(#122) 4 Ways to Calm Your Nervous System in Minutes: Simple Anxiety Tools

Need quick, simple ways to calm your nervous system in the moment?

In this episode of Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women, Rae shares 4 micro-practices to regulate your nervous system, tools you can use anytime, anywhere to feel more grounded, calm, and safe in your body.

These short, effective somatic tools are designed for real life, whether you're feeling anxious, overwhelmed, stuck in overthinking, or simply want to reconnect with yourself throughout the day.

Building on previous episodes about nervous system regulation and dysregulation, this episode focuses on practical, in-the-moment techniques that help shift your body into a parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) state and interrupt cycles of stress and anxiety. 

✨ In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  A simple breathwork technique (longer exhales) to quickly calm your body 
•  How to use orienting to signal safety to your nervous system  
•  How these tools help shift you out of anxiety and into regulation + safety
•  How to use these practices in under 2 minutes during your day 

These micro-practices are designed to be:

•  Quick (1–5 minutes) 
•  Accessible anywhere (commute, work, home) 
•  Gentle yet powerful 
•  Supportive whether you’re dysregulated or simply want to feel more grounded 

📩 Want more support?
Check out the free Breathwork Resource Library with 20+ guided somatic practices, plus Rae’s newsletter with tools for nervous system healing.

💛 If this episode helped you, leaving a review helps more women discover this work.

CONNECT
Work With Me
The Somatic Healing Newsletter
Instagram
Website
Subscribe & Review Apple Podcasts
Follow & Rate Spotify

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 Why Micro Tools

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the podcast. If you are new here, I'm Ray. I'm a breathwork facilitator and somatic coach. And if you aren't new here, welcome back. I'm so glad that you are tuning in for today's episode. So for today's episode, I'm going to dive a little bit into some simple, short ways that you can calm your nervous system. And so the idea here is that you're going to be able to use these tools in simple everyday life scenarios to help you with regulating your nervous system. These are tools that you can use in the morning, during your commute, on your lunch break, in a bathroom break. They're simple everyday tools. These practices are going to really help you with having your nervous system reconnect with feeling safe in your environment. So what happens is that when your nervous system is dysregulated, so the last episode, I talked about a few signs that you can know if your nervous system is dysregulated. What happens is that these practices will help you to shift into what's called a parasympathetic state. And so these are small shifts that are going to help to shift your perspective, your mind, your point of view. They're going to help with pausing if you're in like a cycle of anxiety or an emotional spiral or of some sort. And they're going to help you increase safety. So their micro practices are quick and short. And the idea is that they're giving you enough of a pause to help you reconnect with your sense of safety, your sense of self, and a sense of grounding. So little, little practices. And the intention is that you're going to ideally come into a safer experience of just being in the human experience overall. So feeling different things, um, experiencing different things, you're going to know that you have these tools that you can come back to and connect with that sense of being with yourself. And when we're using these tools, something that I always mention on the podcast and I always find important to mention is that there's nothing necessarily like bad or wrong about how you're feeling or what you're experiencing or even being in a dysregulated state. It just simply is what it is. And so these are some tools that will help you with that exact experience. So wherever you are, whether you're activated or you're not, or you're dysregulated, or you're regulated and you want to have a stronger sense of self, a connection to feeling grounded, a pause in the middle of your day, all of these tools will be helpful for that. So tool number one is working with our breath and allowing our exhale to be a bit longer than our inhale. So if you were to inhale through the nose for four seconds, so inhaling through the nose, one, two, three, four, and then exhaling through the mouth for eight seconds. So eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And continuing that breath. So that long inhale through the nose for four, that longer exhale through the mouth for eight. And continuing that cycle of breath for 90 seconds. So this again, this is a short practice. You can put on your phone, you can even time it. You can do a minute and a half, 90 seconds. And what this is going to do is it's going to lower your and slow down your heart rate. And in doing that, it's going to help you reduce stress, even if it's just by one notch. Even if it's just like we're taking a beat, we're taking a pause. These the longer exhale is going to help to drop into that state. And tool number two, this is orienting to the space that you're in. So this is when you take a moment and you slowly look around the space that you're in. So if you are in a room, you're going to look at each wall around you. You're going to make sure that you look over your right shoulder, you look over your left shoulder. If you're outside in nature, you're going to look all around you and notice what is around you. You're going to notice colors, objects, shapes, sounds. And you're going to allow this awareness to bring you a sense of present moment safety. So it helps the brain to recognize that here you are in the present moment, in the space that you're in. And in this moment, you are safe. And by taking this moment, again, this can be you can set the timer on your phone for 90 seconds. You can do two minutes, you can do five minutes. You can kind of check in on the amount of time of this micro practice that you want to do. But what you are doing is that you're interrupting the cycle of anxiety or fear or stress. And the part of the brain that is just on autopilot and it's constantly scanning for danger or for something to be wrong, you are intentionally scanning for safety. So you're letting the body, the brain, the system know all around me, these four walls, I am safe, or from outside in nature where I am is safe. And so what you're you're doing is you're allowing the opposite behavior of hypervigilance to expand. So you're expanding your window of tolerance, you're building more safety in your nervous system. And then we have tool number three. So tool number three is using your physical body sensations to help you ground and to help you feel more grounded. So this can look like noticing the bottoms of your feet and pressing your feet into the floor. If you're sitting down, noticing that your the bottom of your seat is making contact with the structure underneath you. And you're continuing to bring awareness to sensations that you are experiencing in the body that feel safe to you, that feel grounding to you. So again, this is a very subtle practice. And the intention here is to calm those racing thoughts, to shift your awareness into the body. And it's also helpful when you're not dysregulated to do this practice because it will also help you to feel safe in what it feels like to be grounded and to be connected to sensations in the body and to be embodied in your experience. So this is a great micro practice that you can use anytime that you'd like to reconnect to that feeling of safety, reconnect to that feeling of being grounded in the present moment. And the last micro tool that I would love to share with you today is tool number four. And that is intentional gentle movement. So this is intentionally taking a pause. Again, you can set that timer on your phone if you'd like. And this could look like rotating your neck in a certain way that would feel good, moving your shoulders, rolling out your shoulders. This could look like intentionally relaxing your jaw. It could look like stretching. So taking a moment to stretch your body if you have the space to like lay down on the floor and move your body in a way that would feel really restorative to you. It could also look like shaking. So sometimes shaking out the body is really helpful for releasing tension. So it really depends on kind of like what you your system might need. But those are some options for gentle movement that could be supportive for you. And when we do these gentle movements, again, it's subtle, but it's really allowing the body to release the stored tension, release a little bit of stress. And in doing so, it's going to shift our state and again add to that feeling of being more safe and feeling more safe being in your physical body and being in the human experience. All right. And those are the four tools that I have for you today. These tools are here to support you with easy, tangible, bite-sized ways to help you self-regulate, whether that is on your commute, when you're at work, on your lunch break, in the morning, before you go to bed. You don't have to be in a dysregulated state to use them by any means. They are generally supportive. And if you are in a dysregulated state, I hope that one of these four tools really serves you and supports you in taking that pause and returning back to that sense of safety and grounding. So thank you so much for tuning in for today's episode. If you would like to stay connected, you can do that by signing up for the Breathwork Resource Library, which is about 20 different practices that I add to throughout the year. It's completely free. And that also signs you up for the monthly newsletter, which goes out on the first and 15th of every month and includes different somatic practices and tools and journaling prompts. So yeah, you can check that out in the show notes. And 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 theSematic 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.