- The “SOS” signal
- The Gut Feeling
- The point of no return: Dorsal Vagal Collapse
- How to ‘Talk back’ to the nervous system
- Makia Perpective
- Conclusion
We often treat our bodies like high-performance machines. Working long hours, surviving on caffeine and ignoring ‘minor’ injuries. But your nervous system is not just a bunch of wires it is a system designed to keep you safe.
When things arent right we begin to not only feel emotions that include sadness and being low on energy. These can also manifest as physical symptoms: anxiety, physical sensations, tight chest, tingling and just not feeling like yourself.
The nervous system can be triggered by environments, mental health or a hormone imbalance. All of these factors can increase cortisol levels – the stress hormone – leaving you feel not like yourself.
The “SOS” signal
The nervous system has two parts, the sympasympathetic thetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
The sympatheic nervous system is in control of responses (fight or flight). When this occurs our stress hormones are released and can make our heart rate and blood pressure increase. In early burnout stages, the symapathetic nervous system makes it hard to sleep and the heart rate variable (HRV) begins to drop.
The parasympathetic nervous system lets us relax, it controls calming down after stress by slowing down the heart rate. When you experience a true burn out, the body begins to shut down and you may not feel ‘like yourself’ – this is a freeze response where you feel numb or dissociated.
Due to the nervous system, something called the allostatic load. This is what occurs in the body when chronic stress is a factor in everyday life. This occurs bymany internal and external factors including: worry, illness, sleep disruptions, work, relationships and overall enviroment.
Vagus nerve: While in a healthy positive state, the vagus nerve acts as a ‘break’ keeping the heart rate slow and steady. When stress happens the ‘break’ releases causing the body to be in a constent anxious state. Such as heart rate increasing as you are sitting down doing nothing triggering.
The pro-inflammatory spike: Our nervous system is intouch with the immune system. This results in a higher level of signaling protiens (cytokines), which can result in flu like symptoms even when you arent sick. Even brain fog is caused by cytokines, when the brain is sorrounded by stress chemicals it becomes hard to think.
Sensory Overload: The nervous system becomes so sensitive that normal sounds or bright lights feel irritating.
The Gut Feeling
We often use the gut feeling to descibe an intuition we have had in our lives. But the nervous system is actually in touch with your gut by sending signals.
When the nervous system is stuck in an SOS system, the body naturally comes away from the rest function to fuel muscles needed for the fight or flight response. When the gut gets fueled by the nervous system the serotonin that gets produced there naturally drops due to stress from the nervous system, resulting in mood being lower than normal.
The guts acidity levels also gets altered due to stress. An inflamed gut can result in signalling ‘danger’ to the brain and releasing more cortisol, and an intense loop of anxiety that comes from your gut begins.
The point of no return: Dorsal Vagal Collapse
The dorsal vagal collapse is the fire engine arriving at the site where SOS response is to save the foundation. This is the psychological definition of ‘hitting a wall’
When the sympathetic nervous system has been trying to act in fight or flight for too long, and nothing seems to be working the dorsal vagal collapse occurs to prevent further cell damage. The dorsal vagal collapse is a primative freeze response, where there is a ‘power outage’. This is full burnout, You arent just tired: but immobilised. heart rate drops, blood pressure lowers and you experiencve dissosiation.
The emotional void occurs whilst the dorsal vagal collapse is happening this is best dicribed as watching your life behind glass. It is the bodys ultamite survial response: if we feel too much pain, we turn off.
How to ‘Talk back’ to the nervous system
The process of healing your nervous system, this is the first part and hardest part of coming to terms with yourself and healing your nervous system, getting to know yourself and what exactly it is that makes you feel triggered or involves past trauma you can begin to heal.
The Mammilian Drive reflex
By splashing the face with water, or submerging the eyes and nose for 30 seconds. This provides a manual reset fot the nervous system and slows down the vagus nerve, lowering heart rate immediatly.
Co-regulation
We are social creatures. Sometimes, the fastest way to get out of an SOS state is through sorrounding yourself with people thagt mean the most to you. Their calm nervous system will “tether” yours, pulling it back from the edge of collapse.
Romanticising life
There is also science that backs looking at the positives in life. This creates new neural pathways in your brain called Neuroplasticity.
Your brain literally rewires itself based on what you focus on. Every time you repeat a thought, you strengthen the neural pathways that hold it. So when you think “I’m not good enough” over and over, your brain makes that thought easier to access. But if you change the thought if you choose something kinder, something stronger your brain starts to build a new route. One that leads to healing.
Movement Of The Body
Exercise helps regulate the nervous system by promoting relaxation and reducing stress. It can stimulate the release of “happy hormones” like endorphins, which have mood-boosting and pain-reducing effects. Movement also helps the body maintain homeostasis (balance) by improving the body’s response to physical, metabolic, respiratory, and cardiovascular demands, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Writing your feelings will change the game.
Journaling can make it easier for you to process emotions, as it enables you to think clearly and more thoroughly. Somehow, writing your feelings down helps you be more analytical. you can also be more open as you are not worried about feedback or criticism
Makia Perpective
For me, after facing many battles with a nervous system overload and not feeling like myself. Learning about what makes you feel the way that you do. Learning about the vagus nerve wasn’t just for a piece of writing, its to acknowledge that im not a ‘glitch’ or something is wrong. This experience happens to everyone.
For a long time, I treated my body like something that needed to be charged up making sure sleep was a priority. But still I felt drained. Even got to the point of thinking that the people who were nice and caring were the problem. Causing an isolation period within myself. Little did I know that it was my nervous system speaking a language I didnt know of yet.
At makia, the writing produced isn’t a clinical research study or something to get views it is to hand the compass on of what I am trying to get through and understand about the body and mind. Im learning that we should stop viewing our symptoms as inconveniences and to start viewing them as data.
Conclusion
When we ignore the burnout signals ofthe shallow breath, the gut that feels, the “tired but wired” hum that keeps us up at night, we aren’t being “strong.” We’re just ignoring one of the most sophisticated system in the body. The brain fog, the cynicism and the eventual shutdown aren’t glitches in your system; they are the system working exactly as it should to keep you from permanent damage.
Understanding your nervous system is the ultimate act of self-autonomy.
Remember, it all starts with self love
-M
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