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You’ve probably heard the expression, “I’m going to have a nervous breakdown,” used when someone is overly stressed and overstimulated. There’s actually logic behind that. Stress may affect your mood, but it can also lead to fatigue, muscle tension, sleep disturbances, digestive upset, pain, and more caused by nervous system dysfunction. Taking a holistic approach to wellness can regulate your nervous system more effectively than relying solely on one method. Try combining Sensate with therapy, going to a strength training gym, and mindfulness practices for a more well-balanced approach.
General Information
Your nervous system doesn’t remain the same throughout the years. Connections strengthen or weaken based on learning, stress, and your habits. This system even reorganizes itself after an injury.
This adaptability is partially why the expression “Practice makes perfect” exists. When you’re learning a new skill, you become better at it, and the nervous system becomes more efficient as you repeat the action.
As you learn, survive, and recover, your spinal cord, nerves, and brain are always rewiring themselves. However, when you repeatedly become stressed over little things or fail to handle stress in a healthy way, you can dysregulate your nervous system.
While you want to develop good lifestyle habits, such as eating right and limiting alcohol, part of that equation also includes mindfulness, strength training, and Sensate therapy. Ultimately, these habits can help regulate and heal your nervous system while also making it more resilient. For this to happen effectively, it’s best to take a multifaceted approach and use techniques like mindfulness to ease overstimulation, promote relaxation, improve your overall well-being, and manage emotional stress.
How Nervous System Dysregulation Happens
Part of your nervous system’s responsibility is to constantly monitor your environment, checking for signs of danger. When you feel safe in your surroundings, your nervous system remains regulated. But when there’s danger, the sympathetic nervous system shifts into “fight-or-flight” mode. In this state, your heart rate increases, stress hormones are released, and your muscles tense up.
In a true emergency situation, this response is warranted and can help protect you. However, when your body is stressed frequently and remains in that heightened state of alertness because of work, financial issues, trauma, or poor lifestyle habits, you stay in that mode longer than your body should, potentially dysregulating your nervous system.
When you’re suffering from nervous system dysfunction, you may experience anxiety or panic attacks, brain fog, or difficulty concentrating. It can also affect your sleep and mood. Irritability is common.
How the Parasympathetic System Steps In
The parasympathetic system is essentially the “yin” to the sympathetic nervous system’s yang. It counteracts the sympathetic system to bring your body back into balance.
It helps slow your heart rate, improve digestion, calm you down, and relax your muscles. For this reason, it’s often referred to as your “rest-and-digest” response. Certain activities can help activate it, though in different ways.
What’s important to remember is that one single tool isn’t going to regulate your nervous system completely. Taking multiple approaches targets different aspects of stress and recovery for optimal results.
How Sensate, Therapy, and Strength Training Work as a Well-Rounded Approach
Since there isn’t a reset switch for your nervous system, you have to look at it like an unfinished puzzle. You can’t solve it all at once. Instead, you work on it section by section until it becomes whole again. With these approaches, you’re taking a disorganized nervous system and gradually putting the pieces back where they belong.
Sensate
Sensate is a wellness device that uses infrasonic vibrations and sound to encourage relaxation. When the device rests on your chest and you wear headphones playing soundscapes, you encourage your parasympathetic nervous system to calm dysfunction by indirectly stimulating the vagus nerve — a cranial nerve that carries signals between the brain, heart, and digestive tract.
Many users report feeling calmer and having an easier time falling and staying asleep. When stress does arise, they may recover from it and calm down more quickly when using the device regularly.
Therapy
How you handle stress is often deeply rooted in past experiences. If you’re carrying unresolved emotional stress, your body may remain on high alert. If you’re suffering from depression, anxiety, or other mental health conditions, you may be overstressing your nervous system and affecting how it responds to daily activities and situations.
A therapist can help you get to the root of your nervous system dysfunction. You can work through unresolved trauma and learn healthier coping mechanisms to use during stressful situations.
Mindfulness
Understanding what your plan does and doesn’t cover isn’t a pessimistic exercise. Instead, it’s practical. The mental health treatment that actually helps you might look different from what your insurer is prepared to fund, and knowing that in advance means you can make decisions with clear eyes. Whether that’s negotiating fees, exploring community resources or having a direct conversation with your therapist about billing, you have more room to navigate this than the system might make it feel.
Mindfulness gives your body and mind a chance to slow down and reset. Worrying about the future or dwelling on the past can negatively affect your nervous system. When you practice mindfulness, you focus on the present moment instead of worrying.
Some ways to practice mindfulness include:
- Deep-breathing exercises
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Nature walks
- Gratitude reflection
- Journaling
Strength Training
You never want to overtrain because it can become counterproductive, but regular exercise, including strength training, can improve the state of your nervous system. This type of exercise affects your hormones, neurotransmitters, circulation, mood, and sleep quality.
The controlled stress of strength training helps your body become more resilient and adaptable. As your sleep improves, your nervous system has more time to recover.
During strength training, you also have something productive to focus on besides your stressors. You’re channeling your aggression and tension in a positive way.
As your strength and endurance improve, your self-esteem may increase as well. Your brain also benefits because physical exertion improves circulation and encourages the release of endorphins, which are feel-good chemicals.
Make sure you practice this type of exercise in moderation. Avoid excessively high-intensity workouts and give yourself enough time to rest and recover between sessions. Ideally, if you want to regulate your nervous system more effectively, you should focus on exercising regularly while maintaining moderate-intensity workouts.
Working with a trainer is one possible option. A trainer can customize a workout plan to help you meet your goals without overtraining.
Your nervous system may be under constant strain from stress and unhealthy lifestyle habits. Over time, this can take a serious toll on your sleep, mood, and overall health. Utilizing multiple approaches, such as Sensate, mindfulness, therapy, and strength training, may help support a healthier, more regulated nervous system.
