Nurture Your Nervous System: Key Tips for 2025
As Americans move into 2025 with a government transition and administration making sweeping changes that have many citizens on edge and more and more divided online communities, the best advice I have - as both a coach and therapist - to strengthen and nurture your nervous system.
Creating and practicing habits that help you shift out of stress responses (fight/flight; parasympathetic activation) to be more settled in your body will also help you think critically and increase your problem-solving skills. When our bodies and nervous systems are settled, we can think clearly and respond to our environment thoughtfully and less out of a sense of scarcity, fear and danger.
There is a plethora of things you can do to settle your nervous system and strengthen it for future stressors. Here are a few of my favorites - easy things you can build into your day. I recommend picking a few to practice so they become habit, and tothink doing these like upping your Vitamin C and D during the winter. If you're already doing these, congratulate yourself!
STIMULATE YOUR VAGUS NERVE
✨ Take 3 deep breaths from your diaphragm.
✨ Any form of exercise - just move your body!
✨ Make your breath exhalation longer than your inhalation.
✨ Give yourself a polyvagal massage (take fingers and gently massage your face, neck and scalp in small circles, then lightly pinch and pull your ears).
✨ Tap acupressure points on your face and body.
✨ Cold water: splash it on your face, do a 20-60 second cold rinse in the shower, or do a cold plunge.
✨ Use your vocal chords to sing, hum, OM, yell, make any kind of sound.
CONNECT WITH NATURE
🍃Put your bare feet in the grass, your hands in the soil.
🍃 Look up at the sky long enough to really notice the color and nuances of cloud movement.
🍃 Sit somewhere where the view is mostly nature. Be still and quiet and enjoy the view.
🍃 Stop in front of a tree and take 3 deep breaths as you be with it. Hug it or place your hand on it.
🍃 When walking along a tree lined path and keep your eyes focused on the tops of the trees as you walk.
🍃 Schedule a nature walk, spending at least an hour doing nothing but walking through a natural setting.
GROUND YOURSELF IN THE PRESENT MOMENT
🌀 Look around you, touch and name the objects you hear, you see.
🌀 Meditate (sit down, lay down, or walk, and focus on your breath (say 'in', 'out') or a mantra or object for as little as 1 minute to start).
🌀 Eat a snack or a meal slowly without doing anything else (yes, put that phone down!)
🌀 Use essential oils.
🌀 When sitting down for a moment to rest, resist the urge to pull out your phone, just take a beat to be and look around.
STRENGTHEN YOUR SENSE OF BELONGING & LOVE
👋 Catch someone's eye on the street, in an elevator, on public transportation, in a store, and smile at them, holding the eye contact for 2-3 seconds.
👋 Say a mantra to yourself if you're in situations that causes social anxiety: "I belong here."
👋 Put pictures in your home and office of the people you love and enjoy. If you only have pictures on your phone, you can get them printed out, or use a digital frame.
👋 Send beams of love to people (people you love and those you are having a hard time forgiving) by visualizing beams of white light going from your heart or head and surrounding them in white light).
👋Give out a compliment to a public employee, let them know you appreciate the work they do.
👋 Pet dogs you see on walks with your neighbors - ask the dog's name AND the owner's name and introduce yourself. When you see them again, continue to say hello and use their names.
👋 Set up walks, coffees, lunches, anything with friends to connect.
👋 Hold someone's hand - if you don't have a hand to hold, gently rub your forearm in a soothing way. It works, I promise.