Our minds are powerful tools. So powerful sometimes that the mind feels like it does whatever it wants and before you know it, you are so mad/anxious/sad that you don’t know how your emotions escalated so quickly and landed you in the state that you are now in. Sound familiar?
The thing about tools is that you have to learn how to use them. A hammer, saw, and nails can make many cool things, but if you don’t know how to use them properly you could really end up hurting yourself. The same thing goes for your body - mainly your nervous system. It can tell you some very important information, but if you don’t know what to do with that information it’s easy to feel lost and out of control. It’s pretty common to not learn these things in your childhood, which can make being an adult trying to make it through life even more frustrating.
Below you will find something that I have been working on for a bit (hopefully you can read my handwriting!). It combines the work of Babette Rothschild, Dan Siegel, and many others. My goal was to create something a little more accessible and quick to use as the original Babette Rothschild chart (Autonomic Nervous System: Precision Regulation) has a lot more information going on if you can believe it. If you want to dive even deeper into this feel free to let me know!
The gist is that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates muscles like your heart, lungs, and stomach. The ANS itself has two branches: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). The SNS is activated in states of stress - good/mild activation all the way up to flight, fight, and freeze (the gas). The PNS is activated more in states of rest and restoration (the brake).
So the more your SNS is activated, the more the gas is pushed through your body, the quicker your heart rate and breathing will be (blue, orange, red). The more your PNS is activated, the more the break is pushed in your body, the slower your heart rate and breathing will be (yellow, green, dark red). If your SNS is becoming too activated (feeling rage, terror, heart rate and breathing going fast), it is important to put on the break - use mindfulness and grounding techniques to move back into your window of tolerance.
However, there is a sweet spot for your PNS. Too low of activation in the PNS might mean you’re in a state of depression so it would be important to gently increase your energy levels. Too high of activation in your PNS might mean you’re in dissociation, reduced perception of pain, and need emergency help.
Overall, it is very difficult to interact with others if you are outside of the green/blue zone. If you notice your body is outside of that, it’s time to connect back to the here and now. Even if something is feeling overwhelming, ground yourself back to the place where you can engage with the world around you and then address why those feelings were overwhelming.
Eventually the hope is that you will learn how you best get back into the green/blue zone and your window of tolerance will grow. Until then, learning to read your body and identify emotions within the yellow, orange, and red zones will give you so much information to figure out when to try putting on the gas or break.
I hope you have found this helpful and learned a little bit about yourself! Feel free to save the chart below to your phone or your computer so you can access it at any time.