Back in the day, I was constantly faced with burdensome symptoms of my nervous system. At least once a week, I experienced nausea due to all kinds of circumstances in my relationships. I was certainly aware that the root of it must be something psychological, yet I naively thought it was something congenital or inherited. The first time I realized that I could actually influence those annoying companions in my everyday life sparked a drive I had rarely experienced before. That rough explanation, I’d like to share in this article, made me put all the effort and discipline I have into that battle.

My nausea and the reactions I referred to in the last article aren’t random, on the contrary, there’s a purpose behind the appearing physical symptoms while we’re quarreling with our partner, having an intensive discussion or holding a presentation in front of an audience. These appearances suppose to indicate whether we’re safe or in danger. Obviously most of these situations can’t cause any serious danger meaning that in most cases, the nervous system is too sensitive and alarms us, even when no real threat exists. From a psychological perspective this danger-sensing radar was shaped partly in our early experiences where we engaged towards the fulfillment of our basic survival-essential needs for love, safety, belonging and attention. In theory, each kid develops a particular strategy to ensure the satisfaction of these needs depending on the life circumstances and family environment it was born into. Exemplary approaches lead for instance to the hiding of emotions like suppressing anger, avoiding conflicts, trying to impress others and comparable ones. These admittedly intelligent and adaptive behaviors give the affected children the feeling of love and protection. Growing up, these responses can remain in our nervous system as automatic patterns, even when the original circumstances are obviously gone. This could result in unhealthy and conflictive behavior in our relationships which shows up in four different ways:

fight can look like anger, irritability, defensiveness or controlling situations.

flight often appears as overworking, perfectionism, constantly staying busy or avoiding difficult conversations.

freeze may feel like emotional numbness, procrastination or feeling completely stuck.

fawn means adapting yourself to everyone else, constantly pleasing people and neglecting your own needs to avoid rejection.

Most of us use more than one of these coping mechanisms depending on the situation. Potentially this can create real struggles with personal boundaries and self-worth. A dysregulated nervous system which keeps holding on these methods could lead to a loss of self, anxious attachment behavior in relationships or a burnout – just to name a few of the potential effects.

rewire the neurons

I think it got obvious that we can improve our lifes and relationships significantly through archiving these coping strategies. Fortunately, we can use the natural ability of constant adaption of our nervous system to rewire the neurons with revised content. This ability is the so-called process of neuroplasticity. It is surely not done by just replacing a negative thought with a positive one – the most powerful tool for rewiring is actually making new experiences in coherence with our patterns. As the majority of the coping mechanisms is combined with diverse kinds of suppressing emotions, it is crucial to accept the rising emotions and to actually dare expressing them. Each time we’re doing so and don’t receive the negative response we would’ve probably expected, our nervous system begins to feel comfortable with the new acting. Continuing that repetition, the new experience gets more and more powerful, while our past pattern looses in intensity. Lastly I’d like to conclude this paragraph with a comprehensive, holistic fact – the consolidation of that behaviors gets manifested majorly while resting – meaning that nourishing sleep and deep rest are compulsive levers to support our nervous system.

reduce the overload

Additionally to the annoying patterns and habits we want to get rid of, our nervous system is confronted with permanent inputs leading to potential overload. Most of us wake up and immediately check their messages or the news. Doing so, we’re consuming countless pieces of information before breakfast. Incoming notifications compete for our attention while social media could stimulate constant comparison. Entertainment is effortless accessible and available every second, anywhere. Many of us never truly allow our nervous system to rest. Then we wonder why we feel overwhelmed. On top of that we’re bothering our system with poor sleep, loneliness, unresolved trauma, chronic stress, unhealthy food, excessive alcohol consumption, constant negative self-talk and a lack of movement or sunlight. A combination of plenty of the mentioned influences on our nervous systems, creates a massive amount of load affecting that we don’t have capacities for anything else, let alone a rewiring of our beliefs.

calm and expand

A dysregulated nervous system can be calmed – that’s fighting the symptoms. If we’re feeling overwhelmed some healthy approaches are for instance breathwork, meditation, yoga or comparable way of movement. But a repeated application of such tools, even without the presence of trigger-based symptoms, leads to an expanded capacity of the system effecting in a higher resilience and a decreased probability of becoming overwhelmed. In that sense, the nervous system hereby is comparable to a muscle – with frequent and intentional practice of mindfulness, we’re gradually improving our capacity for emotional stability and resilience. Finally all of our relationships, including the most important one with ourselves, will benefit from that development. Conscious breathing, honest communication, going through discomfort through exposing yourself to situations that feel slightly uncomfortable instead of avoiding them and the like, will additionally result in more courage and self-awareness. We’re teaching our nervous system that discomfort doesn’t automatically means danger which directly concludes in a reduced amount of unnecessary alerts. Unfortunately, the system loves the well-known habits and wants to rest there, but real growth, healing and expansion often happens outside the comfort zone. Further levers like improved sleep quality, spending time in nature, working on our communication, reducing unnecessary overstimulation will be part of future articles.

today’s call

The process is almost imperceptible, but over time our nervous systems begin to seek more and more comfort. And we soften and become increasingly numb. I’d like to encourage you today to join my challenge: One new experience per week. Try something that feels slightly uncomfortable, unfamiliar or outside your usual patterns. Then write down what happened, celebrate your personal success. What did you expect to happen? What actually happened? How did you feel afterward? Find some inspirations below:

• start a conversation with a stranger
• say no when you normally say yes
• go somewhere alone
• have a difficult, honest conversation you’ve been postponing
• do something you’ve been avoiding because you’re afraid of failing or looking stupid

And for the writing down – I suggest to take pen and paper.