Everyday Tools to Soothe a Stressed Nervous System

Jumping out of bed before the alarm clock even rings, snoozing the alarm 20 times and still dragging yourself out of bed. Our hunger patterns, when angry, our body aches when afraid, the urge to use the toilet repeatedly when nervous, and even bloodwork going out of range these tell a story that’s more than just a personality trait and shouldn’t be ignored.

Why we need to worry if our body is in a stressed state

When the body is stressed, especially long term, it puts pressure on different organs to work a little extra, more than required, for an extended period or at least till the trigger is still there. But sometimes, even when the trigger is gone, the effect of it stays, converting it into a chronic stress situation. 

This can lead to lifestyle diseases. Our brain still operates largely from a hunter-gatherer mindset, and its internal responses are very similar to how it used to combat stress in those times. It will keep dragging itself until it collapses. Today, that collapse often comes as early as at 30 years of age, may be younger and fiercer.

How stress affects the body, some examples.

1. Metabolism

The body starts storing more food by slowing down metabolism. To the brain, stress signals the need to conserve energy, which over time leads to fat deposition especially around the abdomen, digestive issues, hypertension, diabetes and other lifestyle disorders.

As a result, one of the things that could happen if you’re stressed and eating less food, your body might still retain it and not lose weight as expected.

2. Sleep

People either sleep too much or too little. In fact, those who sleep a lot under stress are actually conserving energy that’s being spent on fighting stress. When they start to heal, they may sleep even more because their body can finally relax and recover.

This is why, after a tough phase or when someone returns to a safe place like home or goes on vacation they may sleep more than expected: their nervous system is finally relaxing.

Other times, there’s just insomnia. In short, there’s no sleep routine, and you always feel like your system needs recharging.

3. Movement

The body resists movement when dysregulated. In its effort to conserve energy, it suppresses any urge to move beyond urgent needs. That’s why people under chronic stress may struggle even to brush their teeth or maintain basic hygiene. They develop pain in many parts of the body which again hampers the urge to move.

4. Depletion of micronutrients

People who are constantly under stress, may find their micronutrients level deranged, causing body ache and overall feeling of constant sickness. The body specially uses Vitamin D, B5, B12, C, E, Magnesium during stress directly and indirectly. One will find uric acid deranged too. All these and many other micros out of range in your blood work represent that body needs help.

How to mitigate effect of stress in our daily life – A Precautionary Approach

One of the cornerstones of health is slow living to keep the body in a healing condition. Anything too fast is too stimulating during chronic stress. If the body keeps receiving stress signals, it will behave as though it is diseased. With that mindset, no matter what activity you do, your body won’t respond effectively, it still believes it’s in an emergency.

Even medication won’t work 100% because stress interferes with its effectiveness. The result? Only the dosage keeps increasing.

The long-term solution to stress is, of course, living a healthy life in a safe, pollution free environment surrounded by a supportive community, with a fulfilling career and satisfying family life.

But realistically, we often can’t control all these factors. Hence, we are forced to manage stress daily.

The skills discussed in these articles are effective life tools that should be taught from childhood to old age to help us face life’s hardships without long-term damage to physical and mental health.

Importance of a resilient nervous system

We regulate our nervous system to maintain neuroplasticity, emotional resilience, and the ability to process a wide range of emotions with greater physical and mental strength.

The three pillars of daily nervous system regulation are:

1. Removal of toxins (like remnants of cortisol, cytokines) from the system
2. Mimicking safe environment stimuli to return the body to a regulated state, when it can’t do so on its own and the external environment is still stressful
3. Indulging in activities that release neurotransmitters responsible for long-term peace and happiness

Mimicking safe environment stimuli approach

I always used to wonder why actors in movies splash their faces with cold water when they’re agitated or before facing a difficult situation. Why is Mark Hanna’s iconic song and chest-thumping (Matthew McConaughey’s character in The Wolf of Wall Street) such a great relaxation technique? And why does Ranchoddas Chanchad’s song (Aamir Khan in 3 Idiots) “All is well” actually calm your system? All of these have scientific explanations, which I’ve tried to explore in this essay.

