Introducing "Mastering Your Nervous System"
A new series helping you master the states of your nervous system to find more calm, peace, and balance
Do you ever feel like you’re running on overdrive—racing thoughts, tight muscles, and a constant sense of being on edge? Or maybe you feel the opposite—exhausted, unmotivated, and stuck in a state of numbness or hopelessness. Perhaps you oscillate between these two extremes, or maybe even feel both at the same time.
While many people associate these experiences with diagnostic labels like anxiety or depression, they can often be traced back to the state of your nervous system.
That’s not to say that you don’t have anxiety or depression—rather, it can sometimes be more useful to ask why you’re having these experiences in the first place. While there are many potential root causes of mental health symptoms, nervous system dysregulation is one of the most common (and fixable) root causes that I see on a daily basis. It’s so pervasive in our society these days, and I’m on a mission to help people get the education and tools they need to heal from it. For many, understanding the connection between the states of the nervous system and mental health could be the key to unlocking a sense of calm, presence, and balance in your life.
Last week, I launched a new YouTube series called “Mastering Your Nervous System,” where I will explore everything you need to know about your nervous system and its impacts on both physical and mental health and wellness.
You can find the first video here and the second video here.
So far, I’ve introduced the concept of the nervous system’s role in mental health and explained the “Window of Tolerance,” a model developed by Dr. Dan Siegel that is incredibly helpful for understanding nervous system dysregulation.
My vision for this series is to post educational videos on YouTube followed by corresponding articles on Substack to help you transform the theories I teach into practical, actionable steps. In my experience, the key to lasting change is combining a foundational understanding of the “why” with practical strategies that help you apply the “what” and “how” in your daily life.
Below you’ll find a summary of key points from the first two videos as well as some practical exercises for applying this theory to your daily life. However, if you’d like to get the deep dive on this information (and support SomaSong on YouTube), please consider watching the videos as well.
The Nervous System and Your Mental Health: Key Points from Episodes 1 & 2 of “Mastering Your Nervous System”
Your nervous system is like the hub of the mind-body connection, constantly working behind the scenes to regulate your emotions, stress responses, and physical sensations. When in balance, your nervous system helps you feel grounded, present, and connected. But factors like chronic stress, trauma, burnout, and even physical factors like nutrient deficiencies and lifestyle factors can push your system into a state of dysregulation.
In the first video, we explore:
The Window of Tolerance: The range of nervous system activation where we feel regulated, present, grounded, and balanced.
Hyperarousal (“Stuck on High”): This is the fight-or-flight response running on overdrive. Symptoms may include anxiety, racing thoughts, irritability, muscle tension, feeling keyed up, and other physical and mental symptoms of being on “high alert.”
Hypoarousal (“Stuck on Low”): This is the collapse or shutdown response, where the nervous system slows down to conserve energy. Symptoms can include numbness, fatigue, brain fog, dissociation, and a sense of disconnection.
In the second video, we do a deep dive into:
The Freeze State: A blend of hyperarousal and hypoarousal, this state feels like driving a car and pressing the gas and brakes at the same time. You might feel anxious and tense yet unable to act, stuck in procrastination or overwhelm.
These states are survival responses designed to protect you during acute stress. However, in modern life, many of us get stuck in these patterns, leading to mental and physical health challenges.
Putting into Practice
Awareness is the first step in working with your nervous system. Once you recognize whether you’re stuck on high, low, or in freeze, you can learn to select the most appropriate tools to help you move toward regulation. Becoming adept at recognizing the states of the nervous system within yourself is crucial to healing.
Journaling is one great way to foster self-awareness and to help yourself begin to track patterns in your life. Below, I am providing some journaling prompts to help you start to reflect on your own relationship to your nervous system. These questions are designed to go with the videos, so if any of them don’t make sense, don’t worry; they will likely make a lot more sense after watching the videos.
There are a lot of questions here, and you do not need to answer all of them. Feel free to pick and choose the questions that you find most interesting/helpful or to gradually answer them all over the course of several days or weeks. You can even use these questions as conversation starters with friends or family members who are also working on nervous system regulation.
Journaling Prompts
General Reflection Questions to Get to Know Your Nervous System:
Which state of nervous system dysregulation do you tend toward the most? Hyperarousal/ “Stuck on High”? Hypoarousal/ “Stuck on Low”? Freeze/Blended State?
Everyone experiences nervous system dysregulation in their own way. How does Hyperarousal show up for you? How would you know that you’re stuck on high? What signs/symptoms do you personally tend to experience in this state?
How does Hypoarousal show up for you? How would you know that you are hypoaroused? What signs/symptoms do you tend to experience in this state?
How does a blended or “freeze” state show up for you? How would you know that you’re in that state? What signs/symptoms do you tend to experience in this state?
What sensations do you notice in your body when you’re feeling stuck on high? What about when you’re stuck on low? In freeze?
How often do you become dysregulated? Once in a while? Multiple times per week? Multiple times per day? Has this pattern been different at different points in your life?
When you become dysregulated, are you usually aware of it at the moment? What can you do to help yourself recognize my dysregulation more quickly?
What situations or thoughts tend to trigger hyperarousal or hypoarousal for you?
What are some activities or practices that have helped you feel more balanced or regulated in the past?
Daily Check-in Prompts:
These prompts can serve as a helpful daily (or weekly) check-in to help train yourself to become more mindful of your nervous system activity on a day-to-day basis. You might choose to answer these before you go to bed, at the end of your work/school day, or in the middle of the day as a nice check-in/reset.
Looking back on your day (so far), how would you describe your nervous system activity?
Were there times when you became dysregulated today?
If so, how did you know? What were some signs/symptoms (physically, mentally, emotionally, behaviorally)?
What happened just before you became dysregulated?
What factors might have led to/contributed to your dysregulation?
How did you regulate after becoming dysregulated? What helped?
If you stayed regulated today, what contributed to your ability to stay regulated? Did you use any tools or exercises for managing stress or staying regulated? Did you do anything in particular to care for your mind and body (e.g. eating well, good sleep, sunlight exposure, social time, stress management, physical activity, doing something fun/playful/creative, good rest/relaxation, etc.)?
What insights/lessons/takeaways can be drawn from your reflections today? Is there anything you’d like to try differently tomorrow?
I hope these questions are helpful for you. Feel free to use them as a jumping off point and modify to make them your own! The more awareness you develop of your own nervous system, the more it will feel like you are in control of your emotions, reactions, and stress response. I hope these questions are a good starting place as you foster that awareness.
Join the Conversation
If you have any thoughts, reflections, or questions on this topic that you’d like to share, please feel free to leave them in a comment!
I want this content to be as helpful and interesting to you as possible, so your feedback helps me tailor my content to what you are most interested in seeing.
And if you have anyone in your life who you think might benefit from this information, please consider sharing! We are a small community looking to grow, so every referral helps.
Take care,
Abby