Working with the Overwhelmed Nervous System

​Working with the Overwhelmed Nervous System
I often hear people say, “I am just overwhelmed.”  For most of us, overwhelm is about stress and is a normal part of life.  However, chronic stress can lead to a variety of uncomfortable signs and symptoms.  Sometimes stress is from a traumatic event.  There are a variety of ways you can recover your health and your life from unhealthy patterns related to life’s stresses. 
 
The Body’s Natural Response
People respond to stress in different ways depending on character type and a dominant pattern in the body.  For some people, the first response is “fight-or-flight,” or a sympathetic nervous system response when the body gears up for danger.  Blood flows to the arms and legs in preparation for action, digestion slows or stops, adrenaline and other stress hormones like cortisol pump through the body.  Your heart rate increases, breathing becomes more rapid. These natural physiological responses provide a quick burst of energy for survival, heighten memory, and lower sensitivity to pain.  This “stress response” can help you remain alert, perform well, stay focused, and give you extra strength to perform a task.  If this is your method of responding to stress, it can be described as responding with your foot on the gas pedal.  Out of balance, this can mean you are in overdrive, often agitated, angry, and easily irritated when things don’t go right.

Other people respond to stress by withdrawing.  For these people, energy can drain from their system or they can procrastinate, leading to delay and fear.  This passive response is when the parasympathetic part of the nervous system is dominant.  In the parasympathetic response, the blood flows toward the organs, relaxation takes place, people normally rest, and digestive enzymes are released.  Some people just sleep.  It can be a normal part of the nervous system function. In fact, activation of a healthy nervous system rolls up and down between sympathetic and parasympathetic functions (see figure). As a stress response, however, it can feel like an extreme dive in energy.  For some people, this function is so common it feels normal and can be described as living with your foot on the brake.  You just shut down.

A third response, called “freeze,” is a combination of the first two approaches and can be very difficult for the nervous system.  You feel shut down and “frozen,” unable to complete the task at hand, but inside you feel agitated, your thoughts are reeling, and you feel like you can’t do anything.  In this response, the foot is on the brake and the gas at the same time.

Causes of Stress
Stress is something that puts too much pressure or demand on you and your nervous system, and that is different for everyone.  Not all stresses are negative; some are positive like a new job, getting married, changing careers, moving to a new home.  The Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory ranks the top ten most stressful events as:

1. Death of a spouse
2. Divorce
3. Marriage separation
4. Jail Term
5. Death of a close relative
6. Injury or illness
7. Marriage
8. Fired from job
9. Marriage reconciliation
10. Retirement

A list of daily stress developed by participants in a recent seminar about stress and the nervous system included:

1. Traffic
2. Finances
3. Work
4. Family Life
5. Illness

The instructor was quick to point out that these stressors are extremely new to the human nervous system.  Our bodies are designed more for hunting and gathering than commuting traffic or hectic schedules.  Depending on the person, stress can be involved in change of life pace (slowing down or speeding up), amount of activities (like when kids have too many afterschool or summer events, for both children and parents), lack of support, lack of connections with people or places. 
There are also internal stressors.  These can include:

• Negative self-talk
• Perfectionism or too high standards
• Obsessive thoughts, especially negative thoughts, excessive worry
• Negative outlook on life
• Financial issues
• Need for control

What Do Stress Responses Look Like?
For most of us, patterned responses to stress are normal parts of a healthy nervous system.  Once the stress has abated, we will go back to homeostasis or balance.  Markers of a balanced nervous system are when activation is low, with these hallmarks:

• Open curiosity and ability to pause before action or response
• Feeling present or “embodied”
• Able to connect emotionally and physically
• Relaxed yet alert, able to pay attention
• Appropriately reactive instead overly reactive
• Feelings of competence and mastery
• Recognition of resources and choices
• Able to reach out for support
• Sleep, appetite, and breathing cycles are normal
• The physical body is not in pain

 
If the stress is chronic and therefore the response is on all the time, the different styles can look like this:
Symptoms of Sympathetic Response (Fight or Flight)

• Anxiety, panic, hyperactivity
• Exaggerated startle response
• Inability to relax
• Restlessness
• Hypervigilance
• Digestive problems
• Emotional flooding
• Chronic pain
• Sleeplessness
• Hostility, irritability and rage

 
Symptoms of Parasympathetic Response (Shut Down, Dissociate)

• Depression
• Flat affect
• Lethargy
• Deadness
• Exhaustion and chronic fatigue
• Disorientation
• Disconnection and dissociation
• Complex syndromes
• Chronic pain
• Low blood pressure
• Poor digestion

(Source: Human Enrichment Foundation)
 
For the Freeze Response, it can be a combination of these two.
 