‘Mimicking safe signals’ can be called the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” approach.

When we’re stressed, our body behaves in a particular way: heavy or fast breathing, high or low BP, fluid retention, inflammation,  constipation or loose motions, increased urination, slow metabolism, increased appetite, cravings for sugar or salt, and more.

Under normal circumstances, once the stressor passes, the body resets. But in chronic stress, the body forgets how to return to baseline even if the trigger is gone. That’s when we have to help by sending calming physical signals back to the brain reminding it that the worst is over.

To mimic safe signals, we do activities that stimulate the vagus nerve.

The Role of the Vagus Nerve

The vagus nerve, which starts at the base of the skull and runs to the abdomen, plays a key role in maintaining a sense of safety. Stimulating it tells the body, “All is well.”

It’s affected by the five senses (touch, smell, taste, sight, sound). Vagus nerve stimulation and somatic exercises reduce stress by suppressing the sympathetic system and activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

For clarity:

Sympathetic Nervous System (Fight or Flight)

• Activated during perceived threats or stress.
• Prepares the body to confront or flee: increased heart rate, rapid breathing, muscle tension, pupil dilation, increased blood pressure, and suppressed digestion.

Parasympathetic Nervous System (Rest and Digest)

• Dominates when the body is calm.
• Slows heart rate, lowers blood pressure, enhances digestion, promotes relaxation.

These two systems work in opposition to balance the body’s responses to stimuli and maintain homeostasis. When one is active, the other reduces activity.

Neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers whose job is to send signals between neurons. Stress significantly impacts the release and function of neurotransmitters.

Acute stress initiates release of neurotransmitters like adrenaline and noradrenaline to initiate the “fight-or-flight” response, while chronic stress can lead to imbalances in neurotransmitter systems, potentially contributing to mood disorders and other health problems. This is mainly under the control of hormones like cortisol, whose level greatly increases under chronic stress.

In this discussion, the main neurotransmitters are:

1. Dopamine
2. Serotonin
3. Endorphins
4. Oxytocin
5. Nor-epinephrine

There are various activities that can stimulate the vagus nerve and help signal safety to the body, helping it shift back to a calm, regulated state, both in the short and long term. These not only can help in increasing good neurotransmitters release responsible for better mood, but also decrease long term stress triggers like cortisol release in the body.

1. Waking up Early And Slowly

The biggest antidote to stress and anxiety is mindfulness. And one of the easiest ways to achieve it is by noticing your own movements. From my personal experience, being mindful of the moment and noticing your own movements means being slow. Not slow in terms of intelligence, but slow and intentional in your physical actions.

Mornings set the pace for the whole day. And how calm your morning is affected greatly by the cortisol level, the stress hormone. During tough days, to maintain a sense of calm, it is important to find a way to mitigate effects of spiked cortisol in the morning.

Hence, if you’re making tea in the morning, make it slowly, not through muscle memory, but with intention. While brushing your teeth, do it slowly, reaching the last molar, feeling the brush inside your mouth. When combing your hair, notice every hand movement and how the hair pulls against your scalp.

And for all this we need time. How do we create time? By waking up earlier.

You don’t jump out of bed. You sit up slowly, then gently place your feet on the ground. Feel the earth beneath your feet, barefoot. Sit like this for a minute or two. Then slowly walk out to the balcony, drawing room, or lobby, eyes still half-open. No rush. No thoughts. Just observe the morning and your breath.

You’ll notice that just 10 minutes of this slowness, allowing your body and organs to wake up gently, can significantly reduce your anxiety, stress, and cortisol levels.

Also, winding up your day early, eating dinner at least 3 hours before bedtime, has multiple benefits: improved digestion, darkness to support your circadian rhythm, and time for the body to recover after a long day.

2. Having Breakfast

One surefire sign of pent-up cortisol is a lack of appetite or zero hunger upon waking. This is one reason stress slows down metabolism and increases the risk of insulin resistance.

