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Understanding Nervous System Regulation

Nervous system regulation is about using advanced information on physiology to face your life goals and challenges. Let’s discuss why it works.

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Why doesn’t logically understanding my problems always fix my problems?

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Processed language and logic do not reach all parts of the physiology, the nervous network, and the brain. There are large sections of the brain that cannot process words or verbally contracted language. Doctors realized that talk-based therapy was not enough in every case, especially in deep trauma that dysregulated massive amounts of nervous system reactivity. 

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This means often when a client is trying to tell themselves to calm down, break a habit, or start a new pathway in life but despite all the grounded logic and plan they can’t, this is for this reason. This explains why in your nervous system, there is a language barrier between different regions of your brain, and not all of the regions of your brain and body are getting the message you are aiming to send to yourself.

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What is neuroplasticity?

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The second reason that understanding your problems logically does not always fix your problems is because of neuroplasticity. Say you drop a glass of orange juice when you are young. The glass shatters, breaks, and cuts your leg. In the present, when you smell oranges, your heart races. However, for some reason, you do not get that same reaction to glass cups. The real threat was dropping the glass, but the nervous system could wire the information illogically. Instead, the smell of oranges triggers you, but illogically, the glass does not.

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Though not logical, that information is coded into the neuroplasticity of the brain so that information is treated as a rule to your nervous system from then on. It can now send reactive data to the nervous system. Neuroplasticity is deeper than learning correlations. The information becomes hardwired into the nervous system circuitry. Therefore, it is much more difficult to override with new information.

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Neuroplasticity is how the brain builds structural, functional, and informational changes to its entire network. The brain is an adaptive structure that can build structural correlations from real-world experience. In everyday application, it is also the network of your brain that correlates memory and logical correlations between very separate concepts. However, in this system sometimes a structural build goes faulty and makes a structural correlation ineffective for your nervous network.

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Additionally, you can see how this applied to traumatic events you have experienced. If the neuroplasticity stored logic bound to your trauma, your entire body may think even simple mundane events are threats. Your body can not calm itself down even years after the event. You cannot simply tell yourself oranges are not the threat because the neuroplasticity has already learned the correlation that it is - and again, not all parts of the brain understand language, so talking yourself out of may not always be an option.

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What is mobilization?

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The third reason that understanding your problems logically does not always fix your problems is that the nervous system circuit is dominant within you at any time and can change your perception of virtually the same information before you. Your fight-or-flight system is formally known as your sympathetic nervous system (SNS). When the SNS is activated, it releases cortisol, a stress hormone. It also has a slew of other tense and sudden physiological changes, resulting in a sensation of tension and unidentified stress that is carried throughout the day.

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Store too many threat cues for the nervous system, and suddenly can live in a constant state called hyper-arousal. This is where the body has a tough time exiting sympathetic nervous system activation. The body will naturally restore itself however, it will carry you through stress and then a crash - and then back to stress again until you are exhausted into another cycle. According to Dr. Peter Levine, this is because outdated signals within the nervous system have not been fully metabolized, even from years ago. Which means the signal did not complete itself. The nervous system feels the signal was fired and not heard or acted on. So it continues to fire and feels the threat is still active, even many years after an event.

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There are many methods to metabolize “old” nervous system signals. Mobilization is simply one of them. The basic premise of mobilization is that fight-or-flight activation is primarily to mobilize and supply energy to the muscles to either fight (move in towards) or flight (move away) from a subject. It does not always mean literal fighting or flighting. Mobilizations can be tiny and subtle such as wiggling a finger or taking a step backward away from someone. The amount of energy supplied is relative to how much energy the nervous system thinks you need to handle tackling situations. When metabolizing nervous system signals, we allow for unprocessed signals to release themselves, communicating to the nervous system that the threat has been resolved.​

Processing Nervous System Resistance

What are dissociative nervous system signals, and how will they impact my regulation and sessions?

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Self-detachment and disassociation are interesting nervous system signals to analyze. These signals come at varying degrees of intensity, severity, awareness, and how they appear in the identity. It can be difficult to catch awareness of these nervous system signals because the nervous system signals itself signals for you to disconnect from awareness of it for your survival. This is also often why we may need assistance from a therapist or practitioner to be aware of what our physiology is purposely disconnecting from us from within ourselves. The process of second-informed individuals to assist your nervous system with these types of signals is called co-regulation.

