Hey Posse! It’s Alex — and today we need to talk about something that I genuinely believe is behind SO much of the burnout, anxiety, and emotional chaos that people are experiencing right now.
Your nervous system might be stuck. Like, ACTUALLY stuck. Not metaphorically. Not just “you’re stressed.” I mean physiologically locked into a survival response that your body does not know how to turn off — and the wild part? Most people have NO idea this is even happening to them.
I spent almost two years feeling wired and exhausted at the same time, snapping at people I loved, unable to sleep even when I was desperate for it. Doctors said I was fine. Bloodwork was fine. But I was NOT fine. What I eventually learned — through working with a somatic therapist and a LOT of personal research. is that my nervous system was running a threat program on repeat, long after the actual threat was gone. Sound familiar? Let’s get into it.
Sign #1: You Can’t Remember the Last Time You Felt Genuinely Relaxed
And I don’t mean “relaxed after a glass of wine.” I mean baseline calm. Resting. Safe in your own body for no particular reason. If you have to think hard about when that last happened, that’s a sign. A chronically activated nervous system keeps your baseline elevated, so “relaxed” starts to feel foreign, even suspicious.
Somatic fix: Try 5 minutes of extended exhale breathing. Inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 8. Doing this daily for two weeks has been shown in research out of Stanford’s Huberman Lab to measurably reduce physiological arousal. Your exhale activates the parasympathetic branch. That’s the part you want.
Sign #2: Small Inconveniences Feel Like Emergencies
Your coworker sends a slightly curt email and your heart rate spikes. You miss a parking spot and you’re furious for 20 minutes. Sound dramatic? It’s not. It’s your threat-detection system. the amygdala, firing at threats that don’t actually require a survival response. When your nervous system is stuck in survival mode, EVERYTHING gets flagged as dangerous.
Somatic fix: Try the “physiological sigh” the moment you notice that spike. a double inhale through the nose (short sniff, then a bigger one), followed by a long exhale through the mouth. It dumps CO2 fast and resets your breathing rhythm almost immediately. I use this one constantly. Like, multiple times a day.
Sign #3: Your Jaw, Shoulders, or Hips Are Constantly Tight
This one gets overlooked so much. Tension in these three areas specifically isn’t just “bad posture.” It’s where the body stores incomplete stress responses. Dr. Peter Levine, who developed Somatic Experiencing back in the 1970s, calls it “frozen aliveness”, your body started a threat response, never finished it, and now that energy is just… sitting there in your muscles.
Somatic fix: Conscious tremoring. Yes, shaking. Literally stand with soft knees and let your legs vibrate for 2-3 minutes. It sounds weird, I KNOW. But this is exactly what animals do after escaping a predator. they shake to discharge the stress hormones. Humans stopped doing this and we wonder why we’re so tense. Try it.
Sign #4: You Feel Disconnected from Your Own Body
You bump into a doorframe and barely notice. You forget to eat for 8 hours. You can’t tell if you’re tired or hungry or sad. This is called dissociation and it’s actually your nervous system’s third survival response, after fight and flight comes freeze, and freeze involves disconnecting from physical sensation because the body decided that was safer.
Somatic fix: Proprioceptive grounding. Press your feet FIRMLY into the floor. we’re talking 30 seconds of real pressure, and simultaneously push your palms together hard in front of your chest. This activates sensory receptors that signal safety to your brainstem. Follow it up by slowly naming 5 things you can physically feel. Not see. FEEL. The weight of your shirt. The temperature of the air. It works fast.
Sign #5: You’re Exhausted But Can’t Sleep
This one nearly broke me. I was running on fumes but lying awake until 2am with my brain going full speed. Your cortisol rhythm gets inverted when the nervous system is dysregulated. high at night when it should be low, low in the morning when you need it. It’s a physiological problem, not a willpower problem.
Somatic fix: NSDR, Non-Sleep Deep Rest. It’s basically a body scan paired with Yoga Nidra breathing, and a 2023 study from the University of Oslo found that 20 minutes of NSDR can restore up to 70% of the cognitive performance of an actual sleep cycle. I do 20 minutes in the early afternoon and it’s genuinely changed my energy levels. Look up any free NSDR script on YouTube.
Sign #6: You Constantly Brace for Something Bad to Happen
Even when things are good, you’re waiting. Scanning. You can’t enjoy the good moment fully because part of your brain is monitoring for when it’ll fall apart. This is hypervigilance and it’s EXHAUSTING because your nervous system is running surveillance 24/7.
Somatic fix: Panoramic vision practice. This is so simple it almost seems fake. Instead of staring at a screen or a fixed point, soften your gaze and take in the full width of your peripheral vision for 2-3 minutes. Your threat-detection circuitry literally calms when your visual field expands. it’s a hardwired signal that you’re not being hunted. Go outside for this one if you can.
Sign #7: You Swing Between Overwhelmed and Completely Numb
Monday you’re crying over nothing. Wednesday you feel absolutely nothing and you’re not sure which is worse. This emotional dysregulation is your nervous system oscillating between sympathetic overdrive and dorsal vagal shutdown, basically between panic and collapse. Neither extreme is you. It’s just a stuck system cycling.
Somatic fix: Voo sound resonance. Breathe in deeply, then on the exhale, make a loooong “voooo” sound from your belly. like a foghorn, not a hum. The vibration stimulates the vagus nerve directly. Dr. Stephen Porges, whose Polyvagal Theory essentially mapped this whole area of research, recommends sustained low-frequency sound as one of the fastest ways to access ventral vagal tone, which is where safety and social connection live. Do 6-10 rounds.
Where to Start If This All Feels Like A Lot
Look. I don’t want you walking away from this feeling MORE overwhelmed than when you arrived. That would be counterproductive.
Pick ONE exercise. Just one. The one that made you think “wait, that’s me” the hardest. Do it every day for 10 days before you add anything else. Your nervous system didn’t get stuck overnight and it won’t reset overnight, but it WILL respond. The research is solid, the results are real, and your body already knows how to get back to safety. You just have to give it the chance.
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