Why Calm, Safe People Help Soothe Your Nervous System

Image by Omar Lopez

How are you feeling right now? Take a moment to mindfully scan your body and just notice whatever’s going on, physically and emotionally. You may be feeling calm and peaceful, with relaxed muscles, a happy digestive system and slow, steady heartbeat. If so, that’s wonderful.

But you may not feel like this at all. As you scan your torso you may notice places of muscular tightness and tension, a racing heartbeat and a bloated, uncomfortable gut. If you’re in this heightened, uncomfortable somatic state, I’m guessing you also feel stressed, anxious and frazzled. You may also be a bit hyper, with a fizzing energy running through your body.

Or you may notice your body feeling heavy and slumpy, low energy and with limbs that feel like lead. You might be low in mood or depressed and feel spacey, detached or dissociated. Not a nice place to be.

All three of these feeling states correspond with branches of your autonomic nervous system (which does all the stuff out of your awareness to help your heart beat, keep you breathing, digesting food, avoiding danger and much more). The first state is called Ventral Vagal, the second Sympathetic and the third Dorsal Vagal. Anyone familiar with Dr Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory will have a firm grasp of these somatic states, but if this theory is new to you, it’s a way of understanding your nervous system – why different parts of it get activated by certain triggers, how it functions to keep you safe in the world and how you can shape it to help you exist in that calm, pleasurable, mindful Ventral Vagal state more of the time.

Polyvagal 101

I have long been aware of Polyvagal Theory, but I am currently taking a deep dive into this brilliant model. If it’s new to you, or you need a refresher, I strongly recommend Deb Dana’s excellent book, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory. She is a warm and insightful therapist who successfully translates Dr Porges’ complex and somewhat hard-to-grasp theories into everyday language. One of the many ideas to grab me in her book is that of neuroception, which is the way your nervous system perceives messages from inside your body, other people and the world.

Perception is the way your brain perceives your inner and outer world. It involves your sensory experience of the world, so what you see, hear, feel, taste and touch. Your brain then translates this information into conscious ways of thinking about these inputs, like: ‘Oh, she just smiled at me, which means she might be attracted to me, or maybe she’s just being friendly,’ or ‘I love that cologne, it reminds me of the one my dad used to wear. I must buy him some for his next birthday.’

Neuroception, on the other hand, is a subconscious process where your nervous system constantly evaluates your experiences, looking for cues of safety or danger. So that might look like: ‘Oh, she just smiled at me, which means she is friendly and so probably safe,’ or ‘What’s that horrible cologne? Oh crap, it reminds me of that bully in school. Time to get the hell out of here!’

In reality, this process is even faster than that, because thoughts like these are your conscious brain making sense of those cues of safety/danger and then creating stories about them. Your nervous system acts way faster than that, sensing these cues and compelling you to act – fighting, fleeing or freezing – before your thinking brain has any idea of what’s happening. This could look like you being startled and scanning anxiously for the source of a loud bang, or walking into a room, getting a bad feeling – the hair on your neck standing up – and then walking straight out again.

People who make you feel safe

Finally, one more idea that’s important for all of us, but especially those who have a trauma history, who have such a hard time feeling safe in the world. And that’s the way your nervous system is constantly looking for neuroceptive cues of safety/danger from every person you meet.

For example, I have long struggled with narcissistic people, because some of my more dysfunctional family members were very narcissistic, as were other hurtful people in my life. So my nervous system is exquisitely sensitive to cues of narcissism, from facial expression to body posture, voice tone and language. I jokingly call this my N-dar™ – it’s remarkable how sensitive I am to these folks and how much my nervous system/inner parts react around this personality type.

On the other hand, people who are kind, warm, gentle, compassionate, good listeners, mindful and thoughtful make me feel safe. That’s why I married someone with these qualities. Why my best friends are like this. And why I love being a therapist so much, because most of my colleagues exhibit these qualities, so I feel safe and happy hanging out with them.

The practice

Spend some time journalling about this. Think about the people in your life you feel edgy and uncomfortable around. This may be more of a ‘felt sense’ than anything conscious or obvious – your nervous system is just telling you: not safe. Spend some time writing about the ways they speak and behave that make you uneasy. Are they unkind? A bit loud? Do they interrupt you a lot? Do you feel like they’re not really interested or listening when you speak? Perhaps they stand, move or make facial expressions in ways that just feel a bit off to your nervous system. Maybe their values or political opinions really clash with yours. Whatever it is, just spend some time journalling about the things that make your nervous system say no to these folks.

