The Nervous System
Understanding the Thread That Connects Trauma, Mental Health, Relationships, and Healing
If you've been in therapy, done any trauma work, or explored personal development in the last few years, you've probably heard someone mention "nervous system regulation." Maybe your therapist told you to "get grounded" or "find your window of tolerance." Maybe you've heard about "co-regulation" in relationships or read something about how trauma "lives in the body."
But what does all of this actually mean? And more importantly, why does it matter?
As a trauma-informed therapist, social worker, and sound healer, I've watched countless people have profound breakthroughs not from gaining new insights about their past, but from understanding what's happening right now in their nervous system. Because here's the truth: you can intellectually understand your trauma, know your attachment style, identify your patterns, and still feel stuck. That's because real change doesn't just happen in your mind—it happens in your body, in your nervous system.
Let me show you how it all connects.
Your Nervous System: The Operating System Beneath Everything
Think of your nervous system as the operating system running in the background of your entire life. It's constantly scanning your environment—both inside and outside your body—asking one fundamental question: "Am I safe right now?"
This process is called neuroception, a term coined by Dr. Stephen Porges in his Polyvagal Theory. It happens beneath conscious awareness, which means your body is making safety assessments before your thinking brain even knows what's happening. Your nervous system is reading facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, proximity, environmental cues, and internal sensations, then determining how you should respond.
This is why you can logically know you're safe but still feel anxious. Your thinking brain understands the situation, but your nervous system has detected something it perceives as a threat and has already activated your defense responses.
The Two Branches: Sympathetic and Parasympathetic
Your autonomic nervous system has two main branches that work together like a gas pedal and brake.
The Sympathetic Nervous System (Gas Pedal): This is your mobilization system. When activated, it increases heart rate, dilates pupils, redirects blood to your muscles, releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, and prepares you for action. This is your fight-or-flight response, and it's designed to keep you alive in the face of danger, real or perceived.
In the right doses, sympathetic activation is healthy and necessary. It's what helps you meet deadlines, have passionate conversations, exercise, or respond appropriately to actual threats. The problem arises when this system becomes chronically activated—when your body is constantly revving the engine even when there's no emergency.
The Parasympathetic Nervous System (Brake): This is your rest, digest, and restore system. When this branch is online, your heart rate slows, breathing deepens, digestion functions properly, inflammation decreases, and your immune system can do its job. This is also the state where you can genuinely connect with others, experience pleasure, think clearly, and access creativity.
The parasympathetic system has two modes: the social engagement system (ventral vagal), which allows for connection and presence, and the dorsal vagal shutdown response, which is a more primitive survival strategy involving collapse, dissociation, or numbing. Both are technically "parasympathetic," but they feel very different.
How Trauma Shapes Your Nervous System
Here's what many people don't understand about trauma: trauma is less about the event itself, and more about the body’s response to the threat. Trauma occurs when an overwhelming experience exceeds your capacity to cope, and your nervous system gets stuck in a protective response.
When something threatening happens and we can't fight or flee effectively, when we can't get to safety or make it stop, our nervous system adapts. It learns. It says, "Okay, the world is dangerous, and I need to stay vigilant." Your body literally encodes this experience and continues responding as if the threat is still present—even years later, even in completely different circumstances.
This is why:
You feel anxious when there's nothing objectively wrong
You shut down or go numb during conflict instead of being able to speak up
You have physical symptoms that doctors can't explain
You react intensely to things that seem small to others
You struggle to relax even when you're on vacation
You feel disconnected from your body or your emotions
Your nervous system isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect you based on what it learned. The problem is that it's using old information to respond to new situations.
The Window of Tolerance
Dr. Dan Siegel introduced the concept of the "window of tolerance" (literally a window)—the zone where you can handle life's ups and downs without getting overwhelmed or shutting down. When you're in your window, you can think clearly, regulate your emotions, and respond flexibly to challenges.
When you move outside your window, you either go into hyperarousal (anxiety, panic, hypervigilance, anger) or hypoarousal (depression, numbness, dissociation, exhaustion). For people with trauma histories, this window is often very narrow (like a window partially cracked open). Small triggers can send you outside it quickly, and it takes longer to return to baseline.
Healing work is largely about widening this window—increasing your capacity to stay present and regulated even when things are difficult.
Mental Health Through a Nervous System Lens
When we look at common mental health struggles through the lens of the nervous system, everything starts to make more sense.
Anxiety is often chronic sympathetic activation. Your body is stuck in "danger mode," constantly scanning for threats, unable to rest. The racing thoughts, the physical tension, the hypervigilance—these aren't character flaws. They're nervous system states.
Depression often involves dorsal vagal shutdown—your system has been overwhelmed for so long that it's collapsed into conservation mode. Lethargy, lack of motivation, feeling disconnected from yourself and others, and the sense that nothing matters are all signs that your nervous system has hit its limit and pulled the emergency brake.
PTSD and Complex PTSD are fundamentally about a nervous system that's been conditioned to perceive threat everywhere. Flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, and emotional dysregulation are all nervous system responses to perceived danger, even when the actual danger has passed. In my opinion people with PTSD or C-PTSD, also can experience higher levels of anxiety and depression because of their trauma history.
