300 — Why Your Nervous System Feels Broken and How to Reset It Without the Woo-Woo

On today's episode of Mentally Stronger, do you ever feel like your stress levels are so high that you're stuck in overdrive? Or do you just feel constantly like you're on edge, jumpy, or exhausted? If so, today's episode is for you. We're talking about regulating your nervous system, but we're going to separate some fact from fiction because right now social media is flooded with content about how to fix your nervous system and what to do if you're dysregulated, but much of the advice is outright false. So I'm going to share why your nervous system might feel dysregulated and the science-backed strategies that will actually help you address it. Because a lot of us are feeling like our internal wiring is a bit frayed right now, whether it's because of lingering effects of past trauma or just from chronic stress in today's world. There are things you can do to get some relief without all of the woo-woo weirdness you'll see on social media. Have you ever felt like life was falling apart, but you still have to go to work every day and hold it together? I've been there. When my husband passed away, I had to figure out how to keep showing up at work in the middle of my grief. But the strategies I share in my new book, The Mental Strength Playbook, didn't just help me survive. They helped me create the dream career I have today. And I know they can help you too. After six books in the 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do series, this is my first ever to-do book. It's packed with actionable plays to help you build mental strength where it's tested the most, the workplace. Whether you're dealing with difficult co-workers, feeling overwhelmed with life, or want help managing workplace anxiety, this book is for you. The Mental Strength Playbook hits the shelves April 28th. But if you pre-order now, you'll get instant bonuses, including the mental strength audit, negotiation playbook, and the full introduction. Head to my website, AmymoreinLCSW.com, or just click on the link in the show notes to pre-order the mental strength playbook and claim your bonuses. Welcome to the "I Can't Sleep Podcast With Benjamin Boster." If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the "I Can't Sleep Podcast." I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention. And then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcast. That's "I Can't Sleep With Benjamin Boster." Welcome to Mental East Changer. I'm Amymorein, psychotherapist, mental strength trainer, and an international best-selling author of six, Soon-to-Be-Seven, books on mental strength. You're listening to the Friday Fix Edition. Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength strategy that will fix the thoughts, feelings, and actions that can hold you back in mind. Now, let's dive into today's episode. So if you haven't heard, my seventh book is officially hitting the shelves on April 28th. It's called the Mental Strength Playbook. But I don't want you to have to wait until April to get the information. So if you pre-order the book right now from any retailer, I'll send you some bonuses right away. Just buy the book from your favorite store and then go to the pre-order bonus form to submit your receipt number. You'll get instant access to the entire introduction of the book, a mental strength audit to assess your mental strength, and a negotiation playbook and checklist, which will increase your chances of successfully negotiating any deal. Just click on the link in the show notes for more information about the mental strength playbook. Now if you're feeling like your nervous system has gone a bit haywire these days, you're not alone. This topic has become so popular on social media because people want relief. And that's what we're going to talk about today is the science-backed strategies that will actually help you regulate your nervous system. So first let's explain what your nervous system actually does. Your autonomic nervous system has two main parts. There's the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic is like the gas pedal. This is your fight or flight response. When you face a danger, whether it's a real danger or just something overwhelming like a stressful email, your sympathetic nervous system kicks in. Your heart rate goes up, your breathing gets faster, and your body is flooded with stress hormones. All of that is meant so that you can take action. Your parasympathetic nervous system is more like the brake pedal. This is your rest and digest state. It calms your body down, it slows your heart rate, and it helps you relax once the threat has passed. The problem is in today's world, a lot of us feel like the gas pedal is stuck to the floor all the time. It could be chronic stress from work or maybe it has to do with stress at home, financial stress, or just watching the news too often. Those kinds of things keep our sympathetic nervous system in a constant state of high alert. And even though we aren't in a constant life or death situation, our bodies respond as if they are. And when that happens, when your nervous system is dysregulated, you don't get enough time in your rest and digest mode. That can cause you to start feeling burdo, anxious, and physically exhausted. Being on high alert too often contributes to anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and