Now think about the people in your life you like, love and have positive feelings toward. What’s that about? Are they kind, calm, soft, gentle, easygoing? Or maybe you like people who are a bit more energised and extroverted, if you’re wired that way. There is no right or wrong here, good or bad, it’s just helpful to understand what makes you feel comfortable or uncomfortable with particular people. They might be generous, with their time, money or heart. Perhaps they have helped you in a time of need, giving freely with no expectation of receiving in return.

You may notice them treating others well, and that makes your heart feel warm. Perhaps they do a lot for charity, help elderly neighbours or donate to the food bank. These things might signal safety to your nervous system, which is why it says: safe. And why you then feel a strong yes towards them. Just spend some time writing about that and see where it leads you.

Finally, see how much time you spend with people who make you feel unsafe and how much with those who help you feel safe and are deeply drawn to. Is that balance right, or a bit off? What could you do, practically, to have more safe people in your life? That might mean choosing partners more wisely, shaking up your friendships, changing career or pursuing hobbies with like-minded folks. Remember that, especially if you have experienced trauma, you deserve to feel safe and happy in this world. You have suffered enough. And, as far as we know you only get one life, so try to live it in a way that brings you joy.

Life’s too short and precious to spend it with people who make you feel bad!

Love,

Dan ❤️

Why Your Brain and Body are Designed to Rest and Relax

Image by Aleksandar Cvetanovic

What are you doing, right now? Well, before you started reading this – what were you doing a few minutes ago? I’m guessing you were rushing around, either physically or mentally. And I’m confident about that guess because we’re all so damn busy these days, aren’t we? This is partly down to the advances in technology that enable me to write this on my computer, then send it whizzing around the world to all of you – which is wonderful – but also mean we are available, 24/7, for calls, texts, WhatsApp messages, Zoom calls, emails and countless other forms of digital communication. Those of us living in industrialised countries are never really off, in our 21st-century, high-tech world.

This can become especially tricky for us when we are stressed and overloaded at work. Something I notice a lot with my clients is that when they get stressed, they stop taking breaks, work harder and longer hours, staying chained to their desks – and some kind of screen – for longer and longer each day.

In some ways, I totally get it – if you feel stressed and like your to-do list is a mile long, you go into overdrive, pushing yourself harder and harder to get all those items on your to-do list, done. But I also have to speak to these clients about the ways in which 24/7 working is not only bad for your health, it’s bad for your performance and productivity as well.

Stone-age brains in a high-tech world

To understand why, we need to think about evolution, which works in a slow, steady, incremental way. So many parts of your brain are really old, in evolutionary terms. The whole ‘subcortical’ layer of your brain is millions of years old (not your actual brain, obviously, but those parts haven’t changed much in all that time). And these older brain regions were developed for stone-age life – hunting mammoths and gathering roots, nuts and berries.

And in our pre-industrial, hunter-gatherer lives, we were either very much on (hunting, fighting, climbing tall trees for honey) or off (lazing around after a large mammoth burger, playing, dancing, sleeping). If you want to know what off looks like, check out that photo – unlike modern humans, cats have no problem switching off!

So your brain, nervous system, body, hormonal system, organs – all are adapted for these intense bursts of activity, followed by lots of rest. And what do most of us do, today? Sit hunched over a screen, with stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol coursing through our bloodstream, very much on in terms of stress and focus, but immobile/off physically. So a weird sort of grey area for your brain, which finds it all very sub-optimal and confusing.

This is why longer and longer hours don’t really work, for work, because your brain needs periods of downtime to process all the information you are cramming into it, sort data into different forms of memory storage (boring – delete; important but not crucial – file in long-term storage; absolutely vital – save in short-term memory for easy access and retrieval). The more hours you do, the poorer become your memory, concentration, cognitive function, creativity, collaboration, decision-making and a whole host of other skills and abilities most of us need to perform and produce at work.

Helping your body relax

I often write in these posts about the importance of exercise for your physical and mental health. I am evangelical about moving your body, because it was designed to move, which is why it feels so good. But it’s also vital to get enough rest, downtime and relaxation. If you’re a high-stress, high-octane, highly-caffeinated sort of person, you may not find that easy.

If so, as well as the higher-intensity exercise, try yoga, tai chi, meditation, gentle swimming, walking, gardening – slower, more meditative forms of movement. Getting enough good-quality sleep is, of course, crucial, so the experts recommend creating an eight-hour ‘sleep window’, in which you are in bed, ready to sleep (following all the usual sleep-hygiene advice about no electronic devices in the bedroom, keeping that room cool and dark, and so on) for eight hours a night. You may get eight hours, you may not, but you are creating the optimal conditions for that to happen.

You may also find my Body Scan Meditation helpful – this is designed to help you completely relax, either to wind down from a stressful day or drift off to sleep. Just click the button below to listen on Insight Timer.

I very much hope that helps – sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan