Responding to the present moment

“Are you responding to this moment, or are you responding to events from your past that feel similar?” asks Jessica Maguire in her new book, The Nervous System Reset. 

Having the knowledge and tools to retrain our nervous system to move from prediction (responses based on your brain’s expectations about how things might unfold) to responses grounded in the present moment is transformative, says the author.

“If we want to feel good and perform at our best, the most powerful thing we can do is recalibrate what’s going on inside our body and brain, to match the real demands of our environment.”

Nervous system states

We all have an internal set point where we feel and function our best. 

“Like a thermostat in a house, our brain and body work together via our nervous system to bring us back to our set point and maintain this beautiful equilibrium”. We also have hot and cold states, both of which are natural and necessary.

“Our capacity to move in and out of all three states is what protects us from danger and allows us to mobilise our energy when we need to tap into our strength and power”, writes Maguire.

Self-regulation is the ability to recognise your current state, understand why you’re in it, and shift back towards that comfortable set point again. Dysregulation occurs when the thermostat stays at an extreme temperature for too long, “draining precious resources and distracting you from routine maintenance projects.”

Imagine, for example, getting stuck in the hot state (the ‘emergency’ state that primes our system to take fight-or-flight action). “The hormones that flood our body in those do-or-die moments overstay their welcome, and the changes to our immune system make us prone to things like gastrointestinal problems, insomnia and aches and pains. 

As long as the system that governs this hot state is running the show, the biological functions that contribute to our long-term survival will continue to be set aside in order to free up all available physical resources for the immediate effort of survival.”

Ultimately, learning to read our internal thermostat settings with greater accuracy and being able to deploy the appropriate tools to remain in balance increases both autonomy and agency.

Tuning in to what’s going on 

Maguire invites us to view The Nervous System Reset as a user manual for your internal thermostat, offering a path to health and stability. 

Part one delves into the neuroscience of the nervous system, while part two offers exercises that “gently nudge the nervous system towards regulation so it learns to respond to what’s actually happening in the present moment rather than defaulting to a position of excess protection”.

There’s an emphasis on getting to know your specific bodily signals to find the right tool to regulate them, harnessing the body’s inbuilt capabilities to cope and recalibrate.

“I’m sure you know how good it feels when someone understands how you feel and where you’re coming from. Well, you can offer that same feeling of comfort and belonging to yourself by tuning in to what’s going on inside of you”, writes Maguire. 

Emotions help us decide what action to take, and the more fluent we become in understanding them, the easier it becomes to meet our needs and make confident decisions.

“The goal is to get to a state where we can practise interoception and tune in, then switch fluidly to exteroception so we can add more context to those sensations and use our body to respond or regulate.”

• The Nervous System Reset: Unlock the power of your vagus nerve to overcome trauma, pain and chronic stress by Jessica Maguire is published by Bluebird, an imprint of Pan Macmillan on August 15 (£16.99).