Why You Cannot Heal with a Heightened Nervous System
You cannot heal from a heightened nervous system!!
I’ve spoken a little previously about how stress affects our body + nervous system, and how that can result in cfs/me + burnout
The problem is stress causes an inflamed + heightened nervous system. But we aren’t always aware it’s happening or able to stop it. Our body becomes stuck in the Fight-Flight-Freeze response (this is our 𝗌𝗒𝗆𝗉𝖺𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗍𝗂𝖼 𝗇𝖾𝗋𝗏𝗈𝗎𝗌 𝗌𝗒𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗆).
The sympathetic nervous system is what kicks into action when your body feels unsafe or threatened.
When your stress is consistent this means you have constant adrenaline + cortisol running through your body.
When the body is in this constant 𝗌𝗒𝗆𝗉𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗍𝗂𝖼 response it has a knock on effect to the rest of your body. Four major problems this causes are :
1.Stops normal hormone production,
Pulls blood away from the digestive system,
Stops a healthy sleep cycle,
Prevents our natural healing + repair, cleansing and energy/nutrient creating functions
If our body can’t repair it cannot heal.
To allow any form of healing, growth, change or expansion to occur you must first focus on bringing your body into what’s know as rest + digest mode (𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗌𝗒𝗆𝗉𝖺𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗍𝗂𝖼 𝗇𝖾𝗋𝗏𝗈𝗎𝗌 𝗌𝗒𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗆).
In this state your body feels safe, and is able to rest, properly digest food and absorb nutrients + heal.
Our bodies are powerful self healers, but even this cannot occur in stressful periods. So whether you are wanting to initiate some form of growth or change yourself, or support your body to heal itself, the process is the same.
So how do you get your body into it’s parasympathetic nervous system?
Well the first step to being able to remove your stress triggers is first knowing where your stress can come from.
Once you know where your stress comes from (because every single person sees and feels stress differently - one persons stressful situation may not phase another person in the slightest) then you can begin focusing on ways to support your nervous system, promote rest, digest + 𝖧𝖤𝖠𝖫
As well as having a bunch of tools on hand that you can use to find balance and recenter yourself when stressful situations start to occur.
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Ways to support the nervous system + promote rest + healing
As there are many forms of stress for the body to deal with, so are there many ways and approaches to reduce stress and bring you back into the parasympathetic nervous system and help your body to feel safe. These include :
Mentally-
Having a mindfulness practice to notice when you are stressed.
Time in nature.
Walking with no stimulation or just music.
Cut out the coffee + alcohol.
Meditation is wonderful for 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 kind of stress.
Time in nature + grounding.
Using adaptogenic herbs.
Adjust how you plan + make realistic to do lists.
Learn to say NO so you aren’t always overwhelmed by your schedule.
Physically-
Breath work, yoga, gentle stretching.
Nutrient dense foods.
Removing toxins, heavy metals + pesticides from your environment, food, drink + products you use.
Massage, Reiki + physical touch.
Meditation.
Get better sleep.
Time in nature.
Walking.
Eat lots of gut friendly foods + focus on healing gut ho + digestive issues.
Cut out refined sugar + learn to eat to balance your blood sugar.
Emotionally -
Time in nature.
Walking.
Journalling + getting to know yourself better / understanding your stress.
Working on processing past trauma / your childhood.
See a councillor or therapist.
Find ways to remove or detach from your stress trigger situations.
Work on getting to know yourself better + what you truly want for your life / what really matters to you.
Energetically -
Work on feeling safe, knowing who you are and liking yourself exactly as you are.
Massage, Reiki + physical touch.
Meditation.
Time in nature.
Walking.Start working on removing and releasing all the things that you don’t love, don’t bring you joy.
Use mindset tools to start changing your narrative about what you deserve + what your body’s capable of — YOU DESERVE TO BE HEALTHY!!
Environmentally -
Removing toxins, heavy metals + pesticides from your environment, food, drink + products you use.Cleanse your home, work space etc.
Spend more time in nature + outside.
Every tool doesn’t work for every person. You need to find the ones that work for you
Give it time —don’t expect something to work overnight, it can take a couple of months to see real results… don’t let that add to your stress
Don’t give up —if one thing doesn’t work there’s still plenty of other options out there for you that WILL work
Focus on the long game —None of these things will magically heal you on their own. But by taking these first steps you allow your body to use its own healing process + take the first steps to your recovery.
xo Emily
