Let’s start this conversation by bringing a simple truth to light: unless you’re investing time into rewiring your stress response and increasing your resilience — your nervous system is likely suffering from dysregulation.
Every stressful experience that you live through leaves an effect on your nervous system, especially in childhood. Childhood, the most formative period of our lives, shapes and impacts the way our nervous system functions, our habits (results of neural pathways), and how much stress we can handle. As children, we are adapting to our environments and coping with stressors the only way we know how. These coping mechanisms are embedded in our brain, nervous system, immune system, and throughout the rest of our body.
However, for many of us, we learned unhealthy coping and adaptation mechanisms like binge eating, immersing ourselves in television, and self-isolation. A dysregulated nervous system affects every area of our lives: our work, home lives, relationships, and health and well-being.
Signs of a dysregulated nervous system can be found by breaking down a few signs of a healthy nervous system:
- When faced with a stressful event, you can adapt; you quickly and naturally return to a calm state.
- Think with a sharp, crystal-clear focus (the opposite of “brain fog”).
- Daily productivity at work, home, and in general.
- In tough times, you enforce boundaries and practice empathy with greater ease in relationships.
- Enjoy a deep peaceful sleep and wake up feeling refreshed.
How many of those boxes can you check? For many of us, it’s only a few, if we’re lucky. Now, let’s reverse these statements.
- Coping with stressors is difficult. You feel anxious for hours and can’t come down naturally.
- You often experience brain fog and must push through, especially at inconvenient times.
- You wonder why you encounter so many unproductive periods and can’t get things done at work, at home, or otherwise.
- In tough times, you let boundaries slip and lash out at friends, family, and loved ones.
- Your sleep is often interrupted and you wake up still feeling exhausted.
These are the signs of a dysregulated nervous system — do they sound more like you?
Don’t panic. With work, you can regulate your nervous system, change the way you respond to stress, and become more resilient. Then, when you experience a stressor, your body doesn’t plunge into fight or flight mode. All it takes is self-understanding and commitment to living a life full of joy.
That’s what our mission at UpHumanity is: educating and equipping you with the blueprint you need to make sustainable change that will have a transformative impact on your life.