When Trauma Enters the Picture
 
I substitute “overwhelm” for the word “trauma” in my work with people.  It helps them understand better what is actually happening to their nervous system.  Trauma can be defined as any overwhelming event that causes physical or emotional wounding.  It can be a one-time event or it can be a prolonged experience.  The healthy nervous system response to life where we have times of alertness and times of relaxation is called regulation.  When trauma enters the picture, the nervous system becomes dysregulated, meaning the person cannot return to their normal homeostasis.  The rolling fluctuations will get bigger and bigger without resources and the person will remain with symptoms unabated and stuck “on.” 
The nervous system does not distinguish between physical and emotional trauma.  Nothing sends nervous function into overdrive better than pain.  Sometimes an overwhelming event can happen early in life and so people grow up with one pattern stuck on, so overwhelm becomes normalized.  Adults will then begin to exhibit health problems as the body cannot tolerate the pattern’s effects.  Examples of early life trauma include:

• Difficult prenatal period
• Difficult birth for mom and/or baby
• Loss during pregnancy
• Major life stress during pregnancy or postpartum
• Early delivery and NICU experiences
• Neonatal or postnatal surgeries
• Separation from mother after birth
• Domestic violence or war experience as a child
• Cultural, physical, emotional violence
• Neglect
• Profound shame
• Too fast pace with too much sensation so the body cannot process

Examples of trauma at any age:

• Physical injury that causes pain
• Emotional wounding, especially long term abuse
• Extreme shame
• Violent crime, victim and witness
• Extended period of extreme uncontrollable pain
• Domestic violence, war and other hostile situations
• Loss of parent as a child, loss of child as a parent
• Loss of any kind without acknowledgement or resolution

A baby’s nervous system is completely functional at birth.  Early experiences are recorded in the body and in the emotional parts of the brain especially the amygdala.  If trauma occurs before cognitive function develops around 20 months and not resolved, early patterns remain unconscious and part of the nervous system’s innate function.  The end result is that early patterns can begin and then play out unattended to for a long time.  For a baby, often just being with a mother can regulate the nervous system.  This is called bonding and attachment.  But if the mother is activated, too, then the pattern can get bigger.
 
Stress Warning Signs and Symptoms
Cognitive Symptoms
Emotional Symptoms

• Memory problems
• Inability to concentrate
• Poor judgment
• Seeing only the negative
• Anxious or racing thoughts
• Constant worrying

• Moodiness
• Irritability or short temper
• Agitation, inability to relax
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Sense of loneliness and isolation
• Depression or general unhappiness

Physical Symptoms
Behavioral Symptoms

• Aches and pains
• Diarrhea or constipation
• Nausea, dizziness
• Chest pain, rapid heartbeat
• Loss of sex drive
• Frequent colds

• Eating more or less

• Sleeping too much or too little
• Isolating yourself from others
• Procrastinating or neglecting responsibilities
• Using alcohol, cigarettes or drugs to relax
• Nervous habits (eg nail biting, pacing)

From Understanding Stress: Signs, Symptoms, Causes, and Effects by Melinda Smith and Jeanne Segal (http://www.helpguide.org)
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Recovery From and Treatment of Overwhelm!
There are many ways to help manage stress and its effects.  The first step is to become aware of the pattern by recognizing the symptoms, and then to choose a pathway so that your life is in your hands and not managed by the pattern.  Learn how to relax and connect with others.  Create a support system so you can let off steam and not feel so alone.  Find outlets and professionals so you can learn important techniques or get treatments.  But there are some stress management techniques you can practice, and best of all, they are inexpensive or free:

• Meditation
• Exercise
• Mind-body exercises such as yoga and mindfulness practices
• Play
• Vacation or break from work and schedule
• Love, and for adults, romantic love in particular
• Time in nature

 
Each one of these activities or techniques has excellent research or evidence that it improves stress coping mechanisms in the body.  Other important approaches include:

• Acknowledging your resources and using them.  This is an important exercise when working on recovery from trauma, too.  The first step is to identify things, places, people, activities in your life that help you feel better, stronger, calmer, more connected, stable, more able. 
• Professional bodywork such a massage, craniosacral therapy and other forms of touch therapy from a licensed professional.  Massage is a simple but profound way to engage the nervous system, especially for patterns where the sympathetic charge is stuck on.  However, touch is not for everyone.
• Professional psychotherapy and trauma resolution techniques.  Besides the many kinds of talk therapy and social work available, there are specific techniques for relieving trauma such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).  Contact a qualified mental health counselor for more information.
• Creative expression such as art and dance. 
• Medicinal approaches that include prescription medicine, homeopathy, or herbal medicine help relieve symptoms and/or support the body so it can heal itself.

 
There are many ways to help address the symptoms of stress, but the first step is awareness.  The good news is that addressing your pattern will help build resilience and health, and many of the tools you need to do this are already available to you.