Many survivors of trauma wish to feel more calm, safe, and supported in their bodies. When exploring holistic healing after trauma, you may have noticed there is a lot of mention about trauma and your nervous system. This post explains what your nervous system is, signs of dysregulation, and how to gently find nervous system regulation after trauma so you can feel more whole, grounded, and supported.
This post is part of my Trauma-Informed Yoga Practices Guide, where you can explore different types of yoga practices that support healing including tension release, somatic yoga, rest, emotional support, and more.
What Is The Nervous System?
Your nervous system is your brain and body’s ultimate communication system. You have your central nervous system, which includes your brain and spinal cord, then your peripheral nervous system, which includes voluntary and involuntary movement.
Your peripheral nervous system includes what you may most commonly hear when people talk about your nervous system, because it includes your fight-or-flight response. Your autonomic nervous system contains your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) and sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight).
Your nervous system plays a crucial role in every action you make, including automatic (like digestion), and purposeful (like raising your arm). Its mission is to keep you safe and aware of perceived threats, however, you may have a dysregulated nervous system if you’ve experienced high levels of stress or trauma.
What Causes A Dysregulated Nervous System
The purpose of your autonomic nervous system is to keep your body in balance, but trauma can affect the signals you receive. What may have been an actual threat and trauma to you in the past is now reemerging as triggers in the present. Your body sends signals that there is a threat, and now you experience nervous system dysregulation symptoms like sweating, racing heart rate, anxiety, stress, and other symptoms.
If you’re unable to restore your nervous system (communicate to your body that you’re in a safe and supportive environment), then it’s possible you’ll experience more symptoms that derive from five different autonomic responses.
Common Survival Responses After Trauma
The sooner we recognize signs of dysregulation, the less time and effort it will take to restore us to a centered place.
Unless we’re in an immediate crisis, dysregulation in our bodies may not seem that noticeable. If we tune into ourselves and notice these gentle shifts, we can honor these signs before they escalate into complete overwhelm. This isn’t about “fixing” something that is broken, but more about presence and holding space for ourselves.
Below are a few early signs of dysregulation, and it’s okay if they don’t all apply to you since we’re all unique in our experiences and bodies:
Let’s explore the different responses below:
Fight
Your body sends adrenaline and stress hormones to control the threat itself through force to protect yourself. These signs may show up before anger or powerful emotions.
- Irritation or easily snap at loved ones
- Feeling on edge or easily annoyed by sounds, movements, or distractions
- Jaw tension and clenching
- Eye strain, tension behind the eyes, tension headaches
- Constant fidgeting or pacing
- Defensiveness (feeling like you need to win all arguments)
- Criticizing yourself or others
To support easing out of your fight response with gentle movement, I welcome you to explore my 15 Minute Yoga Class for Your Fight Response (YouTube).
Flight
You prepare to leave the threat and tense muscles like your psoas and hips to prepare to run. Flight can feel like urgency, hyper-productivity, or escapism.
- Doom scrolling or excessive cleaning
- Jumping from one idea, chore, or task onto to the next with no pauses
- Rapid or shallow breathing
- Feeling overwhelmed by daily tasks
- Constantly planning
- Find it difficult to sit in quiet, stillness, or without any distractions
To calm your flight response, I welcome you to explore this 20 Minute Yoga Class for Hypervigilance.
Freeze
You become immobile or feel stuck so the threat can pass you without you being noticed. Freeze can show up in our bodies when we don’t see fight or flight as possible solutions.
- Having a hard time to have conversations (have to remind yourself to pay attention)
- Feel like you’re floating above your body
- Zoning out and forgetting things you just did (like instantly forgetting where you set things down)
- Feeling tired or heavy
- Slow response time (feeling like you’re watching yourself speak)
- Not realizing when you’re hungry or thirsty
- Daily self-care feels overwhelming (brushing your teeth, showering, making food)
I welcome you to explore Yoga for Functional Freeze for techniques and a gentle practice to support balance.
Fawn
You place other’s needs over your own to deescalate a situation without causing conflict that can lead to a bigger threat. These signs arise from a fear of disconnection, rejection, or disapproval. They can also be from trying to create safety, in a sense that if we make everyone around us feel comfortable, we’ll be safe. Here are a few examples:
- Saying yes to doing things for others when you don’t want to.
- Apologizing when you did nothing wrong.
- Over explaining yourself for why you do things or have a preference.
- Feeling guilty for resting or needing space.
- Feeling responsible for others’ feelings.
- Focusing on others’ facial expression, tone, or subtle shifts.
- Placing other people’s feelings over your own.
The difference between fawning and simply being a kind person is that you abandon yourself and your needs over others. While sometimes (especially parents), we place others before us, this is more of an emotional abandonment, and we often feel like our feelings aren’t as important as others or that we’re not safe to express how we truly feel.
Fawn is less talked about, but deeply common in trauma survivors, especially sexual trauma. Some survivors may appease their abusers by going along with what they wanted in fear of escalating anger or violence. Saying “yes” doesn’t equal consent if you were afraid to say “no.”
