"Breakthroughs come when people learn how to take the time to stop and examine their assumptions."
Peter M. Senge
Why Your Nervous System Matters More Than You Think
Our words matter. But so do our:
- facial expressions,
- tone of voice,
- breathing,
- posture and speed of movement
- pace of speech, and
- countless other signals our nervous systems are constantly transmitting and detecting.
Before someone consciously evaluates our ideas, their brain has already begun asking quieter questions:
Am I safe here?
Can I think clearly here?
Can I stay open here?
As leaders, coaches, educators, therapists, parents, and helping professionals, our nervous system becomes part of the vibrational environment other people experience.
When we practice and become more aware of our own state and capacity to influence it,
we do two things:
- increase the likelihood that those around us can access curiosity rather than defensiveness, and connection rather than protection.
- we model what it looks like in human form how to do this intentionally (and with incremental progress, effort and often setbacks along the way).
Why the Brain Can Learn These Capacities
One of the most hopeful discoveries in neuroscience is that we can develop self-regulation skills throughout our lifetime.
Patterns of stress, reactivity, and automatic habit can be rewired. Through repeated awareness and intentional practice, we strengthen new neural connections that support greater flexibility, resilience, and emotional regulation.
A Simple Practice
This week, experiment with three small steps.
NOTICE
When you feel activated, simply notice what your nervous system automatically wants to do.
(Awareness recruits prefrontal networks involved in self-observation and cognitive flexibility.)
PAUSE
Slow your breathing.
Slow your movements.
Slow your speech.
(Even a brief pause strengthens inhibitory brain circuits that support regulation and adaptability.)
NOTICE
What changed?
How did that small shift influence your thinking, your relationships, or the quality of your decisions?
Tiny moments of awareness can become a practice. Practice creates repeated patterns.
Repeated patterns become efficient systems.
Those systems become a key part of how we meet and interact with the world.
A reflection...
If your nervous system enters every room before your words do...
What kind of environment is your presence helping to create?
Stefanie
P.S. If you've ever wished you could explain nervous system regulation with some of the clarity and credibility that neuroscience can provide (when used wisely), that's exactly why I created Teach the Nervous System.
Inside, you'll learn a practical neuroscience framework for how to teach nervous system regulation in ways people immediately understand and apply.
Because when people understand what their nervous system is doing, the story of being broken loses its grip...
and they begin recognizing the intelligence that has been there all along.
Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.
Davidson, R. J., & McEwen, B. S. (2012). Social influences on neuroplasticity: Stress and interventions to promote well-being. Nature Neuroscience, 15(5), 689–695. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3093
Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(5), 242–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.03.010
