Latest / The Brain Dump / What to Actually Do When Your Nervous System Is Dysregulated — A Practical Guide from a Licensed Therapist | Episode 23

Transcript

What to Actually Do When Your Nervous System Is Dysregulated — A Practical Guide from a Licensed Therapist | Episode 23 · The Brain Dump

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Sandy Boone, therapist, coach, and nervous system educator with 30 years in health care and mental health.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I built two practices, got diagnosed with ADHD at 50, and learned the hard way that healers need healing too.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I help female therapists and healers regulate their nervous systems, reclaim their lives, and stop being everyone's everything.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Braindump with Sandy Boone.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have spent a lot of episodes telling you why.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why you're burned out, why insight isn't enough, why you can't think your way out of a dysregulated nervous system, why you're overthinking is a strategy and not a character flaw.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I stand behind every word of it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I kept handing you the why, and then I'd sort of wave my hand at the what.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Support your nervous system.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Sandy, how?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: At nine o'clock at night when my chest is tight and my brain won't stop and I've already snapped at someone I love, what do I actually do?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's this episode.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: No theory for the sake of theory, no 14-step protocol you'll abandon by Thursday.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just the tools I actually use, the ones I actually hand my clients, and the honest truth about how to use them so they work.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep this one practical, save it, come back to it, listen to it again.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is the episode I want you to have open on your phone the next time your system is running hot.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Before the tools, one quick frame because it changes which tool you reach for.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Dysregulation is not one single thing.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: It shows up in two very different directions.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the mistake most people make is grabbing the wrong tool for the state they're actually in.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: The first direction is too much, too activated.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is the racing heart, the tight chest, the spinning thoughts, the irritation, and the can't still still.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your system has hit the gas.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: In the body, this is your sympathetic branch doing its job, mobilizing you for a threat that, let's be honest, is usually an email and not a bear.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The second direction is too little, shut down.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is the flat, foggy, heavy, numb, can't get off the couch, don't even care feeling.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your system has hit the break and it has hit it hard.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is the oldest part of your nervous system pulling you into conservation mode when it decides the threat is too big to fight.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why this matters so much.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're shut down and you try to force calm, dim the lights, slow everything down, run a bubble bath, you can actually sink further into the collapse.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've revved up and you try to push through with more caffeine and more doing, you're pouring gas on a fire.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same word, dysregulated, but two opposite states and two opposite fixes.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the first tool isn't even a tool.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a question.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Am I revved up or am I shut down?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Gas or break.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Name that first and then pick accordingly.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: The single question will make you better at this than 90% of the advice floating out there.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with too much.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're the kind of high capacity person who listens to this show, that's probably your home address.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Tool number one, if you take nothing else from this entire episode, take this.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lengthen your exhale.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your inhale is tied to your sympathetic nervous system, the gas.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your exhale is tied to your parasympathetic, the break.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is not woo, this is wiring.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: When your exhale is longer than your inhale, you are physically nudging your body toward the break.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So breathe in for a count of four and out for a count of six or even eight.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: The ratio matters more than the exact numbers.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Long, slow exhale.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do that five or six times, and your heart rate will start to follow you down.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's a specific version that works fast when you're really spun up, and it's been getting a lot of attention lately, and that's the physiological si.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Take two inhales through the nose, a full one, and then a second little sip on top to completely feel your lungs, and then one long slow exhale out through the mouth.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Two in, one long out.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the beautiful part.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Your body already does this on its own.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's the shuddery breath you take when you're crying and finally starting to settle.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's the sigh you let out right before you fall asleep.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're just borrowing a move your nervous system already knows by heart.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Tool number two, cold.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Cold water on your face, specifically around your eyes, your cheekbones, and the middle of your forehead.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you do this, you trigger what's called the dive reflex, the same reflex that lets mammals slow their heart rate under water.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Splash cold water on your face, hold a cold pack across your eyes for 15 or 20 seconds, even a spoon in the middle of your forehead.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you're feeling bold, dunk your whole face in a bowl of ice water.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds dramatic, it is a little dramatic, and it works when you're escalated and breathing alone isn't cutting it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Tool number three, orient to the room.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: This one comes straight out of somatic experiencing work and is deceptively simple.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: When you're activated, your focus narrows.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's the threat response, tunneling your vision down onto the problem.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you deliberately widen it back out.