Supporting Your Nervous System in Times of Threat: Practices for Uncertain Times
In a world filled with uncertainty, stress, and collective trauma, feeling safe can sometimes seem like an impossible task. Our nervous system is designed to detect threats and respond accordingly, but when we experience chronic stress, fear, or a lack of safety, this system can become dysregulated. This dysregulation can contribute to a variety of struggles, including vulnerability to eating disorder behaviors, as our bodies and minds attempt to seek control, comfort, or numbness in response to an overwhelming environment.
However, healing is possible. By supporting our nervous system and learning to orient toward safety, we can create a foundation for resilience, self-regulation, and well-being. In this post, we will explore how feeling unsafe impacts our nervous system and how somatic resourcing, sound healing, the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), and activating the parasympathetic nervous system can help us find a sense of peace and stability.
The Link Between Safety, the Nervous System, and Eating Disorder Behaviors
Our nervous system is constantly scanning the environment for cues of safety or danger. This process, known as neuroception, occurs beneath our conscious awareness. When our nervous system perceives threat, whether physical, emotional, or relational, it activates our survival responses: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
For those who have experienced trauma, chronic stress, or a deep sense of unsafety, these survival responses can become habitual, leading to ongoing dysregulation. This dysregulation can manifest in many ways, including anxiety, dissociation, emotional numbness, and eating disorder behaviors.
Eating disorder behaviors, such as bingeing, restricting, or compulsive exercise, often develop as adaptive coping mechanisms. They may serve as an attempt to regulate overwhelming emotions, regain a sense of control, or disconnect from painful sensations in the body. However, these behaviors do not address the root issue: the nervous system’s struggle to find safety.
By working with the nervous system directly, we can shift from survival-based coping mechanisms to nourishing co-regulation and self-regulation.
Steps for Orienting to Safety Through Nervous System Support in Asheville, NC
1. Somatic Resourcing: Finding Grounding in the Body
Somatic resourcing involves cultivating sensations of safety and stability within the body. When we experience distress, our bodies often hold tension, and our awareness may become fixated on fear-based thoughts. Engaging in gentle somatic practices can help anchor us back into the present moment.
Practices to Try:
Grounding exercises: Press your feet firmly into the ground and notice the support beneath you.
Self-touch: Place a hand on your heart or belly and notice the warmth and pressure.
Orienting to the environment: Slowly look around the room and name what you see, helping your nervous system register that you are in a safe space.
2. Sound Healing: Regulating Through Vibration and Frequency
Sound has a profound impact on the nervous system. Certain frequencies and vibrations can stimulate the vagus nerve, which plays a key role in parasympathetic activation (the rest and digest state). Sound healing helps shift the body out of a fight-or-flight response and into a state of relaxation.
Practices to Try:
Listening to singing bowls, binaural beats, BioLateral sound healing or calming music.
Humming or chanting, which stimulates the vagus nerve.
Attending a sound bath or using tuning forks to regulate energy flow.
3. Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP): Rewiring the Nervous System for Safety
Developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) is a therapeutic listening intervention designed to reset and regulate the nervous system. SSP uses filtered music to stimulate the vagus nerve, helping the body shift from chronic survival states into a more socially engaged and regulated state.
Many people who experience nervous system dysregulation, trauma, or eating disorder tendencies find SSP to be a powerful tool for accessing a felt sense of safety. This SSP is an evidenced based intervention with a wide range of clinical trials showing it’s effectiveness.
4. Activating the Parasympathetic Nervous System: Turning on the Body’s Relaxation Response
The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is responsible for rest, digestion, and healing. When we activate the PNS, we counterbalance the effects of chronic stress and survival responses.
Ways to Activate the PNS:
Deep, diaphragmatic breathing: Breathe deeply into your belly and exhale slowly to calm the nervous system.
Cold exposure: Splash cold water on your face or take a cool shower to stimulate the vagus nerve. Check out Wim Hof for inspiration.
Gentle movement: Engage in yoga, stretching, or walking to signal safety to your body.
Yoga nidra (non-sleep deep rest)
Receive bodywork like massage, cranialsacral therapy, reiki or transforming touch work
5. Creating Safe Relational Connections
Safety is not just an internal experience, it is also relational. Being around safe, attuned, and supportive people helps co-regulate our nervous system. Finding a therapist, support group, or trusted friend who understands nervous system regulation can be incredibly beneficial.
Final Thoughts
When we experience a lack of safety, our nervous system adapts in ways that can sometimes lead to maladaptive coping mechanisms, including eating disorder behaviors. However, healing is not about willpower or self-discipline, it is about restoring a deep sense of safety within our bodies.
Through somatic resourcing, sound healing, the Safe and Sound Protocol, and activating the parasympathetic nervous system, we can gently guide ourselves back to regulation, resilience, and self-compassion. The path to healing begins with learning to listen to our bodies and offering them the support they need to feel truly safe.
By nurturing our nervous system, we open the door to freedom, not just from eating disorder behaviors, but from the chronic fear and stress that have kept us stuck. Healing is possible, and it starts with finding safety, one small step at a time.
Get Started With Nervous System Support in Asheville, NC Today
Our therapists are all trauma informed, and each have unique trainings in learning to support the nervous system to support decreasing the need for eating disorder behaviors.
Reclaiming Beauty offers the Safe and Sound Protocol as a part of our body-centered therapeutic interventions.
Learn more about our Safe and Sound Protocol group, Reclaiming Your Original Beauty.
Other Services We Offer in Asheville, NC
Join us at Reclaiming Beauty as we start a journey toward healing through embodiment. Our somatic therapists and disordered eating therapists stand ready to support you in supporting your nervous system during this challenging and threatening times. Follow these few steps to get started:
Contact us so we can get to know you better.
Learn more about our approach!
Move towards a sense of safety and connection in your nervous system.
