Nervous System Regulation: Why Self-Care & Collective Care Matter
In this first episode, I’m going to define some key terms and lay the foundation for what this podcast is about.
We’re going to be talking about how to regulate the nervous system, and why self care and collective care are both equally important parts of this conversation.
What is the nervous system?
The nervous system is the very complex network of nerves and cells that are connecting the brain and the spinal cord to the rest of the body.
The nervous system transmits messages between different parts of the body. It’s responsible for a lot of internal communication, information processing, sensory processing, and our general reactions to the environment and our life experiences.
The nervous system impacts how we experience memory, our own thoughts, our emotions & sensations in the body.
It’s responsible for our fight-or-flight survival responses, and for the rest-and-digest response.
It controls automatic processes that we don’t have to even think about, like breathing, digestion, heart rate, and motor control.
When we’re talking about the nervous system, we are referring to the entire wiring that holds our human experience together. It is the mind-body experience, interconnected.
What does nervous system regulation mean?
The nervous system moves through states of regulation and dysregulation. You can be regulated or dysregulated, and your nervous system state can shift from one moment to the next. It’s not supposed to stay the same all the time.
When we’re regulated, it means we’re able to be present with the experience we’re in right now.
Regulation doesn’t necessarily mean calm or happy — it means presence, connection, responsiveness.
When we’re dysregulated, it means that the experience is too overwhelming & too overstimulating to be present with, and we’re not able to be present — instead, we might feel disconnected, not really here, or highly anxious.
Dysregulation isn’t a bad thing; it’s just information.
Another way to understand this is through the window of tolerance.
When we’re inside the window of tolerance, our nervous systems are regulated; we’re able to tolerate the present moment experience and be present.
We go in and out of our window of tolerance. If we leave our window of tolerance, it means that we’ve become dysregulated, that it no longer feels safe to be present, or something is overwhelming & overstimulating your nervous system.
What determines whether your nervous system is regulated or dysregulated?
The answer, in a nutshell, is safety.
When your brain & body perceive that you are safe, or safe enough, that’s when you feel regulated.
When our nervous systems are regulated, we’re able to think clearly, see things clearly, and connect with ourselves and others. We’re able to be present.
If your brain and body perceive that there is a threat to your safety — whether that’s a physical, emotional, or social threat — that’s when we might become dysregulated.
We might dissociate from the present moment because it doesn’t feel safe to be present.
And the nervous system might shift into one of its many survival responses — like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
The most important note here is that we’re not here to grade our nervous systems. We don't get a trophy for being regulated. This isn’t something we need to compete with ourselves or others with.
Because actually, it’s very natural to become dysregulated at times. It’s very human.
Nervous system dysregulation is just information. It's simply a sign that something is happening that we’re paying attention to that is causing us to have this reaction.
The goal is not to be regulated all of the time.
Because number one, that’s just not realistic. No one feels the same way or feels good all the time.
And it also doesn’t make sense to be regulated all the time. It’s healthy to feel a range of emotions. Experiencing the whole spectrum of calm and anger and joy and grief is the human experience.
The goal is to build a flexible nervous system that can move in and out of the window of tolerance as is appropriate to the situation.
That is what I really want to highlight as our goal. Not to be regulated all the time, but to actually build flexibility in our nervous systems.
The analogy I like to offer is a rubber band. A rubber band can stay in its original shape & size, or it can stretch to accommodate whatever object it is stretching around.
A flexible nervous system is like a really stretchy rubber band.
It can expand to multiple times its size, or it can shrink to its original size. And in that same way, our nervous systems can move along the spectrum of being regulated or dysregulated; being inside the window of tolerance, & leaving it, & coming back… over and over again, in response to the range of our human life experiences.
And that movement, that flexibility, that stretchiness is its own skill and its own asset.
What does dysregulation look like?
You might be wondering now, how do I actually build flexibility in my nervous system?
The first step to that is to actually know your nervous system. If you can recognize when you’re feeling dysregulated, then you can take care of yourself in that moment & bring yourself back into the window of tolerance.
There are two types of dysregulation. One is hyperarousal, and the other is hypoarousal.
Hyperarousal is overwhelming, while hypoarousal is underwhelming.
Hyperarousal is about hitting the gas pedal. It’s a fast energy, and I associate it with the element of fire. It’s hot, fast, and in motion.
In a state of hyperarousal, you might feel: anxiousness, panic, racing thoughts, thoughts that move too quickly for your brain to even process in real time. Heart beating really fast, sweating, muscles tensing up like they’re gearing up to fight something or flee from something. The body is mobilizing in a state of anxiousness & hypervigilance.
Hypoarousal, the other type of dysregulation, is about hitting the brakes. This is a slower energy, a frozen quality. I associate it with the element of ice or snow.
In a state of hypoarousal, you might feel: emotionally numb, depressed, low energy, and dissociated from everything. You might have brain fog, or thoughts moving slower than your typical processing speed. You might feel a sense of helplessness or internal collapse. This happens when the brain & body perceive that there is a threat to safety, but that fighting or fleeing are not options.
So, this is what dysregulation might feel like. These are not all of the signs, but they are some of the signs. I want you to notice which signs are most familiar to your nervous system, and that’s your first step to building more flexibility — simply knowing your own map.
When we’re dysregulated, there are some sensory-soothing strategies we can use to move back into the window of tolerance.
I’m going to share a list of ideas, based on the five senses. See which ones feel helpful to you, or maybe you’re already doing some of these things.
I’ll start with sight, the eyes. Maybe you adjust the lighting in your environment. Maybe you brighten the lighting or you dim it.
