Self-regulation during challenging times

One of the most powerful and easy-to-access tools to help the whole body-mind system in challenging times is to self-regulate the nervous system. Our nervous system is the link between our bodily reactions, our mind and our feelings. While the embodied reactions to stress and crisis are often automated, this does not mean we could not help our body to find back to balance and safety.

The poly-vagal theory suggests that the human body has evolved to react to danger in one of these two ways: with agitated bodily functions (to either fight the danger or escape it) or with downgrading our bodily functions (to save energy or to freeze). These reactions evolved long ago to help us survive attacks by dangerous animals and other life-threatening situations. Nowadays we rarely encounter life-threatening situations, but our nervous system has not learned a new way to cope with stress or crisis.

The number of impulses and information that we deal with from day to day is a stress factor in itself, not to mention the global crises that we face today. Discrimination such as experiences of racism can also be a continuous stress factor. Practising these methods can be combined with active citizenship; the idea is not to shut society away and only concentrate on personal experiences and our own bodies. While it is extremely important to tackle and diminish racism and other forms of discrimination in societies, it is also wise to feel better while we are doing it.

In addition to the two ways to react to danger, the nervous system has a third stage: a stage of safety (also called the stage of rest and digest). When humans feel safe, their nervous systems support the functions of health, growth, and restoration. In this stage, it is easy to interact with others without feeling or expressing threat or vulnerability.

The three basic stages of the nervous system are:

1. “Rest and digest”
   • Also called social engagement
   • In this stage you feel safe, peaceful and ready for interaction
   • It is possible to focus, interact and take action. Situations as well as one’s own feelings seem manageable
   • It is easy to think, work, play, create, and take care of yourself
   • This is the optimal stage of activation: peaceful, yet ready for action
2. “Fight or flight”
   • This stage is also called mobilisation or sympathetic stage
   • In this stage, your body is reacting actively to an experienced stress or danger: your heart rate and breath are agitated, you might feel more emotional than usual, you might experience varied embodied reactions such as sweaty hands, tension in the shoulders, constricting feeling in the throat or chest area
   • Typical reactions to this stage are sleeping difficulties, hyperactivity, stress, difficulties in concentration and calming down
3. “Freeze”
   • This stage is also called the immobilisation or dorsal vagal stage
   • In this stage your body is less active. You might feel tired and numb: you don’t experience as many feelings or emotions as usual. Thinking and concentrating are difficult.
   • For this stage it is typical to want to retrieve from activities and social encounters. You might feel depressed or even mentally paralysed

The body restores stress and past traumas, which can affect the state of the nervous system even today. This means that in addition to the circumstances of the present, the different stages can activate according to the learned reaction styles.

How to activate “rest and digest”?

With simple bodily exercises, we can alleviate stress reactions (past or present) and bring our nervous system back to feeling grounded. What makes regulating the nervous system so powerful is that while we work with the body, the exercises will in fact send a message to the brain about increasing safety and permission to relax, and this will also affect the mind and emotions at the same time. Also, these exercises given in this chapter are designed to bring the nervous system back to “rest and digest” stage no matter which stage you are in now.

When we work with people, the skill of calming your own system down becomes even more crucial. This is not only because working with people includes more stressful impulses to the nervous system than many other work fields, but also because our own bodily state reflects the people around us. If we know how to bring safety to our own system, the people around us can mirror this and use it (often automatically) to regulate as well. While these skills can be learned and utilised through all ages, mirroring embodied safety is especially valuable with children and teenagers who are in the process of learning the tools to self-regulate and create safety for themselves.