Ideally, you should feel hungry within the first hour of waking. Even if you don’t, try to eat something within that hour. This creates a positive feedback loop and sets the tone for a healthy day.

3. Chewing

It’s said we should chew each bite 32 times to aid digestion and give the stomach enough time to signal when it’s full.

But there’s another benefit: jaw movement stimulates the vagus nerve, helping to calm the body. Chewing gum, for example, is known to promote relaxation, not because of the gum, but because of the chewing action. Even pretending to chew can calm you down.

Slow eating relaxes the body for several reasons:

Eating itself is a positive stimulus. Fat in food releases dopamine, a happiness-related neurotransmitter. Taste and smell activate the vagus nerve, engaging the parasympathetic system (rest and digest), enhancing feelings of safety and relaxation.

4. Breathwork

Breathwork techniques are designed to stimulate the vagus nerve.

You may have noticed that your breathing pattern changes when you’re stressed. Breathwork creates an outside-in feedback loop: if internal stress leads to shallow breathing, then mimicking deep, calm breathing from the outside can tell your body that all is well.

Diaphragmatic breathing (also known as belly breathing or deep breathing), where you focus on expanding your belly with each inhale, activates the vagus nerve. This leads to reduced heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormone levels.

5. Slow Walking in Nature / Exposure to the Color Green

Our eyes are highly sensitive to green light, meaning it takes less effort for the brain to process it. Engaging the eyes stimulates the vagus nerve. It also connects to our ancestral brain where green means abundance, safety, and food, triggering a positive psychological response and promoting peace and harmony. The same goes for observing water bodies.

A slow walk in nature, keeping green plants in your home or office, or regularly gazing at trees and greenery, positively impacts mental health. It helps decompress and regulate breathing.

This is different from brisk walking. While fitness benefits from brisk walking or jogging, chronic stress requires slow walking. For a dysregulated nervous system, anything fast-paced is a stimulant and may lead to further dysregulation.

6. Walking Barefoot on the Ground

Walking barefoot helps with grounding and engages the sense of touch. Direct contact with the earth may also neutralize excess positive ions accumulated from electronic devices, pollution, and metabolic activity. This neutralisation potentially reduces stress and anxiety. The earth’s electrons act as natural antioxidants, reducing oxidative stress and inflammation.

Stimulating nerve endings in the feet enhances blood flow throughout the body and is a gentle form of exercise that calms the mind.

Going barefoot in large open spaces like temples is an instant grounding technique. These places often have high ceilings, wide open areas, and soothing or no sounds, creating an environment of calm.

7. Chanting / Singing Aloud / Humming

Chanting OM, making a “woo” sound, or humming (as done in breathwork or pranayama) all have a calming effect on the nervous system. When you’re emotionally spiraling, even humming a song can calm the brain. Gargling is also one of the ways to calm emotional turbulence.

Singing or chanting aloud especially in a group regulates the nervous system and creates a sense of community, a crucial pillar for maintaining mental well-being.

8. Somatic Exercises

Here are simple somatic exercises you can do anytime, anywhere under a minute:

• Rubbing ears and the area around them

• Moving eyes side to side

• Fast blinking

• Filling your mouth with air (like a puffer fish or frog) and moving eyes side to side

• Mimicking chewing by moving the jaw

• Chest or shoulder tapping

• Self-hug along with shoulder tapping

• Whole body shaking or rebounding on feet

• Deep breaths (Inhale 4 – Exhale 8)

During or after these exercises, you may find yourself yawning, burping, swallowing, or sneezing, these are signs that your body is releasing stress. You can continue these activities until the stress response subsides. Initially, it may take about 5 minutes. Eventually, 1–2 minutes will be enough.

Over time, with regular practice, your body may start releasing accumulated stress on its own, even without these exercises.

Engaging Pre-Frontal Cortex

Moreover, any activity that requires voluntary facial movement like intentionally touching your face, puffing your cheeks, or touching your eyebrows, engages the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for logical thinking and decision-making.

