When Depression is in your bed

Finding Safety in Stillness: How Trauma Shapes the Nervous System and Rest

• Trish Sanders, LCSW • Episode 39

Share episode

✨ Free Resource: Download my guide, 100 Practices That Can Increase Your Access to Rest & Renewal  — filled with simple, doable ways to rest your body, mind, and spirit.

These are small, easy to incorporate practices for eight kinds of rest — from physical and emotional to creative and communal and more.

👉 Grab your free copy here! (regulatedrelationships.kit.com/rest)

Feeling tired yet never truly restored is not a personal failure; it’s your nervous system doing its best to protect you. We unpack how trauma and challending life experiences reshape the body’s priorities, keeping you in survival cycles that block deep rest. Using Polyvagal Theory as a guide, we walk through the three core states—ventral vagal safety, sympathetic fight or flight, and dorsal shutdown—and show how a loss of flexibility can make stillness feel dangerous instead of soothing.

You’ll learn how neuroception, the body’s subconscious threat-detection system, constantly weighs cues of safety and danger. When danger outweighs safety, rest becomes inaccessible, no matter how early you go to bed. We draw a clear line between shutdown and restoration, explaining why doomscrolling until you pass out isn’t rest and why “just relax” often backfires. If you’ve lived in a loop of daytime overdrive and nighttime collapse, or if depression has felt like being stuck in molasses, this conversation offers a compassionate map that makes sense of your experience.

Subscribe for weekly insights, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then tell us: what’s one cue of safety you can add today?

