Ep. 76 - Understanding Your Nervous System: How to Shift from "Fight or Flight" to "Rest and Digest"

Stress doesn’t always look like danger, but your body treats it that way. We break down how the nervous system flips into fight, flight, or freeze at the sight of a bill, an email, or the news—and how to guide it back to rest and digest with fast, practical tools you can use anywhere. As a licensed therapist and self-care advocate, I connect the dots between brain chemistry, body signals, and the real-life moments that leave you wired yet exhausted, then teach you how to build resilience from the inside out.

You’ll learn why the brain can’t easily distinguish real threats from perceived ones, what chronic sympathetic activation does to your digestion, sleep, and focus, and how the parasympathetic system restores clarity and connection. We dive into the vagus nerve—your body’s wandering superhighway—and why 80% of its communication flows from body to brain. That’s the secret: change your physiology and your mind will follow. I share my own experience with spiraling after small mistakes and how simple practices shortened those stress cycles.

Expect step-by-step guidance on vagus nerve activation you can try today: humming or singing to create calming throat vibrations, targeted stretches that release the “brace for impact” posture, and an ear massage that taps auricular vagal branches. Then we move through breathing techniques that put the brakes on a racing heart—coherent breathing at five seconds in and out, box breathing for focus, and a gentle practice of noticing your breath to shift control back to your thinking brain. Use these tools before a tough meeting, after heavy news, or anytime you feel your chest tighten and your thoughts race.

If this helped, subscribe for weekly strategies that support emotional healing, nervous system health, and sustainable self-care. Share this episode with someone who needs a reset today, and leave a quick review so more women can find these tools. Your exhale is the remote control—ready to press play on calm?