The Role of the Fawn Response
Our culture has seemed to place people pleasing as one of the less desirable traits we need to “fix.” But again, this is a smart survival strategy we have adapted to survive. People pleasing also has its roots in survival.
There was a time that if you were banished from a tribe and were alone in the wilderness, the chances of you surviving were extremely slim. To survive, we learned to people please in moments so we could remain safe and in the tribe. People pleasing is hard wired within us even though modern times allow us to be more independent.
While we can learn how to focus more on our own desires and honor our boundaries, it’s important to acknowledge that we’re not currently broken and need to be corrected. We’re simply learning to soften and release survival and protective strategies that served us at one point, but maybe not in this current moment.
For supportive resources that can support you outside of holistic healing, I invite you to explore my Survivor Support Page.
Flop Response
This is also known as dorsal vagal shutdown, and this is when you become completely immobile and your heart rate slows to save energy.
5 Signs:
- Extreme exhaustion
- Muscle weakness
- Numbness
- Decreased heart rate
- Immobile
You might be frozen but not tense, instead your muscles are “floppy.” You might even faint or collapse.
The flop response is usually not something that can live in your body like the other states – your body goes into complete shutdown and you may blackout or have no memory of an event. This is usually a response to an immediate threat or event.
Explore Survival Response Support Practices
If you’d like to explore practices based on survival responses, I invite you to explore my Trauma Responses Playlist on YouTube. Trauma-informed classes support your current nervous system state to feel more centered and balanced.
Explore my Trauma Responses Playlist (YouTube)
Can You Experience Multiple Responses?
Yes, you can experience multiple responses, sometimes even within the same day or situation.
You may find you resonate with one or more of the responses on this list. It’s common to feel this way, and our bodies adapt to what feels like the best course of action. You may also find that you experience muscular tension in your body from constantly holding or tensing your body.
Each response has one sole purpose: safety.
When you’re dysregulated, your body may feel like something around you is unsafe – even if logically you know you are. A supportive way to regulate your nervous system holistically is to communicate through your body that it’s safe to rest and release.
I welcome you to not get too caught up in trying to always identify which state you’re in, but to recognize if you are becoming dysregulated. Once you feel this is true for you, you can take steps to find balance and inner peace.
A Note About Nervous System Regulation After Trauma
Sometimes, we may become so caught up in trying to be regulated that we feel like we’re never supposed to be stressed. Being regulated isn’t so much about being calm all the time, but about being more resilient in our nervous systems, and having gentle tools to come back to balance before we reach overwhelm.
The Window of Tolerance, a concept created by Dr. Dan Siegel, explores the amount of resilience we have in our nervous systems. He explains how after trauma, our tolerance level shrinks. When our window is smaller, we become overwhelmed more easily, which can look like angry outbursts at small stressors and having less tolerance for stress overall. But he also explains how this isn’t permanent, and we can gently widen our tolerance when we have the proper resources including mental health support and nervous system regulation practices.
How to Regulate Your Nervous System After Trauma
There are many methods to soothe a dysregulated nervous system, even after trauma. I welcome you to explore as many therapy and support options as you like. One supportive research-backed method for regulating a dysregulated nervous system after trauma is through trauma-informed yoga.
How Trauma-Informed Yoga Supports Nervous System Regulation
Trauma-informed yoga can be a supportive practice for deepening your mind-body connection and exploring tools that support nervous system regulation.
After trauma, our nervous systems may become more sensitive to perceived threats, which can lead to feelings of anxiety, tension, exhaustion, or disconnection. Trauma-informed yoga creates space to notice these feelings through teaching that honor safety, trust, and choice.
Trauma-informed yoga can support survivors by:
- Building a stronger connection to their bodies
- Recognizing signs of overwhelm earlier
- Exploring movement in a way that feels supportive
- Releasing physical tension
- Deepening self-trust and personal agency, and bodily autonomy
Nervous system regulation is not about ignoring or “fixing” difficult emotions or always feeling calm. It’s about meeting yourself where you are and exploring supportive tools that allow you to respond to your feelings and experiences with compassion.
I welcome you to explore this Trauma-Informed Yoga Guide for more information on this practice and if it would be a supportive option for you.
Additional Nervous System Regulation Practices
I welcome you to explore these gentle trauma-informed yoga practices that regulate your nervous system with supportive tools, exercises, and poses.
- 15 Min Yoga for Survival Mode
- 15 Min Yoga for an Overwhelmed Nervous System
- Day 1 Embody and Bloom Yoga Series: Safety in Your Nervous System
- Daily 13 Min Yoga for Your Nervous System
Explore Free Nervous System Regulation Practices
To continue exploring practices for nervous system support, I welcome you to explore my Nervous System Regulation Yoga Playlist on YouTube. These trauma-informed practices focus on grounding, rest, gentle movement, and regulation exercises.
Explore my Nervous System Regulation Yoga Playlist (YouTube)
Discover Your Current Season of Healing
Your nervous system is unique to you, and the practices that feel supportive may change depending on where you are in your healing journey.
I welcome you to explore my free Healing Seasons Quiz below to discover your current healing season and the practices that would be most supportive for your nervous system. (No email required for results.)
