(#120) What Is Nervous System Regulation? A Simple Guide to Regulation & Anxiety, How it Helps & What You Need to Know

What is nervous system regulation and how does it actually help with anxiety?

In this foundational episode of Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women, Rae breaks down nervous system regulation in simple, practical terms and explains how it directly relates to anxiety, overwhelm, and emotional health.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in overthinking, anxiety, burnout, or emotional highs and lows, this episode will help you understand what’s happening in your body and how to work with it instead of against it.

✨ In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What the nervous system is and how it acts as your body’s “central command center”
• What nervous system dysregulation looks like (anxiety, shutdown, burnout, overthinking)
• The difference between hyperarousal (anxiety) and hypoarousal (shutdown/freeze)
• How the window of tolerance (Dr. Dan Siegel) explains emotional balance
• What nervous system regulation actually means (and what it doesn’t)

 Anxiety is not something “wrong” with you, it’s a nervous system state.

And when you learn how to work with your body, you can begin to feel more regulated, more grounded, and more in control of your experience.

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Sign up for the Somatic Healing newsletter in the show notes to receive somatic tools, journaling prompts, and access to the free Breathwork Resource Library (20+ guided practices).

💫 If this episode helped you understand your anxiety in a new way, leaving a review helps more women discover this work.

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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.

Transcript

Welcome And What We Are Covering

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the podcast. If you are new here, I'm Ray. I'm a somatic coach and breath work facilitator. And if you aren't new here, welcome back. I'm so glad that you're tuning in for today's episode. So for today's episode, I'm going to provide an overview of what exactly is nervous system regulation and how does this relate to anxiety? I personally love this approach and this perspective of working with the nervous system because learning about these concepts was an absolute game changer for me personally. In the past, I've really, really struggled with anxiety and navigating different challenging emotions. And this was a part of my journey of self-discovery that really shifted my perspective. And for that, I'm so grateful. So this concept of the nervous system, nervous system regulation, the information, this approach, these are things that all helped me personally make a lot more sense of things. And then also something that I use every single day when I'm working with clients. So today we're going to be diving all into the nervous system, what it is, how it relates to anxiety. We're going to talk a little bit about dysregulation, regulation, and all of that good stuff. So let's

What The Nervous System Does

SPEAKER_00 1:34

dive in. So I want to start off and set that foundation of what is the nervous system? What does the nervous system actually do? So the nervous system is our body's central command center. It is important for linking the understanding of a concept in the mind to a felt feeling and understanding in the body. This is the part of the body that controls emotions, behaviors, thoughts, stress responses, digestion, heart rate, breathing.

Neuroception And Misreading Danger

SPEAKER_00 2:06

So the nervous system is constantly scanning for safety or for danger. And this idea of that process is completely unconscious and automatic. It's called neuroception. And neurosception is happening automatically. And it's the process of scanning for safety or danger in our environment, scanning for safety or danger inside of our body, like a felt feeling, like you know, when you have just like a gut feeling that something just isn't right. And also scanning social cues. So reading other people's facial expressions, their tone of voice, um, using the information that we're gathering in our environment to decide and understand if something is safe or unsafe, if we are in danger. And just like we are scanning for safety or danger with neuroception, sometimes we can get it wrong, right? Like our brain misinterprets safety as danger. And this can happen when we have past trauma, we see it a lot with anxiety, depression. There's so many ways and forms of having that understanding be a little bit misinterpreted. So there is a lot of information that we can receive and understand from our nervous systems. It's really something that I really appreciate about it, is that it's bringing the whole person, the whole being, human being experience. And I think that's part of why it resonates with me so much. Previously, for me, when I was really struggling with anxiety, I was not I didn't know anything about this information. I had no idea of how the nervous system is affected by anxiety and like that connection. And once I learned more about the body experience and the nervous system and how the mind and body connection, all of that, a lot clicked for me. And so much of this really just like resonates with me from a lens of anxiety or grief or anything that might be coming

Window Of Tolerance Explained

SPEAKER_00 4:11

up for you. So when we talk about the nervous system, and something that we might hear often nowadays is this idea of nervous system regulation and nervous system dysregulation. So, like, what does that mean and what does that look like? I like to refer to the window of tolerance when I'm talking about the nervous system and dysregulation because I am a visual person. And if you look in the show notes, you'll see a link to a diagram, and that will give you an image of what I'm talking about. And I think I'm just like a visual person, so it helps. So I like to refer to the window of tolerance by Dr. Dan Siegel when I'm talking about yeah, this concept, but it's this idea that there is an optimal window of tolerance that you can be kind of like functioning in. And if you go north of your window of tolerance, you move into what's called hyper-arousal. And so this is where anxiety exists, overthinking, irritability, anger. And when you move south of the window of tolerance, that is where hypoarousal is. And that looks like numbness, shutdown, exhaustion, burnout, disconnection. So oftentimes we'll fluctuate between the optimal window and the optimal state into hyperarousal, into hypoarousal. But what's really nice about this visual representation and this concept is that your body is actually quite brilliant. Your nervous system is quite brilliant and it's doing what it needs to do to survive, really. And so, although obviously in a perfect world, we would always be inside of our optimal window and all that good stuff, realistically, that's that's not gonna happen. So, the idea of when you start working with the nervous system is that you can expand your capacity, you can widen your window of tolerance, and you can feel more safe in your experience when you do go into hyper or hypo arousal and you do fluctuate and move between those states.