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Transcript

Review Request And Support

Why The Nervous System Matters

Sympathetic Response Explained

Modern Stress And Chronic Activation

Shift To Parasympathetic Basics

Stress Impairs Rational Thinking

Personal Story Of Dysregulation

Health Costs Of Chronic Stress

Meet The Vagus Nerve

Strengthening Vagal Tone

Vagus Activation: Singing And Humming

Stretching To Release Stored Stress

Ear Massage For Quick Calm

Breathing Science: Exhale As Brake

Coherent And Box Breathing

Noticing The Breath And Interoception

Action Steps And Everyday Use

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Hello and welcome to the She Can Heal Podcast, a podcast aimed at helping women heal and thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I am your host, Kayla Eldea. I'm a licensed therapist and a self-care advocate that is passionate about helping women take back their power and help them realize they're important, worthy, and deserve the care and attention they give to those they love most in their lives. This show is meant to help inspire you on your healing journey, no matter if you're in the discovery phase and are just realizing that you have unhealed wounds, habits, and mindsets that are keeping you stuck in your life, or you've been on this journey for a while and are looking for inspiration, encouragement, andor new tools to help you continue on your healing journey. My goal is to help you realize that you can heal from all that life has thrown at you and are capable of evolving into your healthiest and happiest version. On this show, I will provide you with resources, tools, and insights to help you heal and thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually because you deserve all of that. So if you're ready to ditch the guilt and make yourself a priority, then you're in the right place. Because the truth is that you can't pour from an empty cup, even though most of us do this on a regular, and we really need to stop that nonsense. So get ready to be inspired, motivated, and equipped to truly thrive. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Sheakin Heel podcast. I hope that you're doing well. If you notice that my voice is a little cracky, it's because I literally am just getting over a cold and I hope that my voice doesn't sound horrible, but I'm gonna try the best that I can. So I hope that you are staying as healthy as possible because this cold season has been terrible. Before we get into today's episode, again, I just want to remind you that if you're loving that podcast, if you're really resonating with the episodes, please do me a huge favor and leave me a five-star review. I would be so grateful. It absolutely helps my show so much, and it's the best way that you can support the show. Alright, so we're ready to get into today's episode and topic. So today I want to talk to you about the nervous system. And I want to talk to you about the nervous system because when we think of being in a stressed or anxious state, that really stems from our nervous system functioning. And whenever I start working with someone who comes in with symptoms of anxiety, this is the first place that I go to. I really work on educating them on the nervous system because this is really the foundation. It is so important for us to truly understand what's happening in our brain and our body when we enter into a dysregulated state. So, in order for us to know how we can help ourselves in the moment, I believe that it's really important to know why we are feeling the way that we do. So let's start with our brain. Its main job is to keep you alive. So anytime that it thinks that you are in danger, it's going to step in and do what it needs to do to keep you safe. This is true for a real threat, like someone trying to hurt you, or a perceived threat, such as sitting in front of an important test. In both situations, the brain thinks it's in danger and needs to be ready to either run away, fight, or freeze, aka play dead. So when a firefighter goes on a call for a fire, his nervous system gets sympathetic or what we call the fight or flight. When one is in the sympathetic, your brain shoots cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and adrenaline into your stream. Your blood also pulls into your arms, into your legs to prepare for you to run away fast or become very strong to fight off or escape the danger. You become hypervigilant so that you can scan for danger. And to save energy for the fight, your body shuts down the non-essentials. So if for example, your digestion stops, your immune system goes on standby, your logical, rational part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, turns off so that your primal brain can take over. So let's go back to the firefighter and see how this actually looks. So he is prepared to tackle this fire, right? The threat. And because his nervous system is sympathetic, right? Fight or flight, he is going to be alert. He's gonna have the energy to fight the fire and get out safely. But this is the problem. The problem we face today is that our brains can't tell the difference between a real threat, like a bear, and a perceived threat, a high electric bill, let's say, right? So, in other words, when you get a stressful email, you see the stressful news, the headlines, or you worry about the economy, your body reacts exactly as if you are in real danger. And your brain is going to prepare you to survive. Again, this is what I tell my clients all the time: your brain doesn't know the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat. So it's going to automatically put you into that fight or flight. Your heart rate is going to climb, your breathing is going to become shallow, and your chest is going to become tight. Your digestion is going to slow down. This is why stress often leads to like stomach issues, like people get nauseous, throw up, or you know, have bowel issues. Because the quote unquote threat, right? The news, the work, the bills never actually goes away. We stay in the state of chronic