You Can’t Heal in a Dysregulated Body
There’s nothing more frustrating than doing the work—showing up to therapy, journaling, reading the book, naming the patterns—and still feeling stuck.
You understand your trauma.
You know what happened.
You want to move forward.
But your body won’t let you.
You’re not broken. You’re likely dysregulated.
What Does It Mean to Be Dysregulated?
When your nervous system is dysregulated, your body is stuck in a state of survival—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These are protective responses that helped you get through overwhelming experiences in the past. The problem? They didn’t shut off.
Even though the danger is gone, your body still acts like it’s happening right now.
You might feel:
Chronically anxious or wired
Hyper-independent and over-functioning
Easily overwhelmed or exhausted
Disconnected, foggy, numb, or checked out
If this feels familiar, you're not alone. This isn’t resistance. It’s your body’s way of protecting you.
Meet the Vagus Nerve: Your Body’s Safety Switch
The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in your body. It runs from your brainstem all the way down to your gut, touching your heart, lungs, diaphragm, and more. It’s the communication highway between your brain and body—and it plays a central role in how you respond to stress.
When the vagus nerve is well-regulated, it signals to your body:
✨ You’re safe.
✨ You can rest.
✨ You don’t need to fight, run, or shut down.
But when it’s out of balance, your body stays stuck in “on” mode. The world feels unsafe, even if nothing’s actually threatening you. When we’ve experienced chronic stress or trauma, our nervous system stays on high alert. It scans for danger even when none is there. That state of hypervigilance? That’s your vagus nerve—the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system—trying to keep you alive.
This is why you can be doing all the emotional work in therapy and still feel like nothing is shifting. Your body hasn’t gotten the message yet.
The Good News: Regulation is a Skill
You can retrain your nervous system.
You can teach your body that it’s safe now.
And when your body feels safe, your healing deepens.
This is why nervous system regulation is the foundation for trauma recovery, especially when working with somatic therapies like EMDR and Brainspotting. Without a regulated baseline, that deep work can feel overwhelming or inaccessible. With regulation, it becomes transformative.
Five Tools to Support Vagus Nerve Regulation
These gentle practices help shift your nervous system out of survival mode and into a place where your body can finally exhale. Here are 5 ways to support your body’s vagus nerve:
1. Breathwork
Your breath is one of the most direct ways to shift your state.
Try Box Breathing:
Inhale for 4
Hold for 4
Exhale for 4
Pause for 4
Repeat for a few minutes. This slows the heart rate and signals safety to your body.
2. Grounding
Use your senses to reconnect to the present:
Feel your feet on the floor or in the grass
Hold a warm cup of tea
Notice 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear...
Grounding helps orient your body to now—not the trauma of the past.
3. Prayer + Meditation
Stillness allows your nervous system to downshift. Whether spiritual or simply quiet, meditative practices help you reconnect with a sense of calm:
A breath prayer
A short mantra like “I am safe” or “Be here now”
Sitting in silence, following your breath
4. PEMF Therapy
Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF) therapy uses low-frequency waves to calm and support your nervous system. These frequencies mimic the Earth’s natural rhythms—the same ones you feel when grounded in nature.
I use the HigherDOSE Infrared PEMF Mat, which combines electromagnetic pulses with gentle heat. It helps my body settle, especially before therapy or on anxious days.
5. Consistency Over Intensity
None of these tools need to be perfect or dramatic to be effective.
It’s the small, consistent acts of safety—over time—that rewire your system.
Healing Begins With Safety
You can’t heal in a body that still thinks it’s under threat.
But you can teach your body that it’s safe now.
When your nervous system is regulated:
You think more clearly
You respond instead of react
You can stay present in therapy
You can feel your healing, not just understand it
So if you’re preparing for EMDR or Brainspotting, or just looking for a way to finally feel different, start with your body. Start with safety.