- If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to the When Depression is in Your Bed podcast. Are you someone who tries to rest but never actually feels rested? Or are you someone who wishes you could rest, but with everything on your to-do list, who has time for that? Well, if you're either of these people, please tune in today as I talk about how our nervous system can be affected by trauma and how that affects our actual physical ability for restorative rest. And I won't stop there. In the next episode, I will share some steps that you can take to help heal your system so you can begin to get the rest and renewal that you deserve. I'm your host, Trish Sanders, and I am delighted that you are here. Let's get started. Today I am sharing information that has been absolutely integral in my own transformation and my own ability to feel more rested so much more of the time. Understanding the role of my nervous system in what has been a lifelong inability to really feel rested has helped me not only to increase my ability to be self-compassionate and reduce my negative self-talk and my self-criticism and self-judgment, but it has also really guided me on what to do to be able to take action, to take deep, true care of myself, which has allowed me to cultivate rest and renewal practices. And in my own experience, I sort of figured this out almost in reverse because I started noticing the benefits for me of how my body was able to rest in a different way than it had before. And then I started to understand what I was doing to contribute to the healing process. And then I started learning about my nervous system's role and what was happening for me. And once I had that level of information, this knowledge that I want to share with you today, then I started to be so much more conscious in my practices for rest and renewal. And it has really helped to transform so much in my life because it's not just about how I'm able to rest or create spaciousness in my life, but it's how I then can function in my life. Because if we're exhausted or if we're striving and pushing and overwhelmed and in chaos and never slowing down, never able to slow down, then we're not living our best life. And as I have been working on these practices over the last few years, my whole life has been transforming. And I don't use that term lightly. I really mean that the way my life looks and feels and how I'm able to show up in my day-to-day life is in a completely different place than it was just a few years ago. And because I am so much more conscious of what I'm doing, I'm aware I know many of the choices that I'm making so that I can continue to make more choices that really serve me. And I can't wait to see what my life looks like in a year from now or five years from now or more, because this information has really supported me in creating so much more of the life I want to have. And I can only imagine that it's going to get better from here. And I hope that this is inspiring for you so that you too can cultivate rest and renewal practices that support better functioning in all areas of your life. So, in the last few episodes, I have been referencing these survival cycles that I certainly identify strongly with, and perhaps you too identify with them. Before I describe them, I'll just do a quick little nervous system review for anyone who may be new to nervous system language. The information that I reference is from Polyvagal Theory, which was created by Dr. Stephen Porgis, and Deb Dana is an amazing clinician who has brought the theory of polyvagal into practice in the clinical world. And that's really what I reference and where this comes from. So the nervous system has three states. The first is called ventral vagal, and it's our social engagement state where we feel connected and safe and grounded. And then the other two nervous system states are both survival states. We can either be in a mobilized state of survival, which means we sense a threat and we have to do something about it. That's called our sympathetic state, and it's our fight or flight response. We either have to attack or run, or we can be in what's called the dorsal vagal state, which is an immobilized response to threat, which is that there's a threat happening, but I don't have the resources or capacity to fight it, or perhaps it's safer to disappear or withdraw. So I collapse and shut down in order to hopefully survive through this. Okay. So our three states: ventral vagal, sympathetic, and dorsal vagal. The cycles I've been talking about over the last few episodes is that many of us live in some combination of survival states as opposed to in our ventral safe grounded state so much of the time. And this is largely because of the impact of some sort of trauma on our lives. And I won't go into what trauma is and what trauma means. I'm going to use it in a pretty broad sense today and am happy to talk more about the details in other episodes. But I want to just get really into the impact trauma can have, but it can be relational or chronic trauma or acute trauma. But we all go through different things that impact our nervous system because our nervous system is shaped through our experiences. So even if you don't relate to being traumatized at some point in your life, your experiences are still impacting your nervous system. And our experiences can cause us to get stuck in survival patterns. And so many of us are stuck in a sympathetic, striving place, pushing, going, doing, running all day, off and on caffeine, go, go, go, getting things done, and crashing into a dorsal shutdown only to wake up the next morning, not really fully recharge, but to do it all again over and over each day. So that's fluctuating between sympathetic and dorsal. And then there are people who are stuck in a more dorsal state where this doesn't necessarily have to be full immobilization, like full depressed, can't get out of bed every day. You could be going through the motions, feeling kind of numb, not caring too much about life, doing the bare minimum just to get by. And at night, you might be finding yourself feeling tired, but you feel more numbed out or disconnected. You might be doom scrolling for hours or watching something on Netflix until way too late. And then again, going to sleep, waking up, not feeling really restored, and doing it all again. And this state could be spiked by little moments of sympathetic surge, where for me, this looks like when there's a deadline for something historically in my life. If I had a due date, then you know, the day before the paper was due or the night before the paper was due, I'd be like, oh my