sympathetic activation. It's like we're keeping the gas pedal floored while the car is in park. This leads to nervous system burnout, leaving us feeling exhausted, but wired, anxious, and physically depleted. And this is a big issue right now, just because we're being exposed to so many stressful things. If you live in the United States, you're constantly in a high stress state because there's so much just crazy stuff happening in our world. And so this is what's happening, right? We're stuck in that sympathetic fight or flight nervous system functioning, and if we're not able to shut it down. So let's talk about where we want to be, what we want to do. So there's the parasympathetic, which is your internal brake system. To survive in this modern world with everything that we're having to go through right now, we have to learn how to manually engage the parasympathetic nervous system, and that's also known as the rest and digest. So let's talk about what the parasympathetic nervous system is so that you can truly understand it. Think of the parasympathetic nervous system as a cooling system for your engine, right? When it's active, your heart rate slows down, your blood flows back to your gut, improving your digestion, your thinking brain comes back online, allowing you to think rationally, make decisions, and help you engage with others. Right? So now let's go back to the firefighter. After he's done fighting the fire, he's sitting in the fire truck on the way back to the station. And at this point, his brain begins to shift his nervous system from the fight or flight or the sympathetic to the rest and digest or parasympathetic. His breathing slows down, his muscles start feeling more relaxed, he might start feeling thirsty, hungry, maybe he needs to use the bathroom, he may start joking, making small talk with his fellow firefighters, right? Because now his system is kind of in that regulated, calm, functioning where we all want to be. When we're stressed, your brain is not in the rational part, right? The rational part of your brain kind of shuts down. It's easy to understand that when you're stressed, that you can't think rationally. You're gonna say things, you're gonna do things that once you're calmer, you then think back and say, that was terrible. Like, why did I say that? Or I should have said this, or why did I do that? This is why people get in trouble when they're really, really upset because they do things, but it's out of their fight or flight. They're functioning out of that response. The brain is sending them the signals and flooding them with chemicals that tell them that you are in a threat and we need to do something in order for you to survive and to be safe. So, again, the brain's job is to keep you alive. The fight-flight response is meant to keep you alert, energized to take whatever action you need to be safe. Even if it's not a real threat, again, the brain does not know the difference. So, your job is to engage in strategies that can help you shift out of this stress state so that you can focus on your daily life. Here's an example of me years ago before I was better at coping. So, I'm gonna give you an example of what I used to go through. So, whenever I made a mistake, such as I sent the wrong email to someone or I forgot about a meeting, my nervous system would stay stuck in that fight or flight. It's almost like anytime I made a mistake, it was just too much for me to handle. My muscles would get very tense and they would ache, especially in my lower body, which is where I usually experience this tension, and my stomach would hurt and I couldn't eat, and sometimes I would feel nauseous. And this was all because my brain flooded my bloodstream with cortisol and adrenaline to prepare for me to fight or flee. But because I wasn't experiencing a real threat, I didn't need that cortisol or adrenaline, and so my body stayed in this stress and hypervigilant state. So I just sat there immobilized by my stress. I couldn't concentrate on my work, and I even experienced like brain fog. My brain just, of course, it could not, that part of the brain, my thinking part of the brain, just was not working, right? My thoughts were ruminating on the mistake and what an idiot I was. My chest was tight, my breathing was difficult, and because I didn't do anything to calm my nervous system down, my brain never got the message that I was okay and that there was no danger. If you're currently a person who's being affected by what's happening in our world, or maybe you are having a difficult time affording to pay your bills or feed your family, maybe you have a very toxic work environment and just going to work is threatening to your nervous system. Maybe you have a medical condition or someone you love does, it's very difficult to shift out of that chronic stress state. But it's our responsibility to ourselves to learn how to shift our nervous system into that calming rest and digest response. Because it's going to help you be a healthier person emotionally and physically, right? Because being stuck in this chronic stress cycle can be really devastating to your physical health. People who struggle with chronic stress suffer from things like high blood pressure, high blood sugar that can lead to diabetes, digestive issues such as having constant stomach pain, inflammation, eating difficulties, and even digestive conditions such as Crohn's and colitis. This can also affect your heart, physical pain, and even your sleep. So if you're living life in this constant stress state, you're not going to be a healthy, engaged person. So going forward, I want to share with you ways that you can calm your nervous system and feel more peaceful in your body. And again, this is a reminder that your body and your mind they do communicate. If your brain picks up on your breathing changing, it's going to think that you're in danger. Vice versa. If you start having anxious thoughts, your brain will feel it needs to step in to keep you safe. And we can't allow our brain to take over every time she thinks we're in danger. So what can we do, right? And it's engaging in practices that are going to help you to calm down your nervous system, which is going to help you feel calmer in your body. So I want to talk to you about the vagus nerve. When I first heard about this nerve, it changed everything, and it really helped me to understand why practices like breathing and stretching can calm down our stress and our anxiety. Okay, so what is our vagus nerve? If you've never heard of a vagus nerve, this is what it is. The word vagus is Latin for wandering, and this is the perfect name because this nerve is the longest and the most complex of our cranial nerves. It starts at the base of your brain, the brainstem, and it wanders all the way down through your neck, wrapping around your heart and your lungs, passing through your diaphragm and ending deep in your digestive tract. So think of your vagus nerve as a two-way communication cable. 