Nervous System Regulation Therapy - A Guide Beyond ‘Calming Down’
Stuck. This is the state most of our clients find themselves in when reaching out to us for somatic nervous system therapy. Stuck in patterns of anxiety, shutdown, exhaustion, emotional reactivity… The list goes on.
As if it weren’t enough, on top of that, there’s often a sense of frustration, helplessness and sometimes even guilt or shame for not being able to change them.
If you are someone who has already tried different ways to regulate your nervous system on your own, this may be especially confusing.
Rather than offering another set of techniques, I’ll explain what nervous system regulation actually is, why exercises help only to some degree and what else might be missing from the picture.
We’ll also look at how Somatic Experiencing provides nervous system regulation therapy beyond simply calming down, and what you can expect if you choose to explore this approach with us.
Understanding Nervous System Regulation And The Reasons You May Feel Stuck
When I had just learnt about nervous system regulation, it seemed simple: you learn the tools, they create a shift in how you feel in the moment, so you use them regularly. And while I still think this is important, this is just part of the picture.
Why Do I Still Feel Dysregulated?
If you’ve been asking this questions after trying to regulate on your own, here are a few possibilities of why you may still feel stuck in dysregulation:
Because nervous system regulation…
– is more than simply relaxing;
– often needs more than just exercises;
– depends on a felt sense of safety;
– can’t be forced;
– doesn’t happen in isolation.
Let us look at each of these points separately, starting by correcting one important misconception.
Regulation vs. Relaxation
What Nervous System Regulation Actually Means
Since conversations about the nervous system have entered the mainstream, regulation and relaxation have started to be frequently confused and used interchangeably, while they are not the same.
Regulation means having the capacity to move between activation and settling – getting mobilised when appropriate and being able to rest when needed. Being regulated does not mean staying calm all the time. It means having a flexible nervous system.
Relaxation, on the other hand, refers to settling or downregulation of the nervous system that connects us to the restful parasympathetic state. It is one aspect of nervous system regulation, not all of it.
Why Relaxation Isn’t Always the Answer
For many folks who are stuck in the patterns of hyperarousal, like persistent anxiety, high reactivity or insomnia (sympathetic fight-or-flight), introducing relaxation techniques offers a much-needed relief.
But for someone stuck in the hypoaroused state of numbness, fatigue, dissociation, depression, hopelessness (dorsal parasympathetic freeze or shutdown), a tolerable amount of safe stimulation or upregulation can help them move out of the protective dorsal vagal parasympathetic state.
The purpose of relaxation tools is to break the fixed pattern of high arousal in the moment. It can also be used for stabilisation, which is an important first stage of any trauma work. But this is not the end goal of nervous system regulation support.
How Somatic Experiencing Supports Nervous System Regulation
Different practices support different aspects of regulation. Some can help you relax or downregulate, for example, yoga nidra, restorative yoga, calming breathwork and many more. Others, additionally, focus on building nervous system flexibility and capacity. Somatic Experiencing (SE) is one such approach. It’s the body-oriented method we use to provide nervous system therapy that supports both immediate and long-term regulation.
Here’s how SE therapy addresses the aspects that are usually missing when you try to achieve regulation on your own.
Building Capacity for Regulation
Apart from helping you feel better, calmer and more relaxed in the moment, nervous system regulation, especially in trauma healing, also means reconnecting with your aliveness and strengthening the capacity to stay present with your experience.
If, so far, you have been focusing only on relaxation and calming down, it’s possible that you’ve been addressing only one aspect of regulation. Building capacity, the ability to stay present, recover and adapt, may still be missing, leaving you feeling stuck.
In Somatic Experiencing, this growing capacity is understood as expanding the ‘window of tolerance’, sometimes also referred to as the window of resilience.
As a result of trauma, our window of tolerance can get very narrow so that even mild activation can push us into overwhelm and dysregulation. While we can’t avoid activation and stress completely, we can teach our system to be less reactive using the SE principle of titration. It allows us to tolerate activation in small doses and build inner resilience, so we can ride the waves of activation rather than being thrown around or swallowed by them.
But before this can happen, it is important to understand that our experiences shape our nervous systems in different ways.
Why Self-Regulation Exercises Don't Always Work
When addressing nervous system dysregulation that has occurred as a result of chronic stress and trauma, we need to be aware of the complexity of the physiological traumatic adaptations.
Due to this complexity, even simple breathing and relaxation techniques, depending on a particular person’s physiological adaptations and circumstances, may sometimes feel more dysregulating than soothing. It means not all self-regulation techniques will work for everyone, not to the same degree or not all the time.
If you are wondering why self-regulation exercises don’t always work for you, this could be one reason. Choosing the most supportive technique depends on your unique system and its state in the moment. The challenge is that recognising it accurately on your own can be difficult when you’re dysregulated.
Because of these unique differences, variability and challenges, nervous system therapy through Somatic Experiencing relies less on following a fixed protocol or one set of exercises, but more on tracking the nervous system and meeting it where it is at any given moment. A qualified SE practitioner can guide you through this process, so you don’t have to figure it out alone.
Once we recognise the complexity and differences, we can look at what helps a nervous system change.