Another idea is to scan the room you’re in, scan the space you’re in if you’re outside, and just let your eyes land on your favorite color. If I were outside right now, I would probably be looking at the blue sky. If I’m inside, maybe I let my eyes land on my orange cat. Just some examples.
Next, let’s go to the sound, the ears. Maybe you go to a quiet space, or maybe you listen to your favorite song with noise-cancelling headphones.
Then there’s smell. Maybe you inhale a scent that you find really pleasing — a soap, your favorite essential oil, fresh laundry, an aromatic plant or tea leaves.
I like to think about how our senses are a very direct pathway to our nervous system state. Just smelling something nice can completely shift the way we feel in that moment.
Then there’s touch, anything you can feel with your hands or other body parts. You might stroke a soft blanket, put on a comfy sweater, put a weighted pillow in your lap. You might hold an object that grounds you like a stone, a stress ball, you can squeeze a fidget, or hold a warm mug.
Or you can physically connect with an element of nature that you find soothing. You can feel the sun warming your skin, you can take a full breath of fresh air, you can go to a body of water near you & feel the water on your hands and feet.
Another way to sensory-soothe & take care of your nervous system is through movement, any movement that feels good. Maybe you stretch your arms and legs, make yourself more comfortable in your seat or in your bed. You can go on a walk, go on a hike, you can dance, you can shake, sway your body.
Ask yourself what would your body want to be doing right now if no one were watching you. That is usually some pretty good information about how your nervous system needs to stim, how your nervous system releases or moves energy, especially beyond the typical social rules that so many of us feel confined to.
There’s also this whole category of co-regulation.
We don’t only need to rely on self-regulation, things we do alone. We can also be with others and experience their nervous systems regulating alongside ours. It’s like humming to the same tune together or dancing to the same rhythm.
You can cuddle with your pet —— especially if you don’t always feel comfortable around humans or you don’t have many people that you feel safe to unmask around.
You can also co-regulate by connecting with another human being who makes you feel seen and heard. Phone call, Zoom call, in person. Sitting in a coffee shop & feeling the presence of others, even if you don’t know their names. There are so many possibilities for co-regulation, and that could be its own episode.
Now that we’ve covered some ideas nervous system care, I want to acknowledge:
We can’t actually talk about nervous system care without also talking about the world that we’re living in right now.
It’s 2026, and among what is happening is a lot of injustice and oppression in all corners of the world, (as well as a lot of resistance and movement-building). The point is, the state of the world is impacting every single one of us to varying degrees, whether you are experiencing injustice and oppression directly or witnessing it.
If your nervous system response to the world right now is to feel angry, to feel grief, to feel sadness, feel rage, or to shut down, numb out, dissociate, not feel anything at all… any and all of that actually makes so much sense.
Especially in the context of whatever identities, social locations, & particularly any marginalized identities that you may hold, visible or invisible… it is a very natural response to become dysregulated, to feel under-resourced.
It’s really important that we not pathologize ourselves, that we not judge our own reactions to the collective traumas that we are living through right now.
To experience dysregulation — like profound overwhelm or shutdown — is actually a sign of our humanness, it’s a sign that we are paying attention.
So please don’t be hard on yourself, if you’ve been feeling less than perfectly regulated as of late. I don’t want us to tell ourselves, “I should be over this already” or “I shouldn’t be so overwhelmed”…
…when in fact, our nervous systems don’t exist in a bubble.
Our nervous systems exist within the entire context of our lives & the systems of oppression that shape this world in 2026. Systems like colonization, capitalism, all of the -isms, the list goes on.
These are systems that were designed to keep us fractured, disconnected, and disempowered.
And if you are feeling dysregulated, it means the systems are working exactly as designed.
But — and this is the good news — as long as we are building nervous system flexibility, we can make sure that we don’t get stuck in dysregulation.
Dysregulation is an appropriate response, but it doesn’t have to be our forever, fixed state of being.
Because we have tools and skills and co-regulation with community that can help us come back to our window of tolerance, over and over again.
Ultimately, nervous system regulation is about a balance between the individual care, the collective care, and systemic change.
Individual care asks, how do you take care of yourself?
Collective care is asking, how do we take care of each other?
And systemic change asks, how do we transform systems of oppression into systems of care? How do we build a world where liberation & safety are available for all beings?
Because if systems of oppression were to cease to exist, if I had a magic wand and could wave it and then there’s no more oppression, then we wouldn’t actually need all of these self-care tools and strategies and techniques to stay afloat. Because we would have actually addressed the bleeding of the wound at its source, rather than way downstream.
Nervous system care is a multi-part puzzle. It is a multi-step equation.
This podcast is about holding the individual nuances of each unique nervous system, and seeing the big picture. It’s like switching between a microscope view and a bird’s-eye view.
I hope that you’ll tune in for ongoing episodes every week, where we’ll unpack how to take care of ourselves as we navigate these systems that were designed to keep us dysregulated. None of us were meant to do this alone.
If you need help taking care of your nervous system, I’d love to support you.
Online Therapy in Colorado | Coaching Worldwide
Helping highly sensitive, neurodivergent adults heal their nervous systems & connect with their authentic selves.
About the Author
Liz Zhou (she/her) is a neurodivergent therapist, coach, and speaker. She helps highly sensitive, neurodivergent adults & couples heal their nervous systems and connect with their authentic selves, using brain-body modalities (Brainspotting, EMDR, IFS, psychedelic integration) that are quicker & more effective than traditional talk therapy. Liz offers Nervous System Healing Intensives online worldwide.
