Five Ways to Help Your Nervous System Recover
For many, this week may have been … a lot. And with this month’s theme of recovery, I want to explore what it means to allow your nervous system to reset and recover following the election, the holidays, and the mad dash to the new year. While there’s a good deal of information out there about the intricacies of our nervous system, this post is not that. Instead, I offer you five simple tips to create an environment for nervous system recovery.
Get off Screens: Distraction is a great way to get through a crisis when the pain is too great to manage and you just need to buy time for emotions to settle. It is not great, however, when we are trying to learn to down-regulate and rest. Reducing screen time— off of all screens—can help to reset our dopamine sensitivity, as well as stopping the slow decline of grey matter in our brain (which is thought to be sped up by screen usage). My clients tell me all the time that they use their phones and social media to de-stress after a difficult day. When I hear this, I usually challenge them to experiment with stopping that “de-stress” screen time, and start taking notes on how they feel immediately afterward. The results never fail: across the board, screen time makes people feel more disconnected, edgy, and exhausted than they would be otherwise.
Cut Down on Notifications: As with overall screen time, the amount of notifications and alerts that we are exposed to on a daily basis has been shown to increase cortisol levels, diminish focus, and increase engagement of the sympathetic nervous system. Consider turning off unnecessary notifications, especially those connected to stressful information like the news.
Stop Multitasking (as Much): As a mother of a toddler, I understand that multitasking a more of a lifestyle than a choice. Whenever possible, working on one task at a time is much better for your nervous system. When we multitask, we may feel like we are getting more done but we are often less effective at completing the task we are working on. When you can, cut down on anything extra, even things that are enjoyable may be taxing when trying to do too much. For example, listening to a podcast while cooking dinner may be relaxing if you are alone in the house. If you have a family, listening to a podcast while cooking dinner may mean stopping the podcast several times to explain something to your spouse, get a snack for your child, or look up a recipe on your phone. Before you know it, you have no clue what was being said on the podcast, you are overstimulated, and you have forgotten half the ingredients in the recipe. Turn off the sensory inputs, focus on the task at hand, and work to be mindful of the moment you are in.
Let the Perfectionist in You Die: In the book When Things Fall Apart Pema Chodron says that seeking perfection is “some kind of death” because perfection is a state that can never live. To live is to be dynamic. It is to change—to improve or decline often and over a long period of time. Perfection is static, stable, and dead. The pursuit of perfection keeps us in a constantly defensive state where we are always trying to maintain things exactly as they “should” be. This task is impossible, causing us to constantly have the feeling of never being good enough. This destroys our nervous system and our ability to be resilient. The answer is to work every day to let the perfectionist die: this is the only way to allow the real human in you to live.
Learn to Rest: This year, there has been one book that has profoundly influenced my life and my work: Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey. The book is raw, challenging, and motivating in this time where nothing really feels incredibly hopeful. There is hope in Hersey’s words of learning to rest well in a country that values “grinding”, attempts to monetize our humanity, and pushes us to “always be optimizing.” I hate optimizing. I hate this idea that we need to always be doing, pushing, striving, and aiming for more. Growth that is constant and never dies is not healthy growth; it is cancerous growth. Honor your nervous system and learn how to rest well. Give yourself a mental rest by taking time in nature. Give yourself physical rest by napping, even when you have so much that you “should” be doing. Learn to value your intrinsic worth more than your productivity outputs. Learn what it means to be a human who has seasons of their life. Learn to rest.
These five tips are a simplified list of techniques that I personally recommend to my clients (and use myself) when I am feeling burn out/exhaustion creeping up. It is not exhaustive— there is a whole world of options to help you feel more rest and peace this winter season. The best thing you can do is trust your gut and do what feels restful for you, not just what a list on the internet (like this one!) tells you to do. But it’s vital to find one—your nervous system will thank you.
Be well,
—Katie Chapin, LCSW, MCAP