80% of its fibers are bottom-up, meaning that they carry the signals from your organs to your brain, and 20% are top-down, carrying signals from your brain to your organs. This means that your body is actually talking to your brain much more than your brain is talking to your body. When we change your physical state, like you're breathing, the vagus nerve tells your brain everything is fine. And this is why in therapy we have learned that talk therapy isn't the best way for you to heal from trauma and from just really painful experiences. This is why we really try to do practices that have to do with calming down your body. Okay, the second part is that the vagus nerve is the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system. The vagus nerve is the brake pedal. So when the vagus nerve is stimulated or activated, it releases a neurotransmitter called acetycholine. This chemical acts like a natural tranquilizer for your body. For your heart, it tells the pacemaker of your heart to slow down. For your lungs, it signals the AOA to relax. For your gut, it switches on rest and digest mode, which is going to allow you to absorb nutrients and recover energy. And because the vagus nerve passes directly through your diaphragm, the muscle at the bottom of your ribs, the way you breathe acts as a physical toggle switch for your nervous system. When you're stressed, you breathe high into your chest. This puts tension on your vagus nerve and it sends a tiger signal to the brain, keeping us in a state of anxiety. When we breathe low and slow, the diaphragm moves down and it stimulates the vagus nerve. This sends an immediate safety signal to the brain. And just like a muscle, the vagus nerve can be strong or it can be weak. And we call this vagal tone. So if you have vagal, high vagal tone, you can relax quickly after a stressful event. If you have a low vagal tone, you stay wired and tired long after the stress is gone. So when we practice breathing techniques, you are essentially weightlifting your vagus nerve, right? You're making it strong, making nervous system more resilient to the chaos in the world. So if you think about it, if you're a person though who is constantly stressed, who is kind of stuck in this sympathetic nervous system response, I've seen so many people who are like that, where they're constantly stressed and they're so stressed or so anxious that they are constantly sick, they're constantly in pain. And this is all because your body is holding on to cortisol, your body's holding on to adrenaline because you are not doing anything to disperse those chemicals, right? Think about it. The brain is going to shoot these chemicals into your or these hormones into your body to prepare you to be strong, right? It floods the blood blood into your arms and your legs so that you can fight off, you can run real fast. But if you're not using it, a lot of the reasons why you're in stress is a perceived threat, it's not a real threat. You're not using these chemicals, and so they're just staying floating into your body, right? It's like you your nervous system is stressed, right? Because it's kind of stuck in that fight or flight. And if you have a low vagus tone, like it just mentioned, then we are going to stay stuck in this state. And so the goal is to stimulate your vagus nerve when you are in an unsettled state. And I'm gonna go over some ideas that you can try to calm down your nervous system. I'm gonna break it down into three areas, and these three areas are focused on vagus nerve stimulation. Again, when you can do things that are going to stimulate or activate your vagus nerve, that's going to help to send a signal to your brain that everything's fine, I'm not in danger, and it kind of helps your body to then go into that calming state. Number one, this one is something that you don't hear a lot about, but it's singing or humming. And let me tell you why. The vagus nerve is unique because it passes directly through your larynx, your voice box, and the pharynx in the back of your throat. So when you sing or you hum or you even chant, you create this physical vibration in your throat. These vibrations stimulate the vagus nerve. And because you're stimulating the vagus nerve, this is going to send a safety signal directly to your brainstem. It's nearly impossible for the body to maintain a high stress fight response while the throat muscles are relaxed and vibrating in a rhythmic way. Have you ever sung a song at the top of your lungs, either in your car or at home? I'm sure you have. I know I have several times. Well, this is a great example of a way that you can hit that reset button anytime you've experienced stress. I know personally, when I've done it, it feels just so invigorating. And this is science, right? This is science-backed information here. That when you're able to activate your throat area, you are activating your vagus nerve. So next time that you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, turn on one of your favorite songs and just sing it out loud and see how it makes you feel. Or if you're at work or if you're working on a project that's stressful, or there's a deadline that's approaching, just begin