When we are agitated or highly emotional, the prefrontal cortex tends to disengage, which is why we may act irrationally in those moments. Engaging in intentional facial movements can help reactivate the prefrontal cortex, enabling us to calm down and make more rational decisions in the moment.

Removal of toxins from body

Now, let’s discuss our first approach to regulating the nervous system which is removal of toxins from the body.

This primarily involves the movement of lymph.

Anything that our body experiences and expresses is communicated through chemicals produced in the body. The feeling of happiness, for example, is linked to a specific neurotransmitter. The same goes for every other emotion. 

Once the job of that chemical is done, it becomes a waste product or toxin that needs to be removed, just like we take out the trash from our homes daily. Usually it is done automatically by the body, but when the amount of stress is high and chronic, the body needs a little help.

Apart from blood, the body has another essential fluid called lymph, which is managed through the lymphatic system. This system acts as the body’s drainage mechanism, collecting excess fluids, proteins, and waste products from tissues and returning them to the bloodstream.

During stress, the body produces more waste and inflammatory molecules. The lymphatic system helps remove these, preventing fluid buildup and promoting well-being. 

Specifically, lymphatic drainage massage can promote relaxation, reduce muscle tension, improve sleep, and boost immunity. It also helps reduce inflammation and cortisol levels by inducing relaxation. Therefore, toxin removal becomes crucial during long-term, high-stress situations.

You might wonder why doesn’t lymph move automatically, like blood pumped by the heart?

Because the lymphatic system doesn’t have a pump. It relies on movement and gravity to reach the desired points where it mixes with blood.

Chronic stress and prolonged inactivity impair the lymph vessels, which hinders detoxification.

Activities to remove toxins from body

1. Inversions, gravity, and lymphatic drainage massage

Children and active individuals have lower levels of stress-related diseases because regular body movement helps lymph flow and reduces inflammation.

Lymph nodes are located in the neck, armpits, abdomen, and groin, making inverted postures and targeted massage important for stimulating lymph flow.

Inversions also improve circulation by aiding venous blood flow from the pelvis to the heart, which sends it to the lungs for oxygenation. This improves oxygen intake and supports slower, deeper breathing.

2. Body massage

Touch and massage stimulate the vagus nerve, promoting relaxation. Massage also relieves muscle tension. Facial massage supports lymph movement and reduces bloating.

3. Tapping/Body Shaking

Tapping on joints, chest, shoulders, or lymph-node-rich areas helps lymph movement and stress release.

Other approaches that support a calm mind:

1. Exposure to cold temperature

a. Cold represses the sympathetic nervous system and activates the parasympathetic system.

b. It constricts blood vessels, followed by vasodilation, improving circulation and reducing inflammation.

c. It increases dopamine, enhancing mood.

d. It may reduce allergic reactions by lowering histamine production, which is heightened in high-stress bodies.

Ways to expose the body to cold:

• Cold baths, especially in the morning.
• Cold rinses before bed, which cool the body, promote hygiene, and aid relaxation.
• Bringing down temperature of the room when preparing to sleep
• Splashing cold water on the face or sipping cold water when angry, which activates the parasympathetic system and clears the mind.
• Holding or rubbing an ice pack on the face, neck, or shoulders, helps calm intense emotions quickly.

2. Keeping your surroundings clean / Decluttering / Minimalism

An anxious mind, especially a traumatized or dysregulated nervous system (e.g., postpartum moms, people with chronic illness or mental health issues), scans the environment for threats.

A clutter-free, organized space is easier to scan and feels safer. Cultural conditioning also associates tidy spaces with better living standards. Thus, clutter can make people feel like they’re failing at life.

That’s why spiritual places are often minimalistic and non-stimulating.

3. Animals

Animals aren’t stressed by the same situations as humans (e.g., job stress, breakups), making them great co-regulators.

