Your Nervous System Isn’t Broken — It’s Brilliant
LAB NOTES: Why TikTok is a flaming disaster on this topic, and why "regulation" ≠ calm.
Last week, I left you as I was “blissing out” in the frigid Connecticut River while I experienced living in my body for the first time since I was a young girl.
The power of that moment — its relief and safety — doesn’t make sense when you think about how an extra ten minutes there could have triggered deadly hypothermia, but that is my entire point in sharing it here.
When our bodies believe they’re fighting for survival, the thing that helps often won’t make sense to our rational minds. Look closer, though, and it does: the nervous system has its own logic, its own ways of pulling us back to safety. That’s the superpower I stumbled into that day in the river.
I, of course, didn’t know exactly what was happening that morning, but I was determined to understand why, and share it, so other people didn’t have to go through twenty years of failed therapies, like I did.
So, naturally, I dove into the science of cold plunging (literally ↑ and figuratively). After seeing mention after mention of the Nervous System (something I only ever knew as what I “needed to get a handle on” and “regulate” to be calm), I literally took a medical school course on it.
In that deep dive, what I learned helped launch this project. It’s also why today, we are launching Lab Notes — where we take a deep look at one aspect of healing as we chart the map of all the ways humans heal.
Or better put, if you are a gorp (trail mix) junkie like me, Lab Notes is a trail guide for a particular path you can take through hard times.
Welcome to Lab Notes
This feature, just like The Healing Lab, starts with this belief that stems from the harms I endured for years, when I had little agency and fewer choices about my own life.
Every human deserves to make informed choices about their own healing.
Unfortunately, the current system is stacked against us. When corporate goals dictate medication trials, insurance refuses to cover much of anything, and the broken healthcare system lacks the structures to support deeply informed consent, real people are lost in the pursuit of profit.
Under the horrors of late-stage capitalism, so many products and programs are built on the idea that there is “one true answer” to pain… because it’s cheaper and it sells programs, books, and coaching sessions.
BUT…
Here’s the secret. There is no single answer — humans heal in thousands of ways. So instead of telling you what to do (like my doctors did, and many doctors do), instead let’s hold space here, to draw a map together, of all the possible paths anyone can take in their own healing.
Your route across this map will be as unique as you are.
But for now, just know that Lab Notes — and each story, tool, and practice we share — is an offering, a guidebook along the trail that is always yours to choose or not choose, as we celebrate how brave you are to even show up and consider taking it.
So, let’s start mapping out that first trail.
(And remember, I am on Team Snacks, Slowness, and doing this however it honors you, because here, showing up is success. And today, that is more than enough).
The Nervous System. Is learning about this right for me?
Let’s get real: anyone with a nervous system can probably benefit from learning more, but you might want to really lean in here if you’re one of these groups:
Anyone working on serious healing. The nervous system is the foundation for our physical and mental states. Healing without understanding it is like flying a plane without understanding gravity.
People with stress, anxiety, or trauma. The nervous system explains why your chest tightens or your mind blanks — how your wiring is trying to keep you alive, when things get tough. Naming it helps you work with it, not against it, in times of stress.
Parents, caregivers, teachers, and mentors. Knowing the nervous system is like having the user’s manual for meltdowns. You stop seeing a meltdown as “bad behavior” and start seeing a kid’s body stuck in overdrive. A fried nervous system can’t learn or perform well, no matter how hard someone tries.
Frontline workers & caregivers — If your job constantly pulls a fire alarm in your body, knowing how that alarm system works is the first step in protecting yourself from burnout.
Modern life has us hitting the gas pedal constantly. There are alarms blaring at us from all directions. Nervous system literacy helps us know when it’s time to brake, coast, or pull over. Who couldn’t use that?
What is The Nervous System? Why is it a big deal?
Our nervous system is a goddamn hero, meant to help us respond to changing conditions in the world around us. It’s how mothers lift cars off their kids, firefighters run up hundreds of stairs in a burning building, and why people suffering abuse can survive its atrocities as their mind and body disconnect in the worst of moments.
But it’s also how we connect to ourselves, and each other. A healthy nervous system is one that can shift gears as life demands, moving between states of calm, alertness, survival and safety fluidly and appropriately. It allows us to be fully human.
If we think of the nervous system as the body’s command center for communication, survival, and repair. The unconscious part of our nervous system is particularly interesting — it runs on two main settings:
Sympathetic Nervous System — Is activated when there’s a threat and throws your body into fight, flight, fawn, or freeze. Here your heart races, muscles tense, senses sharpen. Great for danger, brutal if it never shuts off. In extreme cases, the system can even pull the “emergency brake,” dropping into shutdown or dissociation. This is your survival system, and although it feels terrible, it is downright life-saving in times of crisis.
Parasympathetic Nervous System — Is activated when there is no threat and the body is able to “rest, digest, and repair.” Here your body slows down, heals, and restores. Healing hinges on being able to access this state and spend real time here.
But that’s not what most people are talking about on TikTok (and I would know, I have watched over a thousand hours for my job). So let’s first bust some massive and common misconceptions about the nervous system.
What are the major things social media gets wrong about the Nervous System?
The way society talks about “nervous system regulation” right now is a flaming disaster. Yup. You heard me. It’s a straight up cluster.
So today, once and for all, let’s anchor this in the facts and break it down.
Our bodies are brilliant and our nervous system is no exception. Our nervous system is not a problem to “hack,” it’s a system to understand, listen to, and build capacity with.
