12/02/2022
How to calm the mind and help the body in times of stress….
⚡️How you can start regulating your nervous system in a stressful situation ⚡️
1. Start bringing awareness to present moment, so you can recognize when you're having a fear reaction.
2. When you're having a fear reaction – check where and how you're feeling it? Probably it starts from spiraling thoughts that make you feel unwell in your body too? You can also assign a number for the intensity (from 1-10, 10 being the highest) to see the difference after regulating your nervous system.
3. When you recognize the stress/fear reaction and your spiraling thoughts, start to bring awareness to your body. Labeling your emotion can help to dissociate from the feeling and calms you already a bit, you can also say out loud where in your body you're feeling it. "I feel anxiousness. I feel tightness in my chest."
4. Instead of forcing yourself to think something else (this is called top-down approach), start bringing focus to your breath (this is called bottom-up approach). Intentionally start to take deep belly-breaths through your nose, pay attention and feel how your belly rises up and goes down. You can first couple times breathe out through your mouth to let the stress flood out, then change to nose-breath, which activates the parasympathic, rest and digest, nervous system.
5. To calm your nervous system even more, you can double the lenght of your exhalation. Eg. 4s in – 8s out.
6. After a while of focused breathing, check how you feel? What is the intensity of the feeling you're now feeling (from 1-10), compared to how you felt in the beginning?
Be patient when you start with nervous system regulation. As any "skill", it takes time for you and your body to develop the resilience within your nervous system! Would be especially important to intentionally practice nervous system regulation, also when you're not experiencing strong stress reactions. Try to bring yourself to present moment on a daily basis. Take time to breathe intentionally 5-10 mins per day (e.g. with the double length exhale. Try out cold immersion, it calms down the nervous system. Gargle, humm, etc! More tips in the resources I share in the next post.
