Nervous System Regulation: What to Know + 7 Daily Exercises

The nervous system is at the core of well-being. Discover simple habits for nervous system regulation that you can integrate into your daily routine.

Nervous system regulation will forever be an ongoing and hot topic. In biology class, you learn about the nervous system and how it is the central command of your body that controls all actions, emotions, and thoughts.

As you grow older, the importance of the nervous system gets lost in translation. We deal with many issues mentally and physically, which has forced some to understand the need to pay attention to the nervous system.

This post is your one-stop summary of the importance of your nervous system and the simple daily steps you can incorporate to help look out and regulate your nervous system and turn it into habits for the general well-being of your body.

Your Nervous System Needs Your Attention

“Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.”

A Must-Know: You are not crazy, you are not obsessive, and you are not damaged. You are just a product of your emotional patterns that your body has gotten used to.

Your nervous system adjusts to patterns, and if it has consistently been familiarized with chaos and stress, it will define ‘safe’ as such. Therefore, peace or calm is made to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

But that is never an excuse; you have the power to pay attention to it and steer it correctly. Your Nervous System and (body in general) don’t work against you; they work for you! It is just doing what it is meant to do, understand patterns, keep you alive, and continue what is familiar.

Inside your Nervous System

Flight or fright are our default mode most of the time because we live in a fast-paced world. We’re always prone to stress and the need to guard ourselves from perceived danger. This is where your sympathetic nervous system lives ( it holds your flight or fright).

Our bodies need the sympathetic nervous system to complete the optimal working-out function. However, we tap into the sympathetic nervous system more than the parasympathetic one, which is meant to help calm us down, relax, and rest correctly.

As we continually feed the sympathetic nervous system, the general nervous system remembers the patterns and chooses the familiarity of stress over comfort because it recognizes the stress as being ‘safe.’

You are always actively contributing to one of these systems, making one way more superior, which causes deregulation. Most likely, you are contributing to your sympathetic nervous system because of the environment and conditioning of a fast-paced life, which translates into our bodies’ general physical and mental well-being.

In summary, your nervous system is vital for physical and mental health. Although there are so many components to understanding all the links and branches of the nervous system and its role in our overall health, it’s advisable to seek professional help to understand and explore the depths of your nervous system.

But Here are seven simple ways you can tap into the more rewarding parts of your nervous system ( Parasympathetic nervous system) and create regulation daily.

Nervous System Regulation

1. Sleep

Central to actively tapping into your parasympathetic nervous system is sleep.

Sleep is rest, which is needed to visit your ‘rest and calm home’ in the nervous system. It’s during sleep you heal, and that’s important to your body for overall well-being

there are so many things that hinder our sleep and affect the circadian rhythm of our body.

You could lean into adopting better sleep habits while reducing the risk of damaging your circadian rhythm by

• Reducing screen time or using blue light glasses- your device produces blue lights, which messes with your melatonin and circadian rhythm. Changing habits is not easy, and reducing screen time might take a lot of discipline and work, so you could lean into it by being more intentional about blue light by using blue light glasses.
• Circadian rhythm exercises – Check out this ‘Circadian Rhythm Reset: Simple Ways to Sync Your Body Clock’
• Magnesium – Pillow Spray, Spray or Supplement

2. Somatic Exercises

Somatic exercises focus on your body from within. They’re perfect for feeling more connected to your body and studying your attention and stress points. This is very good for calming your nervous system. You could incorporate daily practices to get used to the benefits and make them a habit.

3. Mindful Eating

Mindful eating may seem hard initially, but it’s possible and beneficial. It means removing any distractions as you focus on meals. Mindful eating helps you to be more present and taps into your parasympathetic nervous system. In mindful eating, there are two things

• You have a hunger hormone called ‘ghrelin,’ which, when released, can drive you into a moment of being ‘hangry.’ This can activate your stress hormones and tap into your sympathetic nervous system, which is what you are trying to reduce.
• Practicing mindful eating also increases your ( ‘I am full signals’), which helps you improve digestion and prevent overeating.

4. Journal and Gratitude

Thoughts – Emotions – Actions

Journaling and practicing gratitude prompts create a positive thought pattern. When we have better thought patterns, we experience better emotions and feelings, which in turn manifest in our actions and behaviors. These are all activities that take place in your nervous system.

5. Interacting With The ‘Love’ Around You

The love around you is nature, family, and loved ones. You need to show more physical affection to the love around you. This will make you feel comfortable, safe, peaceful, and relaxed. This means actively tapping into your parasympathetic nervous system and telling your body what love feels like instead of registering emotions of stress and chaos to the concept of love.

It’s time for you to have that friend’s night out, breathe in the outside air, walk in the sun, picnic in the grass, and hug away all your ‘I hate physical touch energy.’

When you interact with the love around you, you enter a calm and soothing state.

6. 5-minutes or More Meditation With Breath Work

You don’t have to meditate for 30 minutes a day to feel relaxed. Incorporating at least five minutes of meditation into your 24-hour day allows you to connect with your parasympathetic nervous system and teaches you how to be present. Meditation is a practice act, meaning you benefit the more and more you engage with it.

7. Focus on one Task at a time

When you have a lot of things to do, you tend to do nothing, and that’s your body’s response to the stressful thoughts or overwhelming emotions of trying to do or thinking about all the things you have to do at once. Remember, the more you release stress hormones, the more you function from your sympathetic nervous system, so slow down and attempt one task at a time, break down days into goals, and focus on one goal at a time.

Your nervous system is your center for optimal body functioning. Hence why, nervous system regulation is essential. Your body always works for you, and sometimes that may seem against you, but it needs to be steered in the right direction. You must acknowledge it with patient care and grace, listen to it’s needs and what works for you, and move with that.

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