a whole host of other mental health struggles. And of course it's hard to feel calm and happy when you feel like you're in a life or death situation. Your body needs time and the parasympathetic mode for healing, digestion, and overall recovery. And it's hard to think clearly when your nervous system is activated. When you're in a state of panic, it's not a good time to make any major life decisions. Your thoughts might be racing and even little decisions might feel almost impossible to make. You might have trouble sleeping and you're probably going to be tempted to reach for just about anything that would make you feel better right now, whether that's food, nicotine, drugs, alcohol. You name it. But when you actually find relief, when you learn how to regulate your nervous system, you start to feel safe in your own skin. Your relationships improve. Your mental health gets better. Your physical health gets better. And you'll finally breathe a sigh of relief because you can enjoy meaningful things. You'll like doing your hobbies. You'll find joy in spending time with friends. But contrary to what you see on social media, being on a high alert too often doesn't mean that your nervous system is broken or that you need somebody to perform some sort of magical healing exercise to fix it. This means you're stuck in survival mode too often and there isn't a single permanent reset that will fix it. Instead it's about taking small steps to get some relief. But I keep seeing these bizarre videos on social media. I don't know whether to call these people influencers or pretend energy healers or what exactly they are, but they do these videos where they're claiming that they're resetting someone's nervous system by touching their head or cracking their neck. If you see a video like that, it's not true. Nobody's going to touch your shoulder and heal your nervous system permanently. Some of these videos though that I see have millions of likes and followers and comments and it's clear that people are desperate for relief. That's not how you get it. But you can calm your own nervous system and figure out how to fix it on your own. Just be clear, there is healing power of touch, but it doesn't heal you forever. If you are going to use something like massage or raky, it could be part of your overall treatment plan, but you'd need it on an ongoing basis, not just a single visit with somebody. So let's focus on what truly works. I'm going to give you five practical science back strategies that you can start doing today if you want to regulate your nervous system. Number one is simply become aware of when your nervous system is dysregulated. You have to learn how to tune into your body and notice physical signs like a racing heart, shallow breathing or muscle tension. You might find your neck and your shoulders are sore often and you don't know why. Your muscles are tense because you're in this state of fight or flight. Notice your emotions too. Do you feel like you're irritable? Are you overwhelmed? Are you on edge? Take a look at your thoughts. Are you thinking lots of catastrophic things? Are you struggling with mental fog? Those can be clues too. And then look at your behavior. Are you fidgeting? Are you rushing through everything you're trying to do? Are you avoiding certain things? All of those things can be signs that you're in overdrive, but sometimes we get so used to being there that we don't even recognize it. So pause and ask yourself, if any of those things sound familiar. And if so, we'll walk through the steps to calm your nervous system. But first, let's pause right here for our only break, but don't go anywhere, 'cause when we come back, I'm gonna give you four more science-back strategies that will regulate your nervous system. Okay, we're back. All right, so step number one, must become aware of when you're in that fight or flight mode. Step two, take some slow deep breaths. Controlling your breathing is one of the most direct ways to take control over your nervous system. You can use your body to signal to your brain that you're calm. And when you do that, your brain suddenly says, "Oh, we're not in a life or death situation," and it will calm the rest of your body. Now, when you become stressed out, your breathing usually becomes shallow and rapid. And when you start breathing that way, kicks your brain into overdrive or in danger. So if you take some slow deep breaths, you signal to your brain that you're safe, and that activates your parasympathetic nervous system that break pedal that we discussed. Now, there are a lot of different breathing exercises, and if you have one you love, it probably works for you. But as a therapist, I have so many people that say, when I'm stressed out, I can't remember any of these breathing exercises that makes you count or that are complicated. So I started teaching people to smell the pizza. Now, this is a strategy I share my upcoming book, the Mental Strength Playbook. We've talked about it on the show a little bit before too, but I'll teach it to you right now. Imagine that you have a hot slice of pizza in front of you, and you're gonna smell the pizza. So you breathe in deeply through your nose for a few seconds, like you are smelling this delicious pizza pizza. When you get in all the way, just hold it for a second, and then breathe out slowly through your mouth, like you're cooling the pizza off before you take a