to hum your favorite song to activate your vagus nerve and start to feel calmer. This is funny because whenever I mention this to clients, they look at me funny. But the truth is that something as simple as vibrating through your throat is a great way to really help to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. And it's something that you can do easily, especially if you really like music. Um, sometimes if you are not conscious of it, I know this happens to me all the time. I will automatically start humming as a way to just maybe my body needs to calm down. And I don't always recognize it, I just notice that it's happening, or someone mentions to me, Oh, what are you humming? And sometimes just our brain that's sending us signals that you know, I feel I feel a little bit stressed, and then you'll automatically do that. So humming or singing is a great one for this vagus nerve activation. Number two is stretching, so releasing the stored stress. So when you're in a sympathetic stress state, our bodies physically brace for impact. We hunch our shoulders, we tighten our jaws, and we shorten our hip flexors, preparing to run. This is something that I usually experience anytime I'm stressed, is the tension and the achiness in my muscles, especially my lower body. So I personally have learned how to use stretching as a great way to release the stress from my body, and it works so good. Slow mindful stretching, especially in the neck, chest, and hips, pulls on the connective tissue that surrounds the vagus nerve. Large muscle stretching combined with deep breathing increases your vagal tone. So by opening the chest and relaxing the neck, you are physically undoing the quote unquote armor, the sympathetic nervous system built up. So stretching the big muscles on the side of your front of your neck is particularly effective because the vagus nerves runs right underneath them. So here's a few stretches you can try next time you're feeling activated. One of them is called the vagal lateral stretch, which is your not your neck and your throat. Since your vagus nerves travels right behind the jaw and down the sides of your neck, releasing this muscle is like clearing a physical blockage. So this is how you'll do it. So you're gonna sit tall, you're gonna drop your right ear towards your right shoulder, you're gonna gently place your right hand on the left side of your head for a tiny bit of weight. Don't pull it. While in this stretch, look with just your eyes up towards the left ceiling, and you're gonna hold that for 30 to 60 seconds until you feel a release. Sometimes it's a spontaneous yawn, a sigh, or a swallow. And this works because it combines the physical stretch with an ocular vagal reflex that triggers the parasympathetic nervous system. So not you're stretching and then you're using your eyes to look over to the other side. And that's an easy one. You can do that one at any time. It doesn't take a long time. If you're feeling stressed at your desk, or you're uh maybe you're sitting in traffic, I know the traffic was a big one for me before. You can do that very easily, and I would do that on both sides. Number two is called the open heart. So when we're feeling overwhelmed, we're naturally slouched to protect our vital organs, the fetal position. This compresses the diaphragm and the vagus nerve. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna interlace your hands behind your back or grab the back of the chair. You're gonna inhale deeply, you're gonna lift your chest towards the sky and pull your shoulder blades together. As you hold this open position, take that perfect breath. So it's five seconds in through your nose, five seconds out. It physically reverses the defense posture of the sympathetic nervous system and it creates space for the diaphragm to move fully, stimulating the nerves as it passes through. Again, this is another really easy one while you're at your desk, again, in your car. If you're anywhere that you're feeling really overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, this is a really easy one that you can do just combining the stretching with the breath and really help your nervous system to send the signal to your brain that you're fine. Number three is called the ear massage. And this one is I don't hear about this one too much, but I remember hearing about this one time when I was learning about the vagus nerve and I was learning vagus nerve stimulation, and this actually came up. This isn't a traditional stretch, but it's one of the fastest ways to stimulate your vagus nerve because a branch of it is right in the ear. So this is how you'll do it. You're gonna take your index finger and thumb, you're gonna start at the concha, the hollow part of the ear right next to the opening. It's like right above the earlobe. You're gonna gently massage in circular motions. Then you're gonna gently pull the earlobes down and out. And you can also do this while humming a low mm sound. And because you're stimulating the fibers directly, it's a literal manual override for anxiety. You can also put your finger behind your ear. There's like a little bone right there, and you can also go up and down. So you're just like rubbing up and down, up and down, up and down. And that's another way that you can also stimulate the vagus nerve near the ear. As you can see, these are really simple exercises that you can do anywhere, and they don't need to be long, they can be just very simple, easy things. So now we're gonna move on to some breathing exercises. So as we discussed, the vagus nerve travels through your diaphragm, and this is the most direct way to influence the nerve because breathing is the only autonomic function that you can control. So let's talk about the inhale versus the exhale. The inhale is linked to the sympathetic nervous system, right? You have a slight heart rate increase while your exhale is linked to the parasympathetic nervous system. You have a heart rate decrease. So when you lengthen your exhale, you are literally pushing the brakes on your heart. Your vagus nerve