Nervous System Healing Part 1: The 3 States of Your System
Did you know that the healthy balance of your nervous system actually has a HUGE impact on your energy, mood and digestion?
The first step to being an active operator of your own system is to actually understand each of your own nervous system states! Continue reading to learn about the 3 main modes of your own nervous system.
What does a Dysregulated System Look Like?
First, what does an imbalanced system look and feel like? Since every human is unique and holds experiences differently, there are a lot of different symptoms we can see with a dysregulated system. Some of these include:
General anxiousness, panic attacks
Perfectionism, OCD
High/low cortisol and hormone imbalances
Chronic fatigue, low moods and depression
Autoimmune or immune challenges and fibromyalgia
Irritability, rage or anger
Chronic digestive problems, SIBO, bloating
The Three Modes of the Nervous System
We have 3 main modes of operation that our nervous system flows between daily, from the time you wake up to when you fall asleep. Symptoms happen when we stop flowing easefully from one mode to another, and instead get stuck in a protective response. Here is a brief overview so that you can recognize your own states:
Ventral Vagal: Calm Alive State
This is the parasympathetic part of our nervous system, and you might know it as our rest-and-digest mode. I’ve heard it described as the ‘Calm Alive’ state, which is my favorite name for it! We want to be here most of the time. In this mode you may feel:
Connection with others and self
"I CAN do this"
Feeling grounded, present, alive
Aligned, focused and hopeful
Play, rest and digest
Normal functioning digestion, immune system and hormone production
Sympathetic: Stress Response
This mode is from the sympathetic part of our nervous system, and you might know it as part of our fight-or-flight mode. When we’re feeling unsafe, the Stress Response may feel like:
Feeling chaotic energy, hard to focus
"I HAVE to do this"
Anxious or angry
Panicked, fearful, worried
Want to escape
High cortisol and adrenaline, disrupted hormones
Dorsal Vagal: Trauma Response
This is also a branch of the parasympathetic part of our nervous system, it’s our energy conservation mode. It kicks into gear when there’s been too much too fast, or when anything has overwhelmed your system to an extent that it goes into a protective state. Here you will likely feel:
Immobilized
"I WANT to but I can't"
Chronic fatigue, burnt-out, no energy
Hard to complete tasks/ no motivation
Feel like giving up, depressed, low moods
Poor gut health and low immunity
Below is a diagram of the 3 modes:
As you can see from this diagram, there are different degrees and even blended states of our nervous system. The big difference between feeling open, happy and healthy is whether or not your system is feeling SAFE in the moment.
The big difference between feeling open, happy and healthy is whether or not your system is feeling SAFE in the moment.
So what exactly triggers our systems to go into one of these protective states, either Sympathetic or Dorsal?
We are Self-Protective Beings
Our body comes with it’s own pretty incredible threat-detection service. It’s called ‘Neuroception’.
Neuroception’s main job is to assess for danger. When this threat detector senses anything that has even a flavor of danger (based on a database of all our past experiences) it tells our nervous system to protect us by going into one of the protective modes: flight, fight, freeze or immobility shut down. It does this because our safety is of utmost importance to our nervous system (yep, our system really loves us that much!). :)
Once our nervous system goes into a protective state, we’re then using our limbic system (emotional part of our brain) to make decisions, not our rational brain.
Now here’s the really cool part: Neuroception also constantly scans our environment for safety. This is the BEST NEWS EVER!!! The beauty of somatic and body-based healing is that we’re able to use neuroception to help us heal and rebalance. When I work with my clients, one of the very first tools I teach them is a practice called ‘orienting’, in which we’re scanning our environment and finding things in our space that signal that safety back to them.
This is what makes embodiment practices so powerful. By providing a sense of felt safety to our body, we’re actually rewiring our system’s response to stress or trauma. And that’s where healing (whether physical or emotional) begins.
By providing a sense of felt safety to our body, we’re actually rewiring our system’s response to stress or trauma.
In the next blog post, I’m going to be talking about HOW to regulate your system after chronic stress, trauma or illness has dysregulated your system, so stay tuned!
Regulation is foundational to healing, no matter what physical health symptoms we’re addressing. But it doesn’t have to be complicated in any way. In the Stress Reset Program, I teach you exactly how to use somatic healing along with addressing your unique biochemistry with herbs and nutrition for deep healing after trauma, mood imbalances, digestive issues or chronic stress.
Book a free call with me to learn more, or shoot me a message on my contact page. I always love hearing from you!!
In Health + Wholeness,
Annika
Information in this blog post from:
Sarah Baldwin “You Make Sense” Course
Dr. Aimie Apigian’s professional training
Deb Dana’s books
Dr. Stephen Porges’ website
This information is being provided to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is being shared to provide general information and as a self-help tool for your own use. It is not to be substituted for the advice of licensed professionals of any kind. This information is to be used at your own risk based on your own judgment.