It seems like everywhere you turn these days, there’s someone telling you that a dysregulated nervous system is the cause of your problems. It’s the reason you tend to get overly emotional, feel “stuck” in anxiety and stress, have decreased immunity, and don’t wake up feeling refreshed.
Interested in learning more? Check out The Parasympathetic Breakthrough to Restore Balance and Stop Overreacting.
“The nervous system is one of our most important systems for living a rich and full life,” explains Mandy Flanders, a somatic and nervous system coach and DailyOM course creator. “It is our threat-detection system, but it’s also the system in which we seek pleasure, safety, connection, and attachment.” In other words, it matters a lot.
Meet Your Teacher: Mandy Flanders
Flanders was catapulted into her healing journey after finding sobriety, becoming a mother, and recovering from toxic mold poisoning. It was only when she began addressing trauma, the autonomic nervous system, and her well-being that she was able to find true transformation. “I know what it’s like to be captivated by autoimmune conditions, depression, anxiety, and even addiction,” she says.
More than a decade later, Flanders is a certified natural health practitioner, doula, yoga teacher, reiki master, and trauma-informed and -trained practitioner. “Now I know what it’s like to live a liberated life,” she says. “Everyone deserves to feel pleasure, joy, and hope. Everyone deserves to know how to manage their emotions and feelings.”
What Is the Body’s Autonomic Nervous System?
Your body’s autonomic nervous system (ANS) reaches all of your visceral organs and extremities, Flanders says. “It tells our organs what to do, without needing our awareness or active participation. It communicates with the body via a nerve highway that runs from the brain to the body, and the body to the brain,” she explains.
According to Flanders, there are two main circuits in the ANS: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). “The SNS is designed to help us mobilize in the event of a threat,” she says. “The PNS has two branches, the ventral vagal complex (our attachment-seeking system) and the dorsal vagal complex (which is about self-protection).” More on that below.
Key Things to Know About the Autonomic Nervous System
- The body is extremely perceptive. Per Flanders, 20 percent of information taken into the ANS goes from brain to body — and a whopping 80 percent from body to brain. “This means that we feel things before we think about them,” she says.
- The ventral vagal complex is, in fact, complex. This is what everyone thinks of as “regulation,” but it’s more fluid than that, says Flanders: “It’s really about connection, safety, flow, peace, ease, and all the other yummy experiences we like to have.”
- The fight/flight/freeze responses are part of the ANS. These are actually three different nervous system responses with different functions, Flanders explains.
- Fight and flight belong to the SNS. “When we hear a threat, we experience a flight response first,” Flanders says. “If our nervous system determines we cannot run from the threat, then our fight response will come online.”
- Freeze precedes collapse. “If our system determines we cannot fight, then we might freeze,” Flanders says. “If the threat feels life-threatening, then the nervous system will collapse.” Note that the freeze response involves both the SNS and PNS, while collapse is PNS territory.
- Your nervous system is always doing its job. According to Flanders, “Even in dysregulation, the nervous system is doing exactly what it is designed to do: keep us alive and protect us.”
- No one’s system is ever perfectly “regulated.” “Regulation is about autonomic flexibility, so that we can move in and out of protective states with greater fluidity,” Flanders explains. It’s not about never feeling stressed; it’s about moving through states of stress with greater ease.
Why Is Working With the Nervous System Important?
Nervous system regulation is extremely beneficial for our overall well-being, Flanders tells us. “It helps mitigate the stress response and reduce stress hormones, which has an obvious positive impact,” she says. “It can also help improve sleep, digestion, mood, anxiety, depression, and so on.”
The inverse is also true, she adds. “Many people who have autoimmune conditions have underlying nervous system dysregulation. I’m not suggesting that all diagnoses result from trauma, but nervous system regulation does contribute to a variety of ‘unwanted’ behavioral and cognitive symptoms, as well as physical, mental, and emotional symptoms. And when we get to the roots of these issues — often tucked within the nervous system — many of the symptoms disappear.” Flanders has seen this firsthand with many of her clients.
5 Benefits of Learning How to Manage Your Nervous System
The end goal of learning to manage your nervous system? “We just want to get our nervous systems wired toward connection and safety instead of threat,” Flanders says.
Some signs that your nervous system can use a little love include poor sleep, mood swings, hormonal imbalances, digestive issues, brain fog, depression, anxiety, overreaction, feeling triggered, and poor executive function, among others.
With that in mind, Flanders shares the biggest benefits of actively working with your nervous system — which she says requires a variety of tools, such as somatic and experiential exercises — for your overall well-being.
1. You’re more in control of your emotions.
Although we can’t control the responses our nervous system might elicit, we have the power to intervene earlier, Flanders shares. “We can prepare our system when we know we’re going to be doing something or be exposed to something triggering,” she says.
By learning how to manage your nervous system, you’re able to navigate triggers and challenges with greater ease — and this includes being or feeling less emotionally reactive.
2. You build increased immunity.
Learning how to come out of stress responses has a positive impact on your overall immune health, Flanders says — and this is evidenced repeatedly in research. “This is huge because it can help prevent a variety of autoimmune conditions and even some cancers,” she adds.
According to a study, activating the vagus nerve — which is integrated in the PNS — produces an anti-inflammatory response by calming the nervous system and lowering the body’s production of cytokines (proteins that control the growth and activity of other immune system cells).
3. Your sleep quality improves.
This is such a big one, Flanders says. “So many of us have such a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep. When you learn more about your nervous system, you learn how to manage and discharge energy so that your body can get out of survival states and you can actually get better sleep, fall asleep more easily, and stay asleep for longer,” she explains. “You’ll also wake up feeling refreshed!”
It’s important to note that when poor sleep becomes a pattern, the brain is negatively affected, and impaired cognition, behavior, and judgment result, per a review.
4. You’ll naturally bring self-love into your decisions.
When you get to know your nervous system more intimately, you learn to “operate” from a place of empowerment, empathy, and compassion, according to Flanders.
And this leads to setting boundaries and making decisions from a more empowered place than a reactive place, she adds. “Boundaries are put in place out of self-care and self-love, rather than an ultimatum or punishment.”
5. You’ll be able to de-stress with more ease, thereby boosting your mental health.
Stress happens to everyone on a daily basis. “We all experience ‘surprises’ in our days, some more stressful than others,” Flanders says. “When our nervous systems are more regulated, we tend not to stay in stress states for extended periods of time; we tend to not get stuck there. Having regulation in our systems allows us to be with the stress as needed, and then to come out of it with greater ease.”
And science suggests that less stress has a significant effect on mental health. One review found that stress increases the activity of the SNS while decreasing the activity of the PNS, which can ultimately lead to depression.
The Bottom Line
Learning to manage your nervous system has the potential to change your experience of life. “Everything in your life can be different,” Flanders says. “We know that chronic stress and dysregulation can cause all kinds of health issues, as well as a variety of other issues. This work can shift those patterns and build a healthier foundation overall.”
There is no time like the present to become the CEO of your own life by learning to work with the shifts of your nervous system.