gosh, I have to do this. And then I'd be filled with this surge of sympathetic energy and I'd push and strive. And it was very taxing on my body, but I would get it done at least most of the time. But then I would feel exhausted again because that push was really taxing on my system. So being stuck in these two survival states prevents us from getting true restorative rest. And if you know how exhausting it can be to be stuck in these survival cycles, you probably also know how frustrating it is to want to feel rested and not be able to, no matter how much you try or how much you wish you could slow down. And it also can get to a feeling of either hopelessness, like I can't do anything about it, or it can get to a feeling of this is just how it is. There's no other option for me because you don't even think you have any power. And feeling like you don't have power to change your life can be devastating. So I'm going to share information with you today that hopefully will inspire you and help you to feel more hopeful and certainly more empowered to take action in your life that really makes sense for you so that you can take true care of yourself. So, on to more information about our nervous systems. Our nervous system is constantly scanning the environment for cues of safety and cues of danger. This exchange of information is called neurosception. It's our nervous system's perception of our internal working. If we have a pain or something doesn't feel quite right in our body, and then also in our outer world and in our relationships between us and others. So we are constantly perceiving cues of threats, cues of danger, and we're weighing that. And our nervous system is letting our brain know if we need to protect ourselves in some way. And in order to truly rest, we have to have a neurosception of safety. And what this means is if you imagine a scale, the weight of our cues of safety must be greater than the weight of our cues of danger. And then our body knows, like, oh, okay, I'm safe. I'm able to rest. But if our cues of danger are heavier, if they outweigh our cues of safety, restorative rest is not accessible to us because our brain is receiving the message that protection is the priority. And that's what we have to focus on. And as is the case with trauma, when we have had the experience of being unsafe, our nervous system's ability to perceive safety can be disrupted. And even safe moments when we are actually safe, our bodies may remain stuck in a state of defense, in a state of protection. And we cannot rest when our body is on guard. And with trauma, our ability to move with flexibility through all of our nervous system states because they're all very necessary for our body to function. And of course, when there's real cue of danger, when there's a true threat, we need our body to be able to go into our sympathetic fight or flight defense mode to protect us. And there's a lot of times when being in a withdrawn shutdown of dorsal is also really serving us. And so we actually want to have flexibility. We want our nervous system to be able to move through all of our states appropriately when the situation really calls for it. But when we experience trauma, our nervous system flexibility can be impacted and we might not be able to move so freely. We might end up getting stuck. We may not be able to access ventral safety and groundedness in the way that we were born to be able to. And safety cues may not actually register as safety cues. We may be paying attention so acutely to cues of danger that we miss cues of safety. And our sympathetic fight or flight system may end up staying online even when there's not a cue of imminent danger present. Or we may be stuck in our dorsal state feeling numb and disconnected and have a real lack of energy to do anything about anything. So, what does this all mean? When our nervous system is impacted by trauma or challenging experiences, instead of being able to experience true restorative rest, our nervous system may be stuck in either hyper-arousal and our body can't relax, slowing down doesn't feel safe, or we end up getting stuck in a state of hypoarousal, in which the body shuts down in order to protect itself and we are not able to benefit from restorative rest. And instead, we end up just feeling fatigued and disconnected and numb. So I think it's really important to know that trauma can affect the body's capacity for rest. And our nervous system can be rewired for protection rather than restoration. And when your body is stuck in that sympathetic state, when you try to rest, you may end up experiencing a racing heart or agitation. It might feel difficult to rest. You may end up needing some help to rest. That's like a glass of wine at night or a sleeping pill or something like that, some sort of downer because your body doesn't feel safe enough to actually slow down. Or if you're stuck in that dorsal experience, you may be feeling numb. And even though you might be exhausted, you might not go to sleep, you might just be stuck doom scrolling or something like that until your eyes can't stay open anymore and you fall asleep, but your body doesn't actually experience that restorative rest. And trauma can also make it harder to sustain connection with our ventral experience, which is really our authentic self. So the bottom line is that unless your body can actually feel safe, you are not going to be able to experience restorative rest. And many people may be being told things like just slow down, just relax, just take it easy. But if you're stuck in sympathetic, slowing down is not that simple. And slowing down itself may be a cue of danger. So even though you may be longing for rest and the idea of a vacation might sound wonderful in your head when it comes into actual practice, if you try to slow down, that in and of itself may be the perceived danger. And this can be the case if we had the experience of needing to stay alert, keep moving, keep producing, and that doing that has helped us survive in the past, and that can contribute to our nervous system getting stuck in that go mode. This is also true, even if this wasn't necessarily your personal experience. If your ancestors had this experience that they had to keep moving, keep producing, stay alert to stay alive, then being stuck in sympathetic state can be passed on to you because trauma can be inherited as can healing, which is the really good news and such an important part of what I'm sharing today, because you're not stuck, even if you're stuck right now. So basically, if your nervous system has had this experience, then your brain is likely to create a story