When survival becomes a habit |
There are people who wake up exhausted before the day has even begun. Their shoulders are tense, their mind is racing, their heart beats a little faster than it should, and even the smallest inconvenience feels overwhelming. From the outside, they seem anxious. But beneath the anxiety lies something much deeper a nervous system that has forgotten what safety feels like.
Before we talk about nervous system regulation, we first need to understand what the nervous system actually is. Think of it as the body’s communication network. Every second of every day, it scans the world around you, asking one question: Am I safe? Based on the answer, it decides how your body should respond. It does this through two primary states. The first is the sympathetic nervous system, commonly known as the fight-or-flight response. It prepares you to survive danger by increasing your heart rate, sharpening your senses, and flooding your body with stress hormones.
The second is the parasympathetic nervous system, often called the rest-and-digest state. This is where healing happens. Digestion........