Who you are
If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’re a fellow voyager, a curious overthinker learning to navigate the choppy waters of stress and anxiety from other wayfaring overthinkers.
The philosophy behind this cheat sheet
If you can stop your nervous system from clumsily trying protect you, you can lessen your pain and quell your anxiety. Teaching yourself that you are safe is where this work begins. It’s as hard as it sounds. Your nervous system’s off switch is buried within a sea of internal confusion. (I’m simplifying the nervous system here — there’s no simple on and off switch. Your nervous system is more like fancy LED lights. The switch allows you to change the color and flashing patterns of the lights so that you can give yourself the right lights at the right time. No one needs fluorescent disco lights at 9 AM on a Monday morning. )
To become skillful at using the switch, you must find a path through the internal cacophony and learn which part of yourself to listen to when. A great place to start is with actionable nervous system regulation tactics.
Let’s get started.
Every technique I’m including has the same goal: to teach your body that you are safe.4 The best approach to all nervous system regulation is “little and often.” In other words, these are exercises that you can do in the moment to send messages of safety to your body (which, in turn, will send them to your mind and help you feel better overall).
Foundational, everyday practices
If you start reading about nervous system regulation, it won’t be long until you start hearing about the “window of tolerance.” Your window of tolerance is, quite simply, your ability to tolerate the challenges of daily life. It’s your body’s ability to move from a hyper-aroused (fight or flight) or hypo-aroused (withdrawn, frozen) back to a more grounded self and place. If you’re interested in learning more about these three states, a great place to start is Stanley Rosenburg’s book on polyvagal theory. These daily practices build your window of tolerance so that you can recover more quickly and easily from nervous system arousal. (The nervous system exists to protect us. It is doing its job by going into an aroused state. The goal is to build a window of tolerance that lets you handle these inevitable daily stressors gracefully and intentionally, without your system being hijacked without you knowing it.)
1. Somatics
I’ve come to think of my daily somatic practice as meditation with movement. Every morning I unroll my yoga mat and follow one of Sarah Warren’s online classes, usually first thing in the morning, in order to release muscle tension and teach my body what relaxed is supposed to feel like. I recommend starting with her level one course. It is a guided experience that builds upon itself every day, costs $45, and take two months to complete. It takes around 20-30 minutes a day.
2. Polyvagal exercises
I bundle the following three lateral eye-movement exercises with my morning practice. They are adapted from Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve by Stanley Rosenberg. Critics will tell you that we don’t yet understand the mechanism that makes this kind of exercise work, warning you to sidestep the hype. While I support a healthy dose of skepticism in all wellness endeavors, it doesn’t hurt you to give them a try as they are easy and totally free. I’ve definitely found them helpful for releasing my trapezius muscle and easing my morning anxiety.
The Basic Exercise
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Sit tall wherever you are.
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Interlace your hands and clasp the back of your head between your ears, sending your amygdala a message of safety.
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With your EYES ONLY, look to the right and hold.
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Breathe, relax, and allow your body to soften.
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Hold 30-60 seconds until you yawn or feel an internal shift. It can take practice to learn to feel this shift, but the yawn is a dead giveaway that this is working.
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Repeat on the left side.
Seated Salamander Exercise
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I like to do this exercise on my heads and knees so that gravity helps me breath out with my belly. You can also do it sitting up. Whatever works for you to get the release.
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With your EYES ONLY, look to the right and hold.
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Allow your right ear to melt towards the right shoulder (not turning your head).
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Breathe, relax, allow your head to be heavy and you body to soften.
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Hold 30-60 seconds until you yawn or feel an internal shift. It can take practice to learn to feel this shift, but the yawn is a dead giveaway that this is working.
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Repeat on the left side.
Sphinx with Head Turn
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Lay on your belly and prop yourself up on your elbows with your chest and head facing forward.
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Anchor your pelvis by pressing down through the pubic bone.
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Draw your shoulders down out of your ears and extend your neck naturally (don’t look up too much).
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Turn your head to look over your right shoulder and hold for 1 minute. Again, ou are looking for that yawn or internal shift into ease.
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Repeat exercise looking over left shoulder.
