How Can You Calm Your Nervous System?

It can feel hard to calm your nervous system. This is especially true at times in life when the nervous system seems overwhelmed. This usually happens when several challenging events happen at the same time. Probably, there will be uncomfortable sensations in several places in your body. There may be a feeling of fatigue. Maybe there will be feelings of panic and anxiety.

Too much is going on to try and think yourself out of the feeling of overwhelm.

Trying to think things through to work things out may be counterproductive at times like this. It can simply put more pressure on the system. Firstly, it gives your subconscious brain the message that there is a problem which needs ‘sorting out’ . This puts pressure on you when more pressure is not what you need. Putting pressure on yourself actually heightens your high alert state, making the sensations and feelings even more uncomfortable. Secondly, it can add to a sense of confusion. The more information you try to get to grips with, the more tired and confused you are likely to become. And confusion can add to the sense of panic. This is not going to calm your nervous system!

Try letting go of the feelings, sensations, and the thoughts that go with them to help calm your system.

Listen, instead, to the sensations, as if you were listening, gently, to a dear friend. Indeed, trying to calm your nervous system can be similar to how you would try to calm a special friend.

When you seem filled with uncomfortable feelings and sensations, there is a tendency to worry about the sensations. But this just focuses your attention on them, holds them in place, and makes them seem more dangerous. Or, you might try to ignore them. But this also just focuses your attention on them, holds them in place, and makes them seem more dangerous.

So, why not try something different. Try letting go of the sensations and the thoughts which go with them, and just watching the sensations and seeing what happens. Know that whatever happens doesn’t matter, so long as you watch the sensations as if you were listening, in a gentle and caring way, to a dear friend. Maybe the sensations could be like waves on the sea and you could begin to enjoy listening to them lapping the shore. Can you start to believe that actually these sensations might be safe, even though they are uncomfortable at the moment?

Give yourself love and care, rather than putting yourself under more pressure.

There is a tendency when we panic of putting ourselves under pressure – pressure to resolve whatever situations we believe to be causing our extreme discomfort. “I must sort this out, now!” is usually the feel of the thoughts I have in these situations. Imagine you were saying this to a dear friend – “You’ve got all these difficult feelings and sensations – it’s up to you to sort them out, now!”

Now, imagine what it would be like if, instead, you were to treat yourself as if you were a dear friend. You might put your arm around yourself and take yourself for a quiet walk in the park, and not have to say anything to yourself. It could be enough just to know that you have a friend who cares about you – and that friend is you, yourself! You might make yourself a cup of tea, sit yourself back in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and listen to calming music. That might be what you do for yourself in your role of caring friend.

Listen to yourself. What are your needs, right now? What would be a lovely, calming thing that you could help yourself with, right now?

Can you find the stillness, silence, and love, right now, and centre yourself more there? This is where to find more calm for your system.

There is a maelstrom of confusing ideas, thoughts and appearances available to us at all times. At the same time, there is always stillness and silence, somewhere. There is stillness and silence in the turn-around points of your breath, between the in-breaths and the out-breaths. If you sit down, there is stillness and silence in the parts of you which are still.

Still your body. Still your mind. Focus on the places in yourself where you can find stillness and silence. And do this with gentleness and love. Allow your breathing to slow a little, and allow the turn-around points to be a little longer. Close your eyes to reduce the sensory input to your mind. Allow your mind to be absorbed into this stillness and silence, allowing your thoughts to fade a little. From this place of stillness and silence, watch with gentle, loving interest the uncomfortable sensations you find in your body. And see what happens – what intensifies, what subsides and what remains, temporarily, the same – knowing that everything alters and flows except for stillness and silence.

You can alternate between listening to these sensations, and watching positive, pleasant sensations in the breath – wherever these may be found. Or you could listen to positive, pleasant sensations somewhere else. And when you come back to the uncomfortable sensations, just take an interest in what has changed and what has remained, temporarily, the same.

Give yourself time. There’s a peace process going on. It may take a little longer than five minutes!

If you want to have a chat about any of this and find out more about how to calm your body and mind, why not book a free discovery call on relaxandflowhypnotherapy.co.uk

Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash