A healthy nervous system is something we don’t talk or learn about. Much of what we understand about health revolves around fitness and emotional health. It is easy to understand why fitness is important, and we have unlimited options online and in our communities. But what does that look like when it comes to emotional health, and why would we want a healthy nervous system? It’s a complex thing to unpack as many elements influence emotional health: environment, relationships, activity, community, work, and home life.
When my nervous system is taxed, when I’m feeling stressed, I have little capacity to take in new information. When my autonomic nervous system is working in fight or flight, I’m less capable of rationalization. I struggle to take deep breaths, and I can be aggressive or impatient.
For example, recently, someone was talking to me about feeling stress about their schedule and worrying about finding coverage for time off in the future. Although the concerns were understandable, at the time of the conversation, I was exhausted. Instead of being patient and reassuring, I ended up speaking in a strong and defensive tone because I work hard to make sure no one ends up in that position, I want those who support my business to feel supported. Instead of grounding my energy, pulling my attention inward, and allowing myself to answer from a regulated emotional place, I was on the defensive.
This is not how I want to show up, but it’s an example of not having a regulated nervous system. I can recalibrate easily at times, but it’s taken a great deal of work to learn how; I practice and ‘train’ daily in the same way I do with my body. This is about nervous system health and managing the emotions within me when I’m tired and have little capacity to deal. Any of us can relate, and someone who doesn’t ‘train’ their system might frequently show up in a dysregulated or reactive state.
How does this relate to connection? A nervous system that can ‘regroup’ and reconnect with others in healthy ways builds connection and intimacy. In the same way, a nervous system that can pull inward and protect itself, when needed, allows for energy to recalibrate and invigorate the energetic bodies – meaning we feel more energized when we’re able to do that.
Connection requires courage. Connection requires a capacity to be vulnerable. It requires honesty and patience. If we cannot be patient with ourselves, we’ll have little tolerance for someone who is intolerant and impatient. The less aware we are of our nervous system, the less conscious choices we make. If we don’t tend to our nervous system, we tend to attract others in similar states, creating lots of drama in our lives.
If we work on having a healthy nervous system, which involves sitting in our own discomfort and finding ways to support ourselves (such as mindful breathing, conscious action, healing our traumas, learning patience, listening to others without thinking about what we want to say next, being in the moment, and learning to pay attention to our thoughts) we’ll feel more at peace and able to connect with others.
Vulnerability is an important part of the emotional puzzle; it can feel confusing to understand what being vulnerable looks like. It isn’t posting something online about ourselves, even sharing something intimate; vulnerability requires a one-on-one connection. When we share online, we’re simply communicating our thoughts; it’s not the same as being intimately honest with someone and not knowing how they’ll respond. Vulnerability is calling someone when you feel like you’re coming apart at the seams and asking if they’ll listen while you work through deeply personal and confidential aspects of your life and not knowing whether they’ll have the capacity to support you. That’s vulnerability, and it requires courage.
In order to be connected with others, we have to be able to move between connection and self-protection with ease. When we lose connection we land in a self-protective state like the pandemic created, and we get stuck in feeling like we need to protect ourselves. If we lose the capacity to trust in the world and each other, we ultimately end up in distrust and fear. In those states, we lack resilience and miss out on opportunities to connect, which impacts our emotional well-being.
Our nervous system health impacts all areas of our lives, physical and emotional. It dictates how we manage stress, influences our relationships, and impacts disease in our bodies. My hope is that we all start to take our own nervous system a little more seriously and focus on how we can create connections and improve our health. If you’re reactive all the time, feeling stressed, you might not even realize you’re doing it. You might not even understand how it’s impacting your life. If you’re really interested in learning about yourself, this is a beautiful way to do it.
Noelle Bovon