squirts a little bit of acetylcholine onto the heart, telling it to slow down. So the first breath we're gonna do is called the coherent breathing, also known as the perfect breath. This is said to be one of the most efficient ways for us to breathe in order to be really healthy because it synchronizes your heart, your lungs, and circulation into a state of coherence. So, how you're gonna do it is you're gonna inhale for five and a half seconds, you're gonna exhale for five and a half seconds, which is about 5.5 breaths per minute. Okay, so imagine that your breath is like a slow, gentle wave. So don't pause at the top or the bottom, but just make it a continuous circular flow. Five seconds in, five seconds out. And this is good because it maximizes heart rate variability and it tells your nervous system that you are in a state of total safety and peak efficiency. Breathing exercise number two, which is one that I share a lot with my clients older and younger, is called box breathing. And this is a technique that's famously used by the Navy SEALs to stay calm and sharp during their high-stakes operation. And I think it's one of the most recognized ones that I hear most often. And it's very simple. All you're gonna do is you're gonna inhale for four seconds, you're gonna hold for four seconds, you're going to exhale for four seconds, and you're gonna hold for four. So visualize the square. So as you inhale, as you go up to the left side, hold across the top, exhale down to the right, hold across the bottom. So four, four, four, four, four. Very easy. So the holes are the magic here, they allow carbon dioxide to build up slightly in the blood, which actually helps dilate your blood vessels and deliver more oxygen to the brain, helping you calm but on your toes. Those two are very simple. Here's another one that I really enjoy doing, and it's called notice your breath. And with this technique, all you're doing is noticing your breath. You're not changing it in any way, but you're just paying attention to it. You may focus on the breath as it goes into your nose, as you inhale. You can notice it as your chest rises and falls, or when your breath leaves through your nostrils. In neuroscience, this is called introsception. It's the ability to sense the internal state of your body. And why this works, it says when you notice your breath, you activate the insular cortex in the brain. This is the part of the brain that acts as a bridge. So by simply paying attention to the breath, you begin to pull the remote control away from the primal reactive part of your brain and hand it back to your conscious logical brain. So those are the three different areas that I wanted to talk to you about. So number one is your breath. I gave you three different breathing exercises that you can do. Again, these are simple that you can do anywhere. Doesn't require much. Then we have the stretching, which is again doing different exercises that you can use to stretch and to activate your vagus nerve. So you have the vagal stretch, the neck kind of the neck stretch with your eyes. You have the open heart stretch where you're putting your hands behind you and really pulling your chest forward, and you have the ear massage. And you have singing and humming. Another great way for you to activate your parasympathetic nervous system using vibration. Okay, my friends. So as I wrap up this episode, I want to encourage you to take action next time you're feeling stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed. And you notice that you're in the fight or flights. Maybe it's you noticing that your chest is feeling tight and it's feeling hard to breathe. This might be a good time to try the box breathing technique. Maybe you're noticing that you're feeling stressed and your body is feeling tense. This is a good time to try that open heart stretch to activate your vagus nerve and relax your body. No matter what you try, don't leave this episode and not put the information to use. This is here for you as a resource. The other caveat is that I personally do most of these practices myself when I'm at work or feeling stressed or even after a heavy therapy session with a client. So taking a moment to close my eyes and focus on slowing down my breath or giving my body a nice stretch always makes me feel better. And remember this: your breath is the only part of your autonomic nervous system that you can grab with your own two hands. You can't control the world, you can't control the news, and you cannot control that tiger. But you can always, always control your exhale. Breathe slow, breathe through your nose, and remember you have the remote control. I truly hope that this was helpful to you, especially now with just the world being crazy and life just feeling really heavy and tough. And I know sometimes it might be family situations, it might be work situations. It's just life, right? Life is always going to life. And as you learned in this episode, it's really important for us to do them anywhere. You don't need anything special and you don't need to do it for more than 10-15 minutes. This could be some under stress in any part of your life. And if you have a friend, if you have a family member that you think could really use this information, please hit the share button, share this episode with someone that you love so that they can also benefit from learning about their nervous system and learning these different techniques that we've talked about today to calm their nervous system and their body down. So again, thank you so much for being with me today, and I hope to talk to you again next week. Take care. Thank you so much for joining this conversation today. I hope this episode was helpful to you on your healing journey. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode packed with valuable tips and insights designed to empower you. If you found value in this episode, I'd be so grateful if you left me a review wherever you're listening from and share your thoughts and feedback. This really helps me to reach more women just like you. Thanks for listening.