Being “Regulated” does not mean being calm all the time. Yup. Take that in one more time because this misconception is (wrongly) screamed over and over by influencers. So, again: a regulated nervous system is not one that is calm all the time.
Being upset is not the same as being “Dysregulated.” Feeling sad, mad or fearful is not dysregulation. That’s a feeling. Dysregulation is being stuck in the wrong state (e.g. being paralyzed with fear over an email, rather than, say, a polar bear at your door).
People don’t always “know” which state their nervous system is in. Although these words are thrown around everywhere these days, not everyone is fully aware if they’re in fight-or-flight, fawn, freeze, or alert states. This is especially true if you’ve experienced trauma or have been stuck in a chronic stress cycle for too long. I did this, too. A lot.
You cannot hate or shame yourself into a place of regulation. (As much as wellness and parenting culture push this upon us).
Regulation looks different for different people. Some regulated nervous systems might naturally be STRESSED by things like, oh, the dangers of fascism, racism, hatred, or violence. We might naturally be ON HIGH ALERT because of rising costs, failing systems, and an entirely dysfunctional government. Feeling activated about those realities is not necessarily a sign of dysregulation.
The calm feeling we get when we’re in “rest and repair” is a gosh darn privilege. Yup. But don’t get me wrong, if you have ready access to a calm state of being and live there, always? I think that’s incredible — but rare. For many of us — those who cannot feel safe in this climate, living with health conditions, disabilities, Black or brown skin, poverty or homelessness, immigrant status, queer or trans identities, or unsafe homes and communities — calm is frequently not possible. For us, a regulated nervous system means one that feels the situation appropriately, and sometimes that means feeling the very real stress that we live through each day.
An actually regulated Nervous System is one that responds appropriately to the world around you. Being regulated is about moving between states fluidly, and appropriately. It’s not about staying calm, no matter what.
Healing the Nervous System means building enough capacity inside ourselves to meet life as it is. That doesn’t come instantly. It takes discomfort (trying new things) and practice (laying down new neural pathways). Lots and lots of practice. The best way to frame it is that the nervous system can be your partner and the exercises that can build capacity for regulation are a practice – not a pursuit of perfection.
Remember — stress and bad feelings aren’t the enemy; staying stuck them, is.
What Humans (From Samurais to Scientists) Know About The Nervous System
Western science only started talking about the “fight-or-flight” response in the early 1900s, when Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon coined the phrase when studying how digestion would stop in animals that were scared. “Freeze” and “fawn” came later, added by trauma researchers to capture what happens when escape isn’t possible.
But the truth is: humans have been noticing these survival states for millennia. Samurai texts warned about warriors freezing in terror unless they trained their minds; Norse sagas described fighters bewitched by paralyzing fear before battle; Homeric epics told of men running like “driven deer” back to safety.
Indigenous and traditional medicine systems all carried their own maps of the body under threat — Ayurveda’s imbalances of three fundamental energies, Chinese medicine’s yang excess or yin collapse, Buddhist psychology’s restlessness and dullness, and oral teachings that likened humans to animals like the bear, deer or possum, who fight, flee, or play dead.
The science is new; the wisdom is old.
And in the Western, scientific tradition, researchers have long known that chronic stress reshapes the nervous system itself. When you’re in “fight, flight, fawn, or freeze” modes, your body is flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, which, over time, weakens your immune defenses, disrupts your sleep, and increases your risk of anxiety, depression, and even cardiovascular disease. This is what neuroscientist Bruce McEwen has named the “allostatic load” — the biological wear and tear of being stuck in survival mode for too long.
The other side of the equation is safety. Polyvagal theory (which we’ll discuss in much greater detail soon) developed by Stephen Porges, describes how cues of safety and connection activate the vagus nerve, bringing your nervous system back into its parasympathetic state (“rest and repair”). This is why small actions — eye contact with a friend, slow exhale breathing, even the rhythm of walking — can have outsized effects. They’re signals to the body: you’re not under attack right now.
And here’s the hopeful part of the science: neuroplasticity means our nervous systems aren’t fixed. When we repeat experiences of safety, we can rewire our neural pathways, making it easier to return to balance after stress.
So here is our Lab Notes Takeaway for this week:
💜 Healing in mental health begins with nervous system literacy — learning how your wiring operates, and when it’s stuck — and what tools can help you bring it back into appropriate balance: this is true nervous system regulation.💜
To build on this, next week, we’ll explore 8 different kinds of “small actions” that can help you get in touch with your nervous system before we open the door to additional methods and practices that can help you harness this (hopefully soon to be best) friend of yours.
And with that, I am off to plunge (and not eat gas station chicken nuggets). I have turned over a new hyperfocus leaf. So instead, I will eat broccoli parmesan quiche topped with goat cheese, followed by an INCREDIBLE Nutella sandwich chaser.
I hope you can find a moment for yourself this weekend like this cute, not-so-little horse trough of mine affords me. And, at the very least, I hope you know that if the calm doesn’t arrive, you’re not broken. The world is, and that chaos you’re feeling is survival in action — something I am so glad is intact because it means: you are still here.
Wishing you a day.
With love.
Kindly,
Kate, Waffy and Tuggie
Oh Kate this was such a good article to read and I look forward to the next one. Ice or cold plunges and swimming has become very popular here in the uk and I am just skeptical about it as have suffered 40 years of real anxiety and distress? Do you think it might be worth a try? Any advice and links would be so appreciated 🥰