Are you doing all the "right" things & still feeling out of balance?
A friend recently shared with me that she is meditating, doing kundalini yoga, eating well, and getting into nature daily and yet she says her body is still triggered by stressful situations.
Can you relate?
These are the top 3 reasons you're still feeling impacted by stress:
1) You have a reduced capacity to process
Our bodies & nervous systems are brilliant. They are constantly adapting to the world around us, but let's be real, your nervous system hasn't evolved much since we were cave people. In the meantime, our world has evolved in exponential ways - one of the most impactful on your nervous system is the magnitude of information coming in every single day. From our news feeds online, to pollutants in food/water, you are taking in hundreds more inputs daily than your grandparents did in their day in age.
Our nervous systems have a processing capacity, and for most of us, that high level of information coming in daily combined with overextending ourselves for work, parenting, or other responsibilities in our modern worlds has had us operating beyond our nervous systems capacity. Any time we operate beyond our nervous systems capacity our bodies start to compile the experiences (physical, mental, emotional) we couldn't fully process in that moment - that stress gets stored in our body and, as a safety feature, our nervous systems have less capacity for today. This might lead to us snapping at demand from our child, or stuck in overwhelm while packing for a vacation you were thrilled to go on.
2) Modern day life is not supportive to your healing
In a perfect world, when we sleep at night we would process and integrate all of the information that has built up throughout our days, like the stressful text we received, or a challenging workout. We would wake up with a clean slate, and lots of bandwidth for the day ahead. However, our modern day technology, stress, and lifestyle is influencing our ability to get deep restorative sleep. Modern day diets and lifestyle habits like low nutrient and toxic laden packaged foods, and lack of movement add up and interfere with our body's natural ability to heal.
3) You are running on old programs
When we wake up in the morning and habitually check the news, or social media, without knowing it we are pushing play on old habits, patterns and programs. We begin to stimulate the same thoughts & feelings we had the day before, so if they're not serving us, like "I'm not good enough" or "the world is not a friendly place" we further cement old patterns into our reality.
Here is a list of my top 8 keys to optimize your nervous system in the modern day world:
1) Remember to breathe: practice taking slow & full breaths regularly, and elongate your exhale longer than your inhale. This is the simplest way to shift your body out of reaction or stress.
2) Do less: create 1-2 priorities in your day, reduce the pressure to overexert yourself.
3) Set yourself up for successful sleep: remove tech from the bedroom, put screens away 1 hr before bed, get into a relaxed state before sleep by reading or journaling, sleep in a dark cool room, and sleep with your spine aligned to receive the most healing & rejuvenation.
4) Be intentional in your mornings & evenings: they shape the tone of your day. Move slowly. Set an intention for how you'd like to show up today and revisit this throughout the day. Do something for your wellbeing first thing when you wake & last thing before you fall asleep. This is a great time for a gratitude practice.
5) Create Coherence: coherence means creating connection in the body. Creating coherence lays down new neural networks for calm, health, ease, and abundance. Specific meditations, heart coherence, even petting an animal can create coherence in your nervous system.
6) Neural Integration: hands-on nervous system healing that helps your body to process & release the stressors that are built up. Free up stuck energy and open your capacity so that you have more health, vitality, and bandwidth for today.
7) Co-regulation in community: when we come together with another person with a balanced nervous system, our nervous system benefits and becomes more balanced.
8) Moving the needle forward: healing is a process, not an event- celebrate small shifts, even 1% shifts in the way you care for yourself, or respond today builds momentum to the change you wish to see.
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With love & gratitude,
Dr. Jessica