Challenges with Change and the Nervous System

Do you find transitions hard? Do seasons and routines changing feel challenging? Do transitions during your days (work to home, weekend to the weekday routine) feel like they take more out of you? This can be a signal that your nervous system is experiencing dysregulation.

Our nervous systems are designed to respond to stress and to activate our fight, flight or freeze responses — then to deactivate from stress and move into the restful and restorative parasympathetic nervous system. These shifts happen in bigger and smaller ways throughout our days, even days without much stress. Our nervous system states are constantly shifting and changing. This is normal and exactly what our nervous systems are designed to do. We ideally want to be able to move with ease from different nervous system states.

When we experience nervous system dysregulation — as many do either occasionally or chronically — it can feel challenging to shift nervous system states. You might feel like you go from feeling completely overwhelmed to crashing or wanting to zone out by using your phone, watching tv or other ways of disconnecting. You might feel like small things stress you out and overwhelm you and you might feel like you can’t relax. These are signals that there is nervous system dysregulation in your body and nervous system, and it can make changes, even ones that are relatively easy feel challenging.

Understanding this phenomenon can be helpful to understand ourselves better. And when we understand ourselves better, we can make small shifts to support bigger changes.

Can you notice that your nervous system shifts, even a little? Can you feel the difference between activation and deactivation in your body? What happens when you notice your breath? Or notice one thing you can see that you find pleasant to look at? If you notice a shift, bring awareness to that change. Over time, this simple practice can help support nervous system regulation and you feeling more ease and increasing the capacity to be with these shifts and changes.