Panic attacks are sudden surges of sympathetic activation—your fight-or-flight system going from zero to sixty without an obvious trigger (though there usually is one if you look at the nervous system level).
Understanding this changes everything about how we approach healing. Instead of asking "What's wrong with me?" or trying to think your way out of these states, you start asking "What's happening in my nervous system right now?" and "What does my body need to feel safer?"
Attachment Styles: How Your Nervous System Learned About Relationships
Your attachment style—the way you relate to closeness, intimacy, and connection in relationships—is fundamentally a nervous system pattern that formed in your earliest relationships.
Babies and children need their caregivers to help them regulate their nervous systems. When you cried as an infant and someone responded with soothing touch, a calm voice, and attunement, your nervous system learned: "When I'm dysregulated, connection helps. Other people are safe. I can trust that my needs will be met."
But when your caregivers were inconsistent, unavailable, frightening, or overwhelmed themselves, your nervous system learned different lessons. And those lessons became your attachment blueprint.
Secure Attachment (Flexible Nervous System)
People with secure attachment grew up with caregivers who could co-regulate with them consistently. Their nervous systems learned that:
Connection is safe and reliable
It's okay to need others
They can handle both closeness and independence
Conflict can be repaired
As adults, they can move fluidly between autonomy and connection. Their window of tolerance is relatively wide, and they can regulate their emotions effectively, both alone and with others.
Anxious Attachment (Hypervigilant Nervous System)
Anxious attachment often forms when caregiving was inconsistent—sometimes attentive, sometimes unavailable (emotionally or physically). A child's nervous system learns: "I need to stay activated and vigilant to get my needs met. Closeness is good, but it might disappear at any moment."
As adults, this shows up as:
Chronic sympathetic activation in relationships
Hypervigilance to signs of rejection or abandonment
Difficulty self-soothing when a partner is unavailable
Needing frequent reassurance
Feeling like the relationship is always in jeopardy
This isn't "neediness" or "being too much." It's a nervous system that learned it had to work hard, stay alert, and amplify its signals to get care.
Avoidant Attachment (Shutdown Nervous System)
Avoidant attachment often forms when caregivers were consistently unavailable, dismissive, or uncomfortable with emotional needs. The nervous system learns: "Connection isn't reliable and might even be threatening. I'm better off handling things on my own. Needing others is dangerous."
As adults, this shows up as:
Discomfort with too much closeness or vulnerability
Shutting down emotionally during conflict
Prioritizing independence and self-sufficiency
Difficulty accessing or expressing emotions
Feeling overwhelmed or suffocated by a partner's needs
This isn't coldness or lack of caring. It's a nervous system that learned early on to suppress its attachment needs and stay in dorsal shutdown around emotional intimacy.
Disorganized Attachment (Dysregulated Nervous System)
Disorganized attachment forms when caregivers were frightening or frightened—the very person who should provide safety is also a source of threat. The child's nervous system faces an impossible bind: "I need you, but you scare me."
As adults, this often looks like:
Wanting closeness but also fearing it intensely
Intense, chaotic relationships
Difficulty trusting others or themselves
Swinging between clinging and pushing away
Feeling overwhelmed by intimacy but terrified of abandonment
This pattern creates the most nervous system dysregulation because there's no coherent strategy that works. The system oscillates between hyperarousal and hypoarousal without finding a stable middle ground.
How Your Nervous System Shapes Your Relationships
Understanding nervous system states transforms how we understand relationship dynamics. Most relationship conflicts aren't really about the content of the argument—they're about two nervous systems that don't feel safe with each other in that moment.
When your partner says something that triggers your abandonment wound, your sympathetic system activates. Your thinking brain goes offline, and you're suddenly in fight-or-flight. Maybe you get angry and critical (fight), or anxious and clingy (flight toward). Your partner, feeling attacked or overwhelmed, might activate their own defense response—maybe shutting down (dorsal) or getting defensive (sympathetic).
Now you're in what relationship researchers call "negative cycle"—two dysregulated nervous systems triggering each other in an escalating loop. And here's the thing: you can't think or talk your way out of this state. Your prefrontal cortex—the part of your brain responsible for perspective-taking, empathy, and rational thought—has gone offline.
This is why the advice to "just communicate better" often doesn't work. You can't communicate effectively when your nervous system is in defense mode.
Co-Regulation: The Nervous System Dance
Healthy relationships involve co-regulation—the ability to help each other return to a regulated state. When one person is dysregulated, the other person's calm, regulated nervous system can actually help bring them back online. This is why a partner's soothing voice, a hug, or just their steady presence can help you calm down.
But co-regulation only works when at least one person can stay relatively regulated. When both people are dysregulated, you end up with mutual dysregulation—what couples often experience as "we just keep making it worse."
This is why one of the most powerful relationship skills you can develop is the ability to recognize when you're dysregulated and take a break to self-regulate before continuing a difficult conversation. It's not avoidance—it's nervous system literacy.