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The solution to being able to (1) be consciously aware of disassociate signals and (2) tolerate the experience of various other nervous system signals is called increasing the container in somatic psychology. Increasing the container means increasing one’s physical ability to hold onto, focus, and healthily apply nervous system signals before experiencing dissociative, disengagement, or flight signals.

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In many sessions, you will sit there, stimulate your nervous system on a specific topic, locate the physical position of a signal, and hold the focus. As you do, the signal will swell, dissipate, change locations, or result in other physiological reactions. The process is called metabolizing nervous system signals. The conscious focus alone metabolizes other nervous system signals. At this point of the process, many will begin to disassociate, disengage, or start experiencing subtle flight signals, moving their body, or over-talking to facilitate distraction. Over time, you train yourself to experience nervous system signals as purely raw signals that carry data throughout your nervous system. Training this understanding allows you to sit with even dissociative signals, locate them, and metabolize them before they end up controlling your default action for you.

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What if I am resistant to processing an emotion? How is this going to impact my nervous system regulation journey?

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Resistance towards feeling various nervous system signals is normal. It is a part of the coaching process to assist a client on how to approach nervous system signals that they have a detachment towards. Throughout many sessions, a client become trained on how to confront their resistance to further embody their goals and life aspirations without hesitation or fear of how they may feel.​

Nervous System Regulation Term List

Neuroplasticity: The structural network of the brain that assists in building correlations between separate concepts. In nervous system coaching and EMDR, one works to rebuild the correlations of the structural network that no longer serves the healthiest sense of self.

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Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS): The nervous system network involved in fight-or-flight, mobilizing the body, stress, and conquering various challenges in one's life. In nervous system regulation, it is the nervous system circuit we are aiming to make feel safe enough to function with a client’s goals.

Ventral Vagal Nervous System: The nervous system network is involved in the desire to be social, share themselves, and desire to engage with others.

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Parasympathetic Nervous System: The nervous system network is involved in resting, feeling relaxed, and restoring the body.

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Contacting: Increasing and honing the ability to focus on a nervous system signal. We draw conscious focus to the signal as closely as possible without disassociating, detaching, or distracting. As the contact with a nervous system signal increases, a client tracks physical changes of sensation as they focus on the signal. The ability to stay with the tracking increases over multiple sessions.

 

Increasing The Container: Increasing the client's ability to hold onto and experience nervous system signals that at first were unbearable or uncomfortable. We work to hold and harness fight, flight, appease, freeze, dissociative, and disengage nervous system signals without overwhelming them. In some cases, we work to hold onto these signals without altering the perception of self or the perception of ones environment. In other cases, we focus on how to hold onto these signals to increase the ability to apply healthy action and clarity - decreasing brain fog, confusion, and detachment.

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Metabolizing Nervous System Signals: Nervous system signals from your past and present that did not get fully acted on may stay stored in the body in the form of tension and triggers. We use various practices in sessions to metabolize various nervous system signals.

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Mobilization: Mobilization is one method of metabolizing nervous system signals. This involves feeling stress cues, focusing on them until they swell or expand, and then moving the body in response to the signal. The reason we may do this is because the primary goal of sympathetic nervous system cues is to move and mobilize the body into or away from a threat. When sympathetic nervous system cues do not get acted on, sometimes the threat cue stays stored in the body and turns into tension that a person can hold for days, weeks, months, or years. Mobilization reawakens the nervous system signal and safely applies motion to the body to metabolize the stress signal. This is a somatic psychology technique that will be guided by your coach during sessions.

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Tritiation: Tritiation is one method of metabolizing nervous system signals. The process of contacting an overwhelming nervous system signal, allowing the sensation to swell, and following the natural other successive reactions in the physiology. Then tracking the body for changes, and repeating the process. This allows a nervous system signal to metabolize and come to a sense of completion. This is a somatic psychology technique that will be guided by your coach.

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Window Of Tolerance: Much of the process of nervous system regulation is learning how to sit with uncomfortable sensations, overwhelm, and distraction - because these are all nervous system signals that designed to protect you for your survival. In sessions, we are working on regulating signals that are influencing one to detach from oneself, your environment, and life goals. Though being overstimulated is part of the process, your coach will watch you for signs that you are leaving your threshold of tolerance to experience your sensations. We will then ground before continuing or rerouting.

Explore commonly asked questions.

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SESSION PILLARS

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REGULATION

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COGNITION DETECTION

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SESSION GOALS

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SESSION RESTRICTIONS

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CLIENT CRITERIA

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LOGISTICS & POLICY

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RESOURCES

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