Nervous System Regulation Techniques: Restore Balance and Calm
Feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or emotionally reactive can result from chronic stress, trauma, overwork, or simply the demands of everyday life. But remember, our bodies are equipped with powerful tools for healing. This post explores research-supported techniques for regulating your nervous system and addresses how to practice these skills independently, empowering you to take control of your well-being.
Understanding Nervous System Regulation: A Path to Relief
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates our body's involuntary functions, including heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, digestion, and more. The ANS has two main branches:
The sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) mobilizes us in response to threats of danger.
The parasympathetic nervous system (rest/digest) helps calm us down and supports digestion and healing.
When the nervous system becomes dysregulated, people tend to oscillate between feelings of anxiety and irritability. By consciously engaging intentionally in relaxation practices, we can support a return to balance, where we feel calm, connected, and safe.
Here are some simple exercises that will help you restore balance and bring calm energy into your body and life.
1. Grounding Through the Senses
Why it helps:
Grounding reorients the mind to the present moment and can interrupt a rumination cycle, often a precursor to increased anxiety.
Exercise: 5-4-3-2-1 Method
Name:
Five things you can see
Four things you can feel
Three things you can hear
Two things you can smell
One thing you can taste
Slowly, name textures, colors, and sounds. This simple sensory scan helps shift your nervous system out of fight-or-flight.
2. Orienting + Soft Eye Gaze
Why it helps:
When you scan your environment gently with your eyes, your brain receives the message: "I'm not in danger," which engages the parasympathetic system and reduces hypervigilance. You can not tell your body that it is safe; you must remind it that it is secure, and orienting helps remind the body that it is safe.
Exercise: Look Around Slowly
Sit or stand in a safe place. Let your eyes gently move across the room or landscape. Avoid staring or focusing; take in shapes, colors, and depth. Make sure to look all the way around and behind you. Let your breath slow. Be patient with yourself and enjoy the process, continuing for the amount of time needed for your system to downregulate. You may notice a breath or softening in your body, maybe even a yawn. These are all signs that your system is relaxing, sometimes called downregulating.
3. Extended Exhalation
Why it helps:
Exhaling longer than you inhale stimulates the vagus nerve, which signals to the brain that relaxing is safe.
Exercise: 4-7-8 Breathing
Inhale for 4 counts
Hold for 7 counts
Exhale for 8 counts
Repeat this 3 to 4 times. If the count is too long, shorten it while keeping the exhale longer than the inhale.
4. "Voo" Toning or Humming
Why it helps:
Vocal toning stimulates the vagus nerve through vibration in the throat and chest, helping regulate heart rate and promote a sense of calm.
Exercise: The "Voo" Sound
Take a breath in, and make a long "voo" sound (like a foghorn) on the exhale. Feel the vibration in your chest and belly. Repeat 3 to 5 times. Humming a favorite tune can have a similar effect!
5. Stand with Bare Feet on the Earth (Literally)
Why it helps:
Direct contact with natural surfaces—also called earthing—can reduce cortisol levels and calm the nervous system. It also provides proprioceptive input, grounding us in the body. Proprioception is our body's sense of its position and movement in space, sometimes referred to as the "sixth sense." Proprioceptive input is the sensory information the brain receives from the muscles, tendons, and joints. Anytime your muscles, tendons, or joints receive active input against gravity, you activate the proprioception system and receive proprioceptive input.
Exercise: Barefoot Connection
Stand or sit with your bare feet on the ground on grass, dirt, sand, wood, or water. Pay attention to the sensations in your feet and energy moving up into your body from the earth. Stay for 5–10 minutes, breathing gently.
6. Bilateral Stimulation
Why it helps:
Bilateral Stimulation involves rhythmic, alternating movements that engage both brain hemispheres. It is used in therapies like EMDR and can feel calming and be integrative.
Exercise: Butterfly Hug
Cross your arms over your chest so each hand rests on the opposite upper arm. Gently tap your arms, alternating sides in a steady rhythm. Breathe while doing this for a minute or two.
7. Cold Water on the Face
Why it helps:
Activates the mammalian dive reflex, reducing heart rate and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system.
Exercise: Splash & Breathe
Splash your face with cold water or hold a cold pack to your cheeks for 30 seconds. Follow with slow breathing.
These practices are techniques to help you calm down and ways of returning to a focused awareness of your physical self. When you learn to regulate your nervous system, you can reclaim access to your whole self and improve your capacity to respond instead of react, increase creativity, and improve your relationships.
Try incorporating one or two of these techniques daily and see how your nervous system responds. With time and trust in the process, your body will learn what being safe feels like, and you will gain vital skills to return to a calm state.