What Regulation Really Means

SPEAKER_00 6:20

So, if that's what it looks like when you're dysregulated in one of those states outside of your window of tolerance, nervous system regulation is your body's ability to return back to that optimal state, that window of tolerance, to back to balance after something that has pushed you outside of your optimal window. So after stress, anxiety, sadness, uh, anger, being able to come back into that balanced state. So it's definitely not about being calm all the time. It's not about being regulated all the time, it's not about never feeling a feeling or um thinking things need to like look or certain be a certain way. I mean, that's unrealistic. I think that it's about being in a state that is flexible and safe, most importantly. So something that allows you to expand your capacity, be resilient, and brings you back to a place where you feel grounded, centered, and balanced. But it's not so much about avoiding or making it bad or wrong to be in any of the other states, right? Like we're human, we're all having a human experience. Uh, it's about being feeling safe in those moments when we do go into those other states.

Three Paths To Regulation

SPEAKER_00 7:40

And when it comes to regulating your nervous system, there are so many factors that contribute to it. It is your central command center in your body and in the mind. It's like the whole thing that connects everything. So there's going to be so many factors that contribute to having it be in a regulated state. Some of those might be lifestyle and wellness elements. So things like sleep, nutrition, hydration, supplements. Um, are you hungry? Are you eating well? Things like that. There'll also be somatic tools that can help with regulating your nervous system. So this is one of my areas of genius to help people with nervous system regulation. This is definitely a space I like to jam out a lot. Um, and that looks like breath work, grounding, gentle movement, mind-body tools, exploring the body, somatic exploration, feeling safe in your body experience. And then the third piece of regulating your nervous system is emotional support. So this is another area of genius that I offer to help with nervous system regulation. And this could look like boundary work, building safe relationships, co-regulating in a self in a safe space, emotional processing, emotional integration, and metabolizing emotion. So this is extremely powerful because what it is doing is allowing your mind and body to one feel safe, feeling a feeling and feeling an emotion, and two, strengthening that mind-body connection. So oftentimes we want to understand something in the mind, conceptualize, shift our perspective, shift our mindset, which is extremely important. And the missing piece is metabolizing it in the body and allowing that emotion to move through the system in a way that feels safe and regulated. And what this does naturally, once you start doing these processes, is it expands your window of tolerance. So building on what I mentioned earlier, when it comes to regulating the nervous system and going through those three states, whether it's hypoarousal, hyper-arousal, or being in your window of tolerance, it's these kinds of practices with emotional support and somatic tools that really allow you to feel safe in your experience, in the human experience and show up differently. And that in it right in itself is extremely transformative. And the last thing that I want to mention is just tying in that anxiety piece one more time.

Anxiety As A Nervous System State

SPEAKER_00 10:31

So nervous system regulation is a piece of the puzzle that will support you in finding that equilibrium and that safety inside. So in your inner experience. And so often with anxiety, I mean, there's so many different like forms of, and everyone is experiencing it a little bit differently, but there's that maybe a sense of control, uh, fear in our environment, that neuroception, that scanning for safety is a bit dysregulated. So we're picking up on cues of danger when we're actually in a safe experience. So using these practices, it's going to help you to feel more balanced if you are struggling with anxiety specifically. If you're struggling with anxiety specifically, you're in that hyperarousal state. And it's like, okay, we're dysregulated here. What is this experience like for me being dysregulated? And what might I need to get back into my window of tolerance? Like, what might that look like? And I always like to say that like anxiety isn't bad or wrong, it's a nervous system state, so it's really about getting familiar with your nervous system and what your body might need, and then working with your system from there. So what might work for somebody else might not work for you, and that's okay. So it's like bringing in that curiosity, bringing in that compassion, and being like, okay, like what do we what do we have here? I'm a little bit dysregulated. What what might be really supportive for

Closing And Ways To Connect

SPEAKER_00 12:06

me right now? All right, and so that is what I have for you for today's episode. Next week, I'll also be diving into more about nervous system regulation. I love talking about this topic. I don't think it's talked about enough. And yeah, so thank you so much for tuning in for today's episode. Let me know if you what you liked most about it. And if you would like to stay connected, you can sign up to receive the monthly newsletter. It goes out on the first and 15th of every month, and that is right in the show notes. That comes with somatic tools, practices, journaling prompts, podcast updates, discount codes, all that good stuff. And it also gives you access to the Breathwork Resource Library, which is about 20 different practices that I add to throughout the year, and it's completely free. So I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. I hope that you have an incredible rest of your day, an incredible rest of your week, and I will talk to you soon. Thank you for being here and tuning in to Somatic Healing for Wellness Focused Women Podcast. If you were moved or inspired by today's episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It truly helps the podcast grow and helps more people find me on their healing journey. Make sure to check out the show notes to sign up for the monthly newsletter, links to more resources, opportunities to work with me, and ways that we can stay connected. If we aren't already connected on social media, head over to Instagram to follow me at Ray the Somatic Coach. Send me a DM. I'd love to connect with you, and I answer each note that comes in. I am so happy you're here, and I cannot wait to talk with you on our next episode of the podcast.