These strategies have minimal impact because dysregulation involves both the body's physiology and the survival brain (Porges, 2007; van der Kolk, 2014; Ogden et al., 2006; Levine, 2010).
So how do you work with your nervous system at this time and find regulation?
The first step is to identify your (or your clients) nervous system state. If you're a clinician, coach, practitioner or teacher think of like getting a diagnosis right before applying a treatment.
Different states will lead to different stories and you can hear them if you listen closely to what your clients are telling you:
Freeze energy can create a story that a situation is hopeless.
Your clients may describe feeling "stuck" or powerless and the chronic procrastination in their life. The immobilisation response correlates directly with their belief that change is impossible. There can be shame-based beliefs like "I'll never get the relationship, love, work or opportunities that I long for." (Porges, 2011; Kozlowska et al., 2015).
Fight response: When your client's in sympathetic dominance/fight mode, they may display heightened criticism of others, black-and-white thinking, and have difficulty seeing nuance in relationships. This state might look like starting arguments, blaming others and being highly judgmental or critical (Dana, 2018; Siegel, 2012).
Flight energy may make your client rush into making a decision before they've had time to think things through. They may say yes (or no) without knowing what's involved or agree to doing something they don't really want to. The urge of the sympathetic nervous system is mobilisation and they may feel that they need to do more and go faster or they'll miss out (Schauer & Elbert, 2010).
Bottom-Up Regulation
If you support other people then co-regulation is your number one bottom-up resource.
Through your facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures and body language, your regulated state helps calm your clients' nervous system via vagal pathways.
Key brain areas involved in co-regulation include the brainstem (arousal), amygdala (threat detection), insula (interoception), and the mirror neuron systems.
This process first calms the survival brain, then the thinking brain can effectively be engaged in top-down regulation.
The next steps for bottom-up regulation are:
Tracking: Work out your client's state and help them develop the body awareness of their particular nervous system patterns (Porges & Dana, 2018).
Regulation before cognition: Use specific nervous system regulation techniques depending on the state they're before attempting top-down resources (Grabbe & Miller-Karas, 2018). Freeze, flight and flight will each look different.
Integration: After achieving sufficient regulation, then help clients reassess their situation from a more regulated state (ventral vagal tone).
My video below above walks you through this exact process.
Effective Regulation
When your clients achieve better regulation, you'll see:
- Improved decision-making capacity (Damasio, 1994)
- Enhanced relationship functioning (Porges, 2017)
- Greater access to creative problem-solving (Siegel, 2020)
- Reduced emotional volatility (Cozolino, 2017)
- Increased ability to align actions with personal values (Hayes et al., 2011)
- Improved treatment adherence and engagement (Cozolino, 2010)
Addressing your client challenges through a neurophysiological lens targets the mechanisms causing rumination and worry, not just the symptoms.
This approach recognises that lasting psychological change requires physiological regulation.
The connection between nervous system regulation and cognitive function empowers you to help your clients with dysregulation—and this is exactly what you'll learn in the Nervous System Certification Course.
If you want a rich understanding that includes neuroscience, the nervous system and the vagus nerve then sign up for my free training, Vagus Nerve 101. You'll get instant access here.
