Somatic Therapy is for Regulating your Nervous System

These days it seems like you can’t go five seconds of scrolling without seeing something about nervous system regulation. From breathwork to mindfulness, yoga to tai chi to cold exposure, it seems like everyone has something to say about regulating your nervous system. This is, in general, a good thing, because everyone can benefit from learning new ways to feel a little calmer, a little more grounded, a little more present. However, I’d like to take a minute to explain what nervous system regulation is, dispel some myths, and contextualize this within the process of therapy.

Nervous system regulation - what is it?

You, as well as all animals from worms through mammals, have a nervous system. This includes your brain as well as all of the nerves throughout your body. It’s through this system that your brain communicates with other parts of your body, and other parts of your body communicate with your brain.

We’re specifically talking about your autonomic nervous system, which is a branch of your peripheral nervous system. This system manages your heart rate, breathing, digestion, sexual arousal, and stress response, among other things.

When functioning well, this system allows a really wide range of activation - think intense exercise, running from a bear, swerving away from the inattentive driver - all the way to relaxing by an alpine lake, feeling slightly unwell after consuming too much ice cream, or sleeping. This brings us to a common myth.

Myth #1: A regulated nervous system is always calm.

A regulated nervous system is able to flexibly tolerate and move through a wide range of activation, and return to a baseline of relative calm. Neurobiologist Daniel Siegel gives us the concept of a “window of tolerance” to illustrate this.

A well regulated system allows you to swerve away from an inattentive driver, and then return to your journey. Your heart rate will likely jump, you might suddenly hold your breath, you might express these feelings to yourself with brief, colorful language, but then you’ll carry on your way.

A poorly regulated system might look like the same for the first second, and then stay ramped up. This is the person who now leans on their horn for minutes, chases down the other driver, swerves back at them while yelling obscenities and gesturing. They’re stuck in a highly activated state, and don’t come back down to baseline.

Myth #2: The point of therapy is to regulate the nervous system

The point of therapy is meaningful change. Regulation is one part of how to get there. If we’re not well regulated, we can’t think well. If we’re riddled with intense anxiety or anger, we can’t reflect on who we are and how we got here. If we’re shifting erratically through states of hyper or hypoarousal, we don’t have enough stability to make deep psychological change.

I often see nervous system regulation touted as THE WAY to solve issues with mental and emotional health. (I’m generally skeptical when someone claims there is ONE RIGHT WAY to do anything. Even therapy is not the one and only way to address mental health).

Our nervous systems are a huge part of who we are, but we are not merely nervous systems. Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can’t be reduced to the electro-chemical signals shooting back and forth through our bodies.

Focusing on nervous system regulation is a crucial piece of any therapeutic work, as it is often missed in some forms of psychotherapy. But human psychology is so much more complex than physiology alone.

Therapy and Your Nervous System

So what does this mean for therapy? Learning about how your specific nervous system responds to your environment, and to your own mind, is a key piece of improved mental health. This takes a more integrative mind-body perspective, recognizing that how your body responds is linked to how you think and feel, and vice versa. 

Somatic therapy takes this physiology seriously. Some forms of somatic therapy focus exclusively on bodily responses, and tend to view humans as more of an organism rather than a whole person. I take the approach that all of your experience - thoughts, feelings, beliefs, sensations, memories, fantasies, etc. - are integral to who you are.

When working somatically, we allow physiological signals to help guide what we need to pay attention to. Especially if you tend to overthink, especially if you have a tremendously active mind overflowing with thoughts, regulating by noticing what your body is doing can be far more helpful than trying to change your thoughts. Often we can get lost in our heads, without any awareness of what our bodies are doing. 

Let’s look at an example. Imagine being consumed by anxiety, with the same thoughts running through your head without any resolution. Now take a look at what your body is doing. You might be hunched, wrapped up with your arms around you, maybe even slightly rocking. This is your body trying to regulate. Your arms are wrapped around you in an embrace, and the subtle rocking motion is a way of discharging stressful energy. Often when people become aware of this, they stop. They feel embarrassed by what their body is doing. Instead, we can gently bring awareness to this - let yourself feel that embrace. Let your body rock as much as it wants to. Focus on one element of that bodily sensation, maybe your hands on your arms, the pulsing sensation as you rock, maybe your breath. Let yourself do this for a minute and then notice the state of your mind. Often, by noticing what your body is doing, and letting it continue with your conscious attention, the mental intensity you were experiencing starts to lessen.

This way of working allows us to help regulate your nervous system with more specificity and with a more “bottom up” direction. Generic ways of regulating are super helpful, but when we’re working to address long held patterns, or complex trauma that has been ingrained for a long time, the right focus matters.

If this speaks to you, and you feel like you could use some support, please reach out.