bite. The trick is to make your exhale last just a little bit longer than your inhale. Do that a couple of times, and it can make all the difference. Research on diaphragmic breathing shows, it lowers your cortisol levels, reduces blood pressure, and makes your parasympathetic nervous system kick in. So do a couple of rounds of smelling the pizza. Step number three is to get exercise. When your body is full of stress hormones, physical activity actually metabolizes them. It's what your body was primed to do in a fight or flight situation. Move, right? But you don't have to run a marathon. Maybe you just take a brisk walk around the block, or you dance around your living room, or even a little bit of stretching could help. Movement releases endorphins, which have mood boosting effects, and that helps you work through that stress response cycle. Of course, one round of exercise won't permanently rewire your nervous system. But if you start exercising regularly, you'll actually feel like your nervous system is getting into shape too, right alongside you. I've worked with plenty of people who say, running or cycling help them with major anxiety or even panic attacks. So that's step three, step number four is just be mindful. Now, when we talk about mindfulness, it's not about clearing your head and emptying your mind or not thinking about anything. It's just about grounding yourself in the present moment. Because it's really tough to regulate your nervous system if you're rehashing something that happened last year, or you're worrying about something that you think might happen in the future. So just pay attention to the physical sensations around you. You might even do something like run your hands under some cold water and just notice the temperature and how it feels on your skin. Or step outside for a minute and pay attention to how it feels to have the breeze on your face. The goal is to pull your thoughts away from whatever stressing you out and just get anchored in the here and now. Basically, when you do this, you're signaling to your brain. In this second, I am safe. Okay, number five, which is my favorite. Do things calmly. Catch yourself behaving in a frenzy and then purposely slow down and act calm. Now, I work on this one because I often go through my day like I'm in a rush, even when I'm not in a particular hurry. Like I could be going for a leisurely stroll and if I don't get intentional, I'll start speed walking like my life depends on it. Even though I'm not really going anywhere or I'll rush through a task like cleaning the kitchen, like I have an emergency time limit. It's just a habit to hurry. And when I act like I'm rushed or I act like I'm in a frenzy, my brain and my body respond as if I really am. That doesn't mean my nervous system is broken though. In fact, it means it's doing what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to be on high alert when I'm sending it danger signals. When I'm rushing and hurrying, I'm essentially saying, we have to do this mad dash thing for a reason. But if I slow down and smell the pizza and move at a calmer pace, I instantly feel a lot better. My body and my brain calm down. So notice when you're frantic. Get intentional about moving a little more slowly and a little more calmly. If you find your speed walking through the grocery store, or you're folding laundry at breakneck speed, those things might save you like three seconds of your time, but you'll pay the price when you keep your body in high alert. So just focus on doing those things with a sense of calmness and feel what happens. You'll instantly feel your brain and your body start to calm down. So those are five things you can do to regulate your nervous system. Number one, become aware of when your nervous system is dysregulated. Two, smell the pizza, the re, get some exercise. Four, practice being mindful. And five, just slow down throughout your day. Now, practicing these things regularly is what will help you reset your nervous system over a time. And it will give your body more of the opportunity to be in the rest and digest mode. The goal isn't to eliminate stress or to stop your body from becoming in high alert. That's impossible. The goal is to just get better at hitting the brakes sometimes so that you can recover more quickly and that you spend less of your life living an overdrive. Thanks for hanging out with me today and for listening to mentally stronger. If you know someone who might appreciate hearing this message, share this show with them. Simply sharing a link could help someone feel better and grow stronger. And of course, I'd love it if you'd hit the subscribe button on your favorite platform so you can get episodes of mentally stronger delivered to you every single week. If you like the show, please leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. Helps us get to show in front of even more people. And if you want even more strategies to build mental strength, subscribe to mentally stronger premium. You get weekly bonus episodes where I answer your questions on mental strength and monthly extras like mental strength, cheat sheets and challenges, quarterly office hours, where you can meet with me one-on-one. To sign up, just click on the link in the show notes. And as always, a big thank you to my shows producer, who sometimes points out the speed at which I walk even when I'm not pressed for time, nick Valentine.