Nervous System Healing
Hi, everyone! Today's topic is nervous system healing. This won't be a comprehensive one-stop shop on the nervous system. However, I do want to share, from my perspective, how I used nervous system healing in my burnout recovery journey, as well as how I use it with clients who are burned out and also how I incorporate the nervous system into the couples work that I do.
Resources on the Nervous System
I highly recommend several books on the resources page here. The book Burnout by Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Call of the Wild by Kimberly Ann Johnson, and some books by John Gottman, the couples researcher. Also, When the Body Says No by Dr. Gabor Mate. There's a lot of resources out there to learn more about the fight-flight-freeze-fawn trauma response and the nervous system. So again, not trying to be comprehensive or reinvent the wheel, but at least share my perspective on how I use it in, in therapy and how it helped with my burnout recovery journey.
Being a Highly Sensitive Person
Particularly I think one interesting piece too, is I consider myself a highly sensitive person, an empath and introvert. Those are not all the same things, but I do in fact, fit the criteria or the description for all three of those labels. So one part of being highly sensitive is that my nervous system and brain are wired to be able to pick up on very subtle things and to really soak in the energy around me. And that we can consider a super power. I'm certainly proud to be a highly sensitive person. But I know definitely there's been times in my life that it felt a little more like a burden than a super power in terms of boundaries, not soaking up negative energy, and so on and so forth. So as I was reading and learning about being highly sensitive and a lot of mindfulness techniques and anxiety treatment involve ways to calm the body and really focus on the nervous system.
Using Your Body to Heal
I just found it fascinating, especially with deep breathing, being such a shortcut to really signal to your brain that you safe and that you are calm. I just found it fascinating. I think I read somewhere that someone called deep breathing “the remote control for your brain.” The fastest way to just click a button and say, “it's okay, brain I'm safe, I'm calm” is by doing deep breathing. In the book Burnout, the authors talked a lot about completing the stress cycle and that typically involves physical movement, deep breathing, maybe co-regulating with your partner. Oftentimes just saying “I'm safe and everything's okay” either out loud or thinking those words is often not enough for our bodies. The verbal, just the words aren't really enough. And so you typically have to do something physical so your body knows that you're safe. So that has been a big part of my healing journey; that thinking affirmations or thinking positive thoughts, which I definitely do, but just realizing that wow, to truly heal from burnout and from some trauma related things that it was going to take incorporating the body whether it's deep breathing or pleasurable movement. But that really signaling to your nervous system to your fight flight or freeze response that you are safe and everything's okay.
Trusting Our Body to Protect Us
One thing I wanted to share about the fight flight or freeze response, and our body's system of keeping us safe is how frustrating it can be for some people. I know if folks have panic attacks or specifically PTSD or anxiety that sometimes it can feel really frustrating and annoying and feel like you want to tell your body to calm down. I just want to throw out some, self-compassion, some compassion for your body and for your system that even if you feel like it's overdoing it because most people don't want to have a panic attack before they take an exam or before they go to work or so on and so forth it really is your body trying to protect you and trying to keep you alive. So I try to have self compassion, even if I can feel annoyed for sure, but have some self-compassion that my body's really just trying to do its job. And it's there in my best interest. Your body's working for you and it's got your best interests at heart.
Nervous System in Couples Counseling
Next, let’s look at the role of the nervous system in couples work. When you think about your relationships, if you're a parent, relationships with your children, if you're partnered, your relationship with your romantic partner or really anyone, friends, colleagues. I learned this from John Gottman research that, you know, when your nervous system is activated when you're flooded with negative emotions, right, when your brain is flooded with fear or sadness or anger, that typically it floods the sort of lower lizard part of your brain, the survival part of your brain, you know, that's back here that kind of keeps you breathing and keeps your organs running. It kind of, you get, you get flooded with those negative emotions. And so you can go into the fight flight or freeze response of, you know, you feel threatened. Do you, you feel, you feel scared. You're not sure if you should yet fight and yell, should you like run away and get out of there? Should you just shut down and freeze like w and again, you do not consciously choose that by the way, your brain decides which of those avenues of fight flight or freeze that you are using to cope.
And so the thing, as far as couples are concerned is a lot of times when couples are new to therapy and they're describing, you know, how they fight or their cycle and how they interact with each other, usually it's one person kind of yells or blames and criticizes, and one person kind of shuts down or freezes up. That's not always the pattern, but that's atypical pattern. And again, the thing is your body is interpreting your loved one, being angry with you, disappointed with you, you know, sad because of something you've done. If you have disappointed or hurt your partner typically, especially if you love them and they really matter to you, it's registered in your brain as a threat, and your brain cannot tell the difference between physical pain and emotional pain. So if your partner criticizes you or you know, insults you, your brain can see that as a threat and you can go into fight flight or freeze mode. And so one thing that I recommend to my couples that I see is if you start to feel yourself getting flooded. And so you got to pay a little bit attention to your body, for sure, the physical sensations, you know, where do you notice it in your body?
It's really best to disengage with the other partner to really take a break and do what you can to regulate, to regulate your nervous system, to self-soothe to go back to baseline. And typically that takes at least 20 minutes. It takes at least 20 minutes to get your nervous system calmed back to a baseline. And that won't happen if you are directly engaging with your partner, it won't happen if you do, you know, you and your partner go into different rooms, or what have you. And you sit there and you think about all the comebacks or the things you want to say, or, Ooh, I'm gonna bring this up. I'm gonna bring this up. I'm going to remind them of this. I have this example, you know, if you're planning, if you're organizing a plan of attack that will not that will not calm your nervous system.
And so I do recommend when folks when clients are getting upset with each other to take a break, self-soothe regulate at least 20 minutes, if not, you know, a couple hours or a day. But then back when, when you both feel more regulated because as I was saying, your brain gets flooded with those negative emotions. And what happens is that then there's not really a lot of blood or resources going to your prefrontal cortex. So right here, you know, behind your forehead is where the higher level thinking part of your brain is, right. That's the part of your brain that helps control you being responsible or being mature or thinking through consequences and really thinking like, oh, if I say this, it might hurt my partner, right. Or if this, then this.
It just was fascinating to me when I first learned that your brain really gets flooded and just the survival fight flight or freeze. And then you are not thinking about, you know, I statements, or what's a mature, responsible thing to say, or how will my partner react to this, right? And so sometimes if you see on reality TV, you know, people throw in chairs and really freaking out, it's probably because they're flooded and they're in survival mode and they're not in the, you know, mature, responsible thinking ahead part of their brain. And so there's really no point in interacting with your partner because that's, when you're going to say and do things we regret. And so, so it is really best to do that and recalibrate and the key is to recalibrate. I know a lot of times folks would just be happy to like separate and then just like sweep it under the rug, right. Or forget about it and not come back and address it. But you know, then nothing gets solved. People don't feel more connected or happier or more respected or more loved. Right. If we just kind of like, forget it and try to pretend like that didn't happen.
Nervous System Healing in Therapy
In my work with couples and my work with individuals, healing from burnout or trauma or anxiety or really just living life, I like to incorporate different techniques and talk about the brain science with folks who are interested, but also practice deep breathing during sessions if desired. I'm always open to collaborating and figuring out what doesn't feel silly or what does actually feel like it works because we need our brain and our body working together to have a happy, healthy life. Take care, everyone.
