Befriending and understanding the unique responses of your nervous system, is a powerful antidote to the dysregulation that can arise from chronic or traumatic stress.

Dysregulation can make you feel like you're at war with your physiology. You may become stuck on high (hyperarousal), stuck on low (hypoarousal), or oscillate between the two, with minimal time spent feeling at home inside your body.

In hyperarousal you may feel restless, on edge, have prolonged anxiety and irritability, and become emotionally reactive. You may use excess caffeine, sugar or stimulants. You may overwork, exercise excessively or experience insomnia.

In hypoarousal you may feel depressed, foggy, fatigued or flat. You may procrastinate, avoid people or situations. You might sleep excessively or crash with a cold or migraine.

When you recognise and bring compassion to your own unique nervous system responses, shame can dissolve. You see them as patterns shaped by your past, and that anyone could experience dysregulation with too much adversity, no matter how resilient they seem.

Rather than seeing yourself as too emotional, reactive or needy, you see that your internal surveillance system has become sensitised to cues of danger, because of being under chronic or traumatic stress. A framework of understanding can dissolve shame and quieten your inner critic, reducing stress arousal.

These feelings and behaviours came about in service of your survival from what happened in your past. Your nervous system gets retuned towards hyper- or hypoarousal when there's too much stress, or the stress goes on for too long. It may be time to recalibrate your nervous system back to it's set point, so that you can come home to the state where you feel a sense of ease, inner security and trust.

Just like you'd use rehabilitation exercises for a physical injury that caused you pain, you can use neural exercises to help your nervous system function well again, and to respond appropriately to what's happening in the present moment. You'll be more adaptable, flexible, stable and energised when you face demands.

This is how you learn to re-regulate your nervous system and spend more time feeling calm and trusting. Where rest, repair and rejuvenation of your mind-body system takes place. Where you can think, feel and function at your best. Your ability to return to regulation is the essence of resilience.