(#123) Why You Feel Constantly On Edge & Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System

Do you feel constantly on edge, anxious, or like you can’t fully relax no matter how much you try?

In this episode of Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women, Rae explores why your nervous system may be stuck in survival mode and how that impacts your ability to feel calm, grounded, and safe in your body.

You’ll learn how your system may be operating in one of the four trauma responses—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn—and how these patterns can show up as chronic stress, overthinking, people-pleasing, burnout, or emotional numbness. 

✨ In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  Why you feel constantly on edge or unable to relax (nervous system perspective) 
•  The 4 trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn—and how to recognize them 
•  How chronic stress, trauma, and burnout keep your body in survival mode
•  How to begin building a deeper sense of safety, regulation, and resilience

🌿 This episode is for you if:

•  You feel anxious, overwhelmed, or “on edge” most of the time 
•  You struggle to slow down or feel safe in stillness 
•  You tend to overthink, people-please, or shut down 
•  You want real tools to regulate your nervous system—not just “think positive” 

📩 Want deeper support?
Explore The Breathwork Resource Library and sign up for The Somatic Healing Newsletter!

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 Episode Focus

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, we are going to be speaking more about the nervous system. We're going to be talking about that feeling that maybe we're always on edge, like we can't relax, or maybe you're feeling overwhelmed or anxious. So oftentimes with this experience, people try to navigate these emotions by working through a mindset. And that is extremely important, working with our perspective. And in addition to that, working with that perspective, I want to share more today about supplementing that by working with the nervous system and looking at it from that lens and what information we can gather and how that can help us work through these feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, being on edge, or feeling like we can't relax. So when your nervous system is constantly in a state of feeling on edge or feeling like you can't relax, it's for a few different reasons. So the first is that you are in a survival state, and there are four of these states that I'll share with you. There is fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. And so the fight state is when there is a surge of adrenaline or cortisol, and that is preparing the body for some sort of danger. And this can look like having a clenched jaw, there's maybe some heat in the body, a rapid heart rate, and an urge to move forward like quickly or fast. And in our this can come out in our behavior, looking like anger, rage, irritability, and some things that might help with a fight state is doing some grounding exercises, pushing against a wall, shaking off tension, you know, moving the body physically in a way that would bring a form of somatic relief and also a sense of safety and meeting that feeling and emotion where it's at. The second state is flight. So similar to fight, this is a response where the body is preparing to run. So this can look like restlessness, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, or a feeling of being on edge or anxious. So this can show up as avoidance, uh, being really being really deep in our work, like workaholism, or constantly moving and switching tasks. What can be helpful for this state is slowing down the breath, noticing our surroundings, surroundings, so doing some orienting, noticing the sounds around us, and really slowing down our movement and maybe having some like self-soothing movement. So like moving in a way that is um like a rhythm, rhythmic movement. The third state is freeze. So freeze is when the body just completely shuts down in order to survive. And so this can look like numbing, this can look like feeling heavy or cold or foggy in the mind, like having a foggy perception. Um, it can also look like feeling disconnected from the body. And this can show up as struggling to make decisions, feeling isolated, feeling stuck, or like zoning out in some way. And what can help with this state is gentle movement to reconnect with the body, tracking different sensations that might be in the body. And if it feels like numb, starting with the numb, starting with that as the sensation, and doing some of that orienting also. So checking out your surroundings, looking around, seeing what's around you, what do you see, what do you hear, what do you feel, and allowing that to bring you a sense of safety. And then the fourth state is fawn. And so this is when the body is trying to find a sense of safety by connecting or merging or pleasing something that feels threatening. So this can look like really attuning to other people's emotions, overriding what you might need, whether that is um, you know, hung something like hunger or water or just a boundary, everything is overridden for yourself to appease somebody else. This can look and come out as people pleasing, not saying no, having poor boundaries, or constantly apologizing. And the idea here for what might help is really slowing down and identifying with self. So coming back into self, coming back into your body, reestablishing what those boundaries might be for yourself through movement, through connection with self, and really working with identifying what your personal needs are and what your desires are versus focusing on what other another person or thing or whatever might be happening might need. So really connecting with yourself. And these four responses are, although they're challenging, they are designed innately to keep us alive, right? They are survival patterns. So although they might not serve us when they are chronic, they are brilliant in their own way because they have kept us safe for so long. So when we are constantly in one of these states, it is our system's way of trying to protect us and keep us safe. So we are really prepared for something to go wrong. And this could be for so many different reasons. So sometimes this happens because over time you've accumulated a lot of stress that hasn't been processed. So just like anything else, you're like overflowing from something and it has to go somewhere. And so it's in the system and it needs to go somewhere and it comes out as one of these survival states. It could also be that you've experienced some form of trauma in the past, or you have experiences that you haven't really been able to process emotionally. And so there is a lot that feels unresolved, and that also can come out as a survival state. Burnout can also contribute here from feeling like you constantly need to be productive, could also be contributed to living in like a go, go, go culture, if, especially if there's so many people that tune into this podcast from like over a hundred different countries, but especially in America, especially in New York, living in a go-go-go culture will definitely contribute to this sense of always being on edge. So all of these examples, all of these experiences means that your nervous system is going to adapt. And that's because it's super smart and it learns to survive in these moments. And then that's what puts us in survival mode. So there are what's with the good news is, right? So we're talking a lot about like dysregulation here, but the good news is that there is a way and there are ways to not always be in these survival states. And that is my zone of genius. So not to worry, because I love working with the nervous system, and I love supporting and teaching from this perspective because I feel like it really brings in the whole lived experience. It includes