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly turn your head and let your eyes land on things around you.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Name a few of them out loud if you can.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: The lamp, the window, the coffee cup that's been there since Tuesday.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're sending your brain a quiet physical message.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I can look around.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have time to look around.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if I have time to look around, then I am not in this exact moment in danger.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the signal that lets the system stand down.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And one more for the revved up state, because sometimes that energy doesn't need a break so much as a place to go.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Discharge it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: When your body mobilizes all that survival energy and you never actually get to run or fight, it stays stuck, buzzing in your system with nowhere to land.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let it move.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Push hard against a wall for 10 seconds and then release.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Shake out your hands and arms like you're flinging water off of them.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do 10 fast squats.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is what every other mammal does on instinct after a threat passes.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: They literally shake it off, and then they go right back to grazing like nothing happened.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're the only species that decided shaking was undignified and started bottling up instead.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we know how well that's working for us.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now the other direction.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Shutdown, flat, foggy, heavy.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is the one people don't talk about nearly as much, and it needs the opposite approach.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're not trying to calm a shutdown system, you're trying to gently wake it back up.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Tool number one here, move but small, not a workout.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: A shutdown system will hear go run five miles as one more impossible demand and sink even further.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So make it tiny.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Stand up, roll your shoulders, walk to the end of the hall and back.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Put on one song and sway to it.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not fitness.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to prove to your body that movement is still available and that you're not actually stuck, even though stuck is exactly what it feels like.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if even standing up feels like too much, start smaller than that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wiggle your toes inside your shoes, squeeze your hands into fist and let them go.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and release.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: You are hunting for the smallest possible bodily yes, the tiniest movement your system will actually agree to, and then you build from there.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: With a shutdown system, the wind is never intensity.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: The wind is any signal at all that you're still the one driving.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Tool number two, turn the sensory input up gently.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where calming a revved up system means lowering the volume, waking a shut down one means adding a little back in.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Cool, not freezing water on your hands, a strong scent, peppermint, citrus, coffee grounds, eucalyptus, something sour or crunchy to eat, something with real texture in your hands.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're giving your nervous system small safe pieces of evidence that the world is still here and it's okay to come back to it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Tool number three.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And for collapse, this is the big one.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Reach for a person.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not to process, not to trauma dump the whole day, just contact.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Text the friend, call your sister, sit in the same room as someone safe, even if you barely say a word.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings me to the tool that works no matter which direction you're running.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are wired to regulate and connection.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's called co-regulation, and it's not a weakness or a failure to soothe yourself.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is the original design.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Before you could ever calm yourself down, someone else calmed you down.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is literally how an infant's nervous system learns to do it at all.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: It borrows a grown-up steadiness until it can build its own.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that wiring does not expire when you turn 30 or 40 or 50.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the most powerful things you can do in a dysregulated moment is borrow a calmer nervous system.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Be near someone regulated.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to a steady voice.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is also, by the way, exactly why the wrong rooms are so expensive.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I did a whole episode on that one.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because if the people around you are dysregulated, you will co-regulate down into their chaos or just as fast as you'd co-regulate up into someone's calm.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system is always in the room with the other nervous systems.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't get to opt out.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: A few more that flex both ways.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Humming, singing, gargling, anything that vibrates the back of your throat gently stimulates the vagus nerve, which runs right through here.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of why humming feels good.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And while belting it out in the car somehow resets you.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Feet flat on the floor and press down.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Actually feel the ground hold your weight.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And name what you're feeling out loud or on paper.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: My chest is tight and I feel panicky.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Putting a feeling into words takes some of the charge out of it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Your thinking brain comes back online the moment you start describing the storm instead of just being swept up inside of it.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Two more quick ones that go either direction.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Temperature and pressure.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wrap both hands around a warm mug and just hold it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Warmth reads a safety to a lot of nervous systems.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And pressure, a weighted blanket, a firm self-hug with a hand on each opposite shoulder, or your whole back flat against a wall.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Deep, even pressure tells your body that it's being held.