that if you stop, you won't be safe. And this will make true rest inaccessible. I think it's really important here to talk about depression and what I perceive as that stuckness in that dorsal immobilized state, because from the outside, it might look like a depressed person is doing very little or resting all the time or doing nothing. And why don't they feel rested? And it can be very confusing and a source of stigma around depression. In reality, a person who's stuck in dorsal shutdown is not resting at all. They are in a state of biological slowdown because in the dorsal survival state, our body knows that it needs to power down in order to hopefully survive. It knows that it has to conserve energy in some way to become less visible, to protect us. And so this biological shutdown, again, from the outside, could look a lot like doing nothing or rest or not taking up very much energy. But this slowdown is not the same as restorative rest. And that's why somebody who is depressed can feel exhausted even if they've been in bed all day or if they've slept for 12 hours, they don't feel well rested. And this can be really frustrating, certainly from someone on the outside. But as a depressed person, which I have been for so much of my life, it can feel so hopeless and frustrating that no matter what you do, you can't feel good enough to function at the level you want to function at. And this is really difficult and contributes, certainly in my case, in my own experience, contributed so much to my self-criticism. Like, what is wrong with me that I can't just do what I want to be able to do or what I think I should do or what I think I should be able to do because I feel like I'm just dragging through my life and no amount of coffee is helping me to really get to the level that I want to be at. And as I've come to understand this nervous system experience, I have been able to have so much more compassion for myself and actual appreciation instead of frustration around my body doing what it was biologically supposed to do. And my nervous system and my brain were just acting like nervous systems and brains act. And it wasn't that there was something wrong with me for not being able to rest or, you know, beating myself up at night when I stayed up way too late when I knew I was exhausted, and then I feel terrible in the morning and I'm so frustrated. Like, why didn't I just go to sleep? Why can't I just go to sleep? But for most of my life, like I knew that going to sleep earlier would be better for me, but I just couldn't do it. And now I understand that was a nervous system piece that slowing down into rest, like full rest, going to sleep, felt like a cue of danger for me. And so my body wouldn't let me do it. And so I would stay awake way too late, doing things that probably were not a priority. And the conscious story a lot of the time was well, I don't have any downtime during the day. I have so much going on in my life, I need this time to unwind. And some of that was probably true. But realistically, as I have come to do my own inner work, I realized how much of this was my nervous system and the impact of my life experiences on my nervous system, preventing me from being able to have that flexibility and allow true rest to feel safe. So, in closing for today, I really want you to hear that trauma doesn't keep us from resting just by making us stuck being busy and sympathetic or by making us just stuck in dorsal collapse. But our brains attach a story to all that stuckness that we are not safe. And so we have to keep going in the way that we're going, because if we do something different, which actually could be slowing down, getting that beautiful restorative rest and renewal that we're longing for, there's something that's telling us in our narrative, our internal narrative, that that's not actually safe and what we need. And so, in order to heal this experience, in order to heal our nervous systems, we need to be able to allow stillness to shift from being a cue of danger to a cue of safety. So when we allow our bodies to slow down, we can actually lean into that and ease into that and that can feel comfortable and safe and where we belong. So we can truly receive that rest that we need. And if you want to know how you actually do that, please tune in next week where I talk about the process. In the meantime, please check out my free resource on 100 practices that can help make rest and renewal more accessible to you. It's a great place to begin. And you can really check in with your nervous system to see what practices feel like they're accessible, like they're achievable, things that you can try to receive the free guide. You can go to regulatedrelationships.kit dot com forward slash rest. And you can also go in my show notes right below the podcast title, and there's a link there for you to get that free resource as well. And it is filled with simple things that you can start doing today to help heal your nervous system so you can finally get the rest that you're longing for. I look forward to talking more with you next time. As our time comes to a close, I ask you to keep listening for just a few more moments because I want to thank you for showing up today. And I want to leave you with an invitation as you hit stop and move back out into the world on your own unique wellness journey. In order to move from where you are today to the place where you want to be, the path may seem long or unclear or unknown. And I want you to know that if that seems scary or daunting or downright terrifying or anything else, that is totally okay. Know that you do not have to create the whole way all at once. We don't travel a whole journey in one stride. And that is why my invitation to you today is to take a step, just one. Any type, any size, in any direction. It can be an external step that can be observed or measured, or it could be a step you visualize taking in your mind. It can be a step towards action or towards rest or connection or self-care or whatever step makes sense to you. I invite you to take a step today because getting to a place that feels better, more joyful, more connected than the place where you are today is possible for everyone, including you, and even when depression is in your bed. If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and reach out to me on social media at trish.sanders.lcsw. Your feedback will help guide future episodes, and I love hearing from you. Also, please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested or who may get something from what I have shared. Until the next time we connect, take care of yourself and take a step.