Why Traditional Talk Therapy Sometimes Isn't Enough
For decades, therapy focused primarily on insight and cognitive understanding. The idea was: understand why you do what you do, process your past, change your thoughts, and your feelings and behaviors will follow.
And for some people, some of the time, this works. But for many people—especially those with trauma histories—insight alone doesn't create lasting change. You can understand intellectually that your partner isn't going to abandon you, but your body still panics when they don't text back. You can know your boss isn't your critical parent, but your nervous system still responds to their feedback like it's life-threatening.
This is because trauma and attachment patterns are encoded in implicit memory—body memory, nervous system memory—not just explicit, narrative memory. Your body holds the patterns that your mind can't always access or change through insight alone.
This is why somatic therapies, body-based practices, and nervous system regulation techniques are becoming increasingly central to trauma treatment. Approaches like Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and Internal Family Systems work directly with the body and nervous system to help release stuck survival responses and create new patterns.
Sound Healing and the Nervous System
This is where my work as a sound healer intersects beautifully with trauma therapy. Your nervous system doesn't just respond to thoughts, insights, and conversations—it responds powerfully to rhythm, vibration, tone, and frequency.
Sound travels through your body as vibration, literally shifting your physiological state. Different frequencies and rhythms can help move you from sympathetic activation into parasympathetic calm. This is why:
Slow, rhythmic music can help you feel more grounded
Humming or singing activates the vagus nerve, which is key to parasympathetic activation
Certain frequencies can help release tension and shift emotional states
Group singing or drumming creates collective co-regulation
Sound bypasses the thinking brain and speaks directly to the nervous system. Sometimes your body needs to feel safety—through vibration, rhythm, and resonance—before your mind can understand it.
In my practice, I've seen people have profound shifts through sound work when talk therapy had reached a plateau. The body releases what the mind couldn't access. The nervous system finds a pathway back to regulation that cognition alone couldn't create.
Practical Tools for Nervous System Regulation
Understanding all of this is valuable, but the real question is: what can you actually do with this information?
1. Learn to recognize your nervous system states. Start noticing: Am I in sympathetic activation right now? (Signs: rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, tension, feeling wired or agitated) Am I in parasympathetic shutdown? (Signs: numbness, fatigue, disconnection, fogginess, lack of motivation) Or am I in my window of tolerance? (Signs: present, can think clearly, emotionally flexible, can connect with others)
2. Build your regulation toolkit. Different tools work for different states:
For sympathetic activation: Grounding exercises, long exhales, cold water on your face, vigorous movement followed by stillness, progressive muscle relaxation
For dorsal shutdown: Gentle movement, energy-building breathwork, sensory stimulation (cold water, strong tastes [i.e., sour gummies], upbeat music), social connection, doing something that brings small moments of pleasure
For maintenance: Regular practices like meditation, yoga, time in nature, creative expression, consistent sleep and eating rhythms
3. Practice pendulation. This is a technique from Somatic Experiencing where you deliberately move your awareness between sensation in your body and present-moment safety. You might notice tension in your chest, then shift your attention to your feet on the ground, then back to your chest. This helps your nervous system learn it can be with discomfort without getting overwhelmed.
4. Cultivate safe relationships. Your nervous system heals in connection with regulated others. Spend time with people whose presence helps you feel calm. Notice who in your life helps you regulate and who tends to dysregulate you. This isn't about cutting everyone out—it's about being intentional about co-regulation.
5. Work with sound and rhythm. Experiment with humming, singing, listening to regulating music, using singing bowls or tuning forks, or exploring drumming. Notice what sounds and rhythms help your body shift states.
6. Get support from nervous-system-informed practitioners. Work with therapists trained in somatic approaches, try bodywork modalities, explore sound healing, or engage with practices like yoga or martial arts that integrate body and mind.
The Bottom Line
I talk about the nervous system constantly because it's the foundation beneath everything else. You can have all the insights in the world about your childhood, your patterns, your attachment style, your trauma—but if your nervous system doesn't feel safe, sustainable change is really hard.
Healing isn't just about understanding what happened to you cognitively. It's about helping your body realize, on a deep physiological level, that the danger has passed. That you're allowed to rest now. That safe connection is possible. That you're safe enough to be here, in this moment, in your body.
When you understand your nervous system, everything shifts:
You stop judging yourself for reactions you can't control and start working with your body instead of against it
You recognize relationship patterns as nervous system dances, not character flaws
You understand that healing requires both insight and embodied practice
You develop compassion for how hard your system has worked to keep you safe
You realize you're not broken—you're brilliantly adapted to what you've survived
And perhaps most importantly, you start to believe that change is actually possible. Not through willpower or positive thinking alone, but through patiently teaching your nervous system, bit by bit, that it can finally let its guard down.
That the world can be safe. That connection can be nourishing. That your body is a home you can return to.
This is the work. And it's so deeply worth doing.
If you're interested in exploring nervous system work more deeply, I offer individual sound healing, community sound bath events, private events, and corporate wellness event. You can also follow along for more insights by signing up for my newsletter or following me on instagram at wavesofchangecoalition.