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And held is about the oldest safety signal there is.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the part that actually makes all of this work.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the part that everyone skips.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: You have to practice these when you're calm.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm serious.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: If the first time you try the physiological psi is a nine out of ten, it's going to feel useless and you're going to decide it doesn't work and never reach for it again.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not the tool failing you.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's you asking your brain to learn a brand new skill in the middle of a fire.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody learns to swim by being thrown off of the boat in a storm.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the flight attendants.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: They walk you through where the exits are before the plane has a problem.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: You want these tools worn in and familiar so that when your system is screaming, your body just goes there on autopilot.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: No thinking required.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So pick one, just one.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Do not try to install all nine of these this week.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is the wellness as a full-time job trap I've warned you about, and it's its own special flavor or pressure.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pick the one that sounded most doable and practice it once a day when absolutely nothing is wrong.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: A long exhale while you wait for your coffee, humming in the shower, orienting to the room at a pause in your day.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Make it so small it's almost embarrassing.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Messy counts, 10 seconds count.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because a tool you've practice is a tool you'll actually have, and one tool you'll actually reach for is worth more than 50 you read about in a carousel I never once touched.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be honest with you because I always try to be.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know all of this, I teach all of this, and I still get caught.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, I found myself at the end of a really long day, jaw clenched, reading the same paragraph on my phone for the fourth time, completely wired and completely fried at the same time.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me an embarrassingly long minute to go, oh, oh, right, I'm the nervous system lady.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I could do literally any of the things I tell other people to do.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I put the phone down and I did about six long exhales.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I got up and I got a glass of cold water and actually felt it cold in my hands.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I came back down, not to bliss down spa commercial calm, just back to my body and back to regulate it enough.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you that so you know.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing the tools and using the tools are two completely different muscles, even for me, and especially at 9 p.m.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: The goal was never to become a person who never gets dysregulated.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: That person does not exist.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to become someone who knows the way back.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I gave you today is state work, in-the-moment tools to ride out a wave, and they matter enormously.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Put them in your pocket and use them regularly.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you notice you're reaching for these tools all day, every day, just to stay functional, that's worth paying attention to.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's usually not a tools problem, and that's a capacity problem.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: It means your baseline is running so hot or so flat that while you're white knuckling regulation from one moment to the next, and no amount of physiological sighing is going to fix a baseline.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is deeper work.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Raising the baseline instead of just managing the wave.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of what I do with people and a big part of why I love neurofeedback.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: It trains the system so you need the tools less in the first place.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's another whole episode.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: For today, I just want you walking away with something in your hands.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to name one thing before I let you go.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: None of these tools are about numbing out or checking out of your own life.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the difference between regulation and numbness in another episode, and it holds here too.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: The point of coming back down is not to stop feeling.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's to feel without getting swept away.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: To stay in the hard moment with enough of your system online that you can actually choose what happens next.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So here's your homework, and it's honestly the lightest I've ever assigned.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Next time you feel off, ask one question, gas or break.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Am I revved up or am I shut down?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then pick one tool that matches the state you're actually in and practice that one tool this week when nothing is even wrong.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's the whole thing.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: You are not broken, you never were.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have a nervous system doing exactly what it was built to do, and now you've got a few ways to speak its language.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Before you go, three things.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: First, follow the show so the next episode lands in your feed automatically.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And do me a favor, send this one to a person you know who needs it.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's how this work finds the people it's actually for.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Second, grab my free guide.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: 50 things I do to calm my freaking nervous system.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's exactly what it sounds like.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: 50 real doable things, no fluff, and it won't cost you a dime.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: The link is right there in the show notes.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And third, if you're ready to go deeper, this is what I do.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's neurofeedback, coaching, or just figuring out what real support can actually look like for you.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you need is in the show notes.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't wait until you're running on empty to reach out.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Come find me.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of yourself.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Be kind to those around you, and remember you're not alone.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next week.