploring a new country.
Let’s Connect: Instagram @iamcaseybalon, e-mail casey@caseyjacque.com
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