Building Safety in the Nervous System
Steven Porges, the developer of the polyvagal theory, emphasises the importance of safety in nervous system work:
“If our nervous system detects safety, then it’s no longer defensive. When it’s no longer defensive, then the circuits of the autonomic nervous system support health, growth, and restoration.”
Having said that, the concept of safety can be tricky for trauma survivors. Here I’m talking not only about objective safety that includes environments with enough predictability, choice, connection and rest, but also a subjective sense of safety. A person may know they are safe but not always feel this way.
If your body still reacts even when you are aware that there’s no objective threat, it means the nervous system may need help to learn and experience a felt sense of safety. Not just cognitively understand it.
Without repeated experiences of safety, your nervous system may struggle to update its expectations about what is dangerous and what is safe.
Resources and Co-Regulation
The Somatic Experiencing method works with whatever small, accessible sense of safety is available in the here and now, helping you experience it in your body. Connecting to these ‘islands’ of safety and goodness, also called resources or ‘glimmers’, is the foundation of any deeper nervous system work.
For someone with a history of early childhood adversity or developmental trauma, co-regulation is especially important. It is a natural way our nervous system learns safety in relationship with others. In therapy, a regulated presence of a practitioner becomes one of the resources that helps your nervous system experience safety before strengthening self-regulation.
Practicing Self-Attunement
Sometimes, nervous system regulation is understood as something that we ‘do’ to our system. But nervous system regulation is not about changing our state through effort, but about attuning to what is already there. Clinician and polyvagal expert Deb Dana calls it ‘autonomic listening’, which is linked to self-compassion – a ventral vagal property of the autonomic nervous system.
Every time we attune to our autonomic nervous system’s state with curiosity, non-judgment and understanding of its protective nature, we activate the ventral vagal parasympathetic branch and its regulating function.
On the other hand, when we try too hard to change the state we are in, paradoxically, we can end up getting more stuck. While wanting to feel better is completely understandable, attunement that supports a natural autonomic shift can be a missing ingredient of self-regulation work.
In Somatic Experiencing sessions, we practice attuning to our states by tracking bodily sensations and noticing subtle shifts that start to happen as a result – a sign that the nervous system is shifting out of the fixed state towards more connection and regulation.
Attuning to the body also helps us recognise what it may be asking for – rest, movement, nourishment, protection, connection, or distance.
Completion of what didn’t get to happen
As we cultivate and strengthen the internal felt sense of safety and practice attunement, the body starts to open up and reveal what is held inside, creating a possibility for an even deeper layer of nervous system and trauma healing.
In the context of chronic dysregulation and trauma, Somatic Experiencing helps to come out of the survival loop by allowing the body to complete “what wanted to happen but didn’t get to happen”. It could be an experience of successful fight or escape, vocal expression, protection, or safe connection with another human, to give you just a few examples.
This missing or corrective experience can be introduced through visualisation or somatic exercises and by following bodily impulses and movements and is usually guided by an experienced somatic therapist.
Nervous System Regulation Doesn't Happen in Isolation
Our nervous systems constantly interact with the environment and the conditions we live in. Sleep, nourishment, medical issues, hormones, relationships, and financial stress, among many other factors, affect our nervous system state and its capacity to regulate.
For someone who has been under a lot of pressure, sleeping poorly or recovering from a loss or an illness, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed and find it difficult to regulate. If this is the case, apart from supporting the nervous system through tools, exercises, or therapy, it is important to look at the small ways our basic needs can be met.
Small, manageable actions towards meeting your needs can go a long way and can make you feel more in control of your circumstances. What those actions could be depends on what you have already tried and your situation.
Sometimes, it can be as simple as creating healthy boundaries around your rest time, social interactions, work, etc. Other times, it may require specialist help to address your physical and psychological concerns.
When Nervous System Regulation Therapy May Help
There’s a lot of advice on the internet offering numerous ways to reset or rewire your nervous system.
If, however, after applying this advice, your dysregulation still feels too strong and unmanageable, consider reaching out for support. You don’t have to do it alone.
Different degrees of dysregulation require different types of support, which may include working with a licensed mental health professional. For some people, somatic nervous system therapy can provide co-regulation, guidance and a safe space that is difficult to create alone.
Somatic Experiencing, a form of somatic trauma therapy, is a naturalistic approach within this larger landscape. It bridges dialogue, mindful awareness and body-mind interventions, helping you gradually expand your capacity for regulation and build nervous system flexibility. If you feel drawn to it, you are welcome to take the next step with us.
Closing Thoughts
And just a final reminder that if you are stuck in a pattern of dysregulation, healing is not about fixing yourself. It’s about building a different kind of relationship with your nervous system. It is this relationship and connection that opens up possibilities for more aliveness, presence and more choices.
I'm Elena Jacinta, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and the founder of Back To Your Body, an online somatic therapy practice. At Back To Your Body, we support adults experiencing stress, dysregulation, relational and psychosomatic challenges through a body-oriented approach rooted in an understanding of the nervous system, trauma and attachment.
If you would like to explore somatic nervous system regulation therapy with one of us, please fill out the New Client Application form below. It will help us understand your needs, and if we seem like a good fit, you’ll receive a booking link to schedule your first short session to experience our process.