the mind, it includes the body, the soul. Everything is incorporated when you're working from a somatic lens. And the idea is really that you're going to work through and process with the intention of finding that sense of safety again. And so, in these, in the ideally, you would be in one scenario that maybe you were in a year ago, and the same scenario might happen a year from now, and you would have a different reaction because you've uh have a different way of being and a different connection and resourcing to safety that it doesn't dysregulate your system in the same way. So, in a moment, I'm going to share some simple tools that you can use right now. Also, in our last episode, we went over some very like simple micro tools that you can use as well. So, I'll you can check out that past episode. I'll share some more in a few as well. But right before I dive into that, I also wanted to share that I do believe that you can, you know, rewire your neuropathways to have a different thought, have a different perspective, and you can do all of that through working with the body somatically, through breath work, and through a variety of other uh ways as well. So I'm gonna go into that also in a minute. But I believe that you, yeah, you can learn regulation as a skill, as a tool, as a whole entity outside of stress. There is a whole world of self-regulation, co-regulation, everything is there waiting for you. And it's these small daily practices that you can use to create long-lasting change. And you can also do more intense, longer practices as well. So I believe in the what I call like the snowball effect. So whether you are working with your nervous system intentionally for five minutes in the morning because that's what you have and that's what feels good for you in that moment, great. Or you need you're doing like an hour-long breathwork session once a week, you know. I believe that slowly that all compounds and all snowballs into a different state and a different way of being. All right. So three simple tools that you can use right now to help with regulating your nervous system, really easing that sense of being on edge. And it's these are some micro practices. So the first is orienting to the space that you're in. What this means is you are going to look around your space, you're gonna look at all the walls around you, look over both shoulders, you're gonna look at the ceiling and at the floor. You're gonna take your time with this practice, maybe it's two minutes, 90 seconds even, and you're going to allow this to bring you bring to you a sense of safety. This is signaling that sense of safety to your brain. And if there is any sense of being on edge, you're going this is going to help with alleviating and sending a different signal to your brain. The second simple tool that you can use is working with your breath. So you can do what's called like a four-eight breath. So that is taking a four-second inhale through your nose and then taking an eight-second exhale through your mouth. And the idea is that the longer breath will be on the exhale, and this is going to send your body into a different state. It's going to relax the mind, relax the body, and this is something that you can do, you know, at any time. This is a simple, simple, quick practice. So, again, another 90 seconds, you can do it for five minutes, you could do it for 10 minutes. It's really a tool that you can use that is simple and quick. And then the third simple tool is a body scan awareness check-in. So you're going to take a moment to notice different sensations in the body. You can start at the top of your head and work your way down all the way to your feet. And as you are going through the body and doing that quick check-in body scan, you can also intentionally release tension as you're going through the body. So relaxing the jaw, relaxing the shoulders, allowing your belly to relax if that's tight. So that is again another micro practice. You can set your a timer on your phone, two, three, five, ten minutes, and take your time. All of these three micro practices are helping you to gently shift into another state. And let's say that you're not looking for those like short practices. There are plenty of options too that will be more longer term and more in-depth that are going to lead to long-term growth and change and shifts as well. So the first is somatic breathwork. That is something that I offer. You can do that as a package, as a single session. And what this is going to do is that it's going to allow the neuropathways in your brain to change and shift. And it's going to allow you to process what is physically stored in the system, in the nervous system, that perhaps isn't able to be processed through words. It's all going to be processed through the body, working with the breath, and through a guided experience tailored towards what your intention is and what you are looking to process. Then you also have somatic focused healing work. So that is something that I also offer in a single session or as a package. And this is more of a somatic experience guided practice. So it's going to be working with the body, with sensations. And what I think is really special about this is that it includes, again, all parts of the human experience. So it's going to include the mind, it's going to include the body, the soul, everything that really you can use to process something. It's going to be working with the whole system rather than just like one part of it, which I think is what really brings a sense of clarity and relief. Something else that also gets incorporated into those sessions, inner child work, parts work, really working with integrating all parts of self and understanding all parts of self with compassion. And then the other tool that I'll mention is more general. And that is any other tools or areas that are really speaking to you. So I call this following the ping. And that means like what you are curious about, what you are drawn to, to follow that curiosity. And this could really be anything. So I can I can share from my personal experience that I think it was last year, or maybe it was two years ago now. I don't know. I'm not going to do the math, but I dove into what's called rapid transformational therapy, RTT, and I absolutely loved it. It was something that I was curious about for a super long time. And I found a practitioner that I really liked and really trusted. And I'm still working with her. She is phenomenal. And I would have never uh found her had I not followed the ping. I've also done like a few different energetic trauma release packages, and also with a practitioner that I really like. And I think that that has both of those things have contributed so much to my growth. And they're, those are two things totally outside of the somatic world, outside of breath work, outside of somatic coaching or therapy. So I really think like category three of working with the nervous system is allowing tools and areas to speak to you that you're just naturally curious about. And as you follow that pain, doing those practices with someone that can support you and someone that you trust. All right. And that is what we have for today's episode. So working with that feeling of always being on edge, feeling like you cannot relax is something that I really wanted to dive into today. It is something that you can work with. That's not necessarily just a mindset challenge, but something that you can resolve by working with the whole mind-body somatic experience to make sense of the human experience and bring a sense of safety. So thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. If you would like to stay connected, you can sign up for the monthly newsletter by checking out the show notes. And that goes out on the 1st and 15th of every month. So I hope that you have an incredible rest of your day. I hope you have 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.