Since birth, our brains seek a calm nervous system to sync with. As adults, we still need calming partners. Dogs, cows, and other animals are known for this. Caring for a pet also provides a sense of purpose, especially helpful during depressive phases.

4. Exercise/Lymph movement

Lymph mixes with blood near the shoulders and arms. Moving these areas helps with drainage.

Exercise also burns extra energy, regulates insulin, releases endorphins, improves sleep, and boosts energy.

However, the type of exercise matters. Fast-paced workouts may worsen anxiety. In such cases, slow, intentional movements like a calm walk are more soothing. People with chronic mental health issues should ideally work with trauma-informed trainers.

5. Healthy food

A balanced diet is essential during stress. The body needs complex carbs and healthy fats (like omega-3s) to regulate stress responses.

Protein provides amino acids, the building blocks of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. Vitamins C, D, and the B-complex group support immunity and mental health. They are terrific anti-oxidants.

Probiotics and fermented foods help because gut bacteria influence neurotransmitter production. Imbalances in gut bacteria are linked to inflammation, mood disorders, and cognitive challenges.

The gut also helps regulate cortisol. An unhealthy microbiome can disrupt this, raising stress levels.

As under chronic stress, these nutrients would be depleted at a much faster rate than stress free times, it is essential to recuperate the body to come back to its natural calm state.

Nutrient deficiency can worsen the chronic stress situation.

6. Handwork

Creative manual activities like painting, writing, chopping/cooking, knitting, crocheting, crafting, or pottery can calm the mind. Minimal machinery and hands-on work help you stay present.

7. Other helpful tools:

• Physical sports
• Dancing/Yoga
• Time with friends and family
• Travel to serene, low-pollution places with lots of nature
• Playing musical instruments (non-app based)
• Physical touch like hugging, holding hands with people who you are close to

8. Talking/Venting

It is imperative to talk regularly to someone who believes you. Someone who can validate your experience. Even if they don’t have a solution, simply feeling understood by another person has a deeply calming effect.

Having someone who sees that you’re hurting and responds with empathy can motivate you to heal and help you feel supported during difficult times.

That’s why therapy can be so helpful for improving mental health. A trained practitioner can validate your experience and also guide you toward healing.

In case a friend or therapist isn’t available, talking to a language model like ChatGPT can temporarily help calm your mind by offering a listening ear and reflective advice.

9.Journaling

Handwritten journaling offers many benefits. It not only helps with venting, clearing thoughts, and understanding your emotions, but the very act of writing also engages your senses, deepening the healing process.

10. Community, purpose, charity, spirituality, gratitude

A strong community of trustworthy people, a purpose to wake up for, and a long-term life vision greatly impact well-being.

Even a modest, non-material goal can be motivating. Reading, being in a good company, volunteering, and traveling all add perspective and gratitude. Role models or beloved people (even animals or causes) can inspire us to keep going.

Acts of kindness, helping others with no expectations, boost self-worth and positivity. They remind us that we matter.

Sometimes people with mental health issues feel they have no value or that the world revolves entirely around them. Humble service can restore balance. It teaches us that we’re valuable, even if others don’t affirm it.

Humility fosters joy and appreciation for life.

In my view, true mental health requires engagement with philosophy, spirituality, and human psychology. You don’t need to go deep, but occasionally reflecting on life’s purpose and human behavior can offer powerful healing insights.

Religion can offer a sense of community and purpose. Even for the non-religious, aligning with a cause bigger than oneself can bring deep meaning.

In conclusion:

Caring for your mental and physical health is worth the effort, it helps you live a more peaceful, fulfilling life.

These practices are not substitutes for professional medical treatment, therapy, or medication. Not every method suits everyone. These ideas are based on personal experience and research; I’m not a licensed practitioner.

They are simple, daily habits that support nervous system regulation and can complement other treatments, especially for stress-related lifestyle disorders.

Always consult an expert before trying anything new, especially if you’re unsure. Let these tools inspire your own research. There’s plenty of expert-backed content available online and in books for further reading.

Happy Living!!