Signs Your Nervous System is Dysregulated - 39

If you’ve been feeling reactive, overwhelmed, or constantly on edge… it might not be your mindset—it might be your nervous system.

In this episode, we’re breaking down the subtle (and not-so-subtle) signs of nervous system dysregulation—the patterns that show up in your body, your thoughts, and your daily reactions.

You’ll learn how to recognize when you’re:

• Overthinking or stuck in mental loops
• Snapping, shutting down, or feeling emotionally flooded
• Constantly tense, exhausted, or unable to fully relax
• High-functioning on the outside but overwhelmed underneath

This isn’t about diagnosing or labeling—it’s about building awareness so you can start to shift from reacting automatically to responding with intention.

If you’ve ever wondered why you “know better” but still feel stuck in the same patterns, this episode will help you understand what’s actually happening—and what to do next.

Transcript

Autumn G Noble (00:00)

Hello my friends and welcome back to the podcast. Today we are kicking off April, a new month of topics, both here on the free podcast as well as on my premium podcast. And the topic this month is one that the vast majority of my professional coaching clients really want to skip over,

As many of you know, I spent the last several years focusing primarily on coaching attorneys. And I will tell you that this topic is one that attorneys are really not that interested in talking about, but it is so important to their careers and their practice. Now I coach women of all different backgrounds and professions, and this topic remains incredibly important. But as women, I think it's a topic that we shy away from because we're socialized and cultured to not

be emotional and talk about our feelings. And that is exactly what I want to be talking about this month. Not in a let's get all in the feels type of a way, but more in a emotional regulation and emotional intelligence kind of a way. And I think the easiest way for us to recognize that this is playing a role in our life is if you ever have those moments,

where you catch yourself snapping in a conversation or you shut down in a high-pressure situation, or I think most popular, after a conversation happens or some kind of an exchange, we mull over it for hours and days afterwards, just overthinking the conversation, what we should have said, what we wish we should have said, and just building that anger and almost having like a ⁓ mental karate match in our head.

with the other person and a conversation that happened likely days ago and is completely over, but we're clearly not over it. When we catch ourselves doing that, it's easy to kind of wonder, what's wrong with me? Why did I snap? Why did I completely go silent in that conversation? And like, why can't I stop festering over this conversation? And the answer is there's nothing wrong with you. You're just experiencing a stress.

response. And today we're going to talk about what that means and what happens in your brain. And more importantly, over the course of this month, I'm going to give you some tips and tools to learn how to respond differently, to stop that spiral, to stop freezing in the moment and understand more why we snap at people so that we can stop doing it and be more emotionally regulated humans. So I hope that paints a picture for you as to why this topic is so important.

Please don't skip this episode. This is truly the work that almost every coaching client that I have, we always end up back at this one because it's in there and we don't wanna talk about it, but we have to. So here we go.

So I want to start with a little bit of story time and talking about myself early on in my career practicing law. I had this really intimidating boss and he was pretty important in the firm and he led my whole team of people and he had a very Socratic way of talking to you, meaning there were no clear answers. There were no straightforward answers. Everything was sort of kicked back to you in a question.

format and it was easy for me to kind of assume that the reason he was approaching me that way is because he thought I was an idiot and it felt very dismissive to me. Backing up, I grew up on a farm with three brothers and there were always a lot of men around and it was typically just me and my mom and it became very apparent early on that none of those men were interested in hearing the opinion of the only you know 12-14 year old girl

around and believe me I had a lot of opinions about how they should pick up after themselves, how they could set the table themselves, they could do their own laundry, they could do their own dishes, all of those things were coming out of my mouth and nobody really wanted to hear it and I have these very, very distinct audible memories of my parents like saying my name and sort of shutting it down like, Autumn, stop, we're not having this conversation again, pick up the dishes, do the laundry, like pull your weight on the farm.

So early on, that sort of drawing the line in the sand and telling me to kind of stop instilled in me a real trigger around feeling dismissed. Okay, so as I grew and I was having exchanges with typically men in authority positions, the moment that I would feel like they didn't wanna hear what I had to say or what I had to say they thought was dumb and I felt dismissed, I would immediately feel myself getting

I would feel the heat rise in my chest. I would feel my throat get hot and my heart rate would start to race. And I didn't realize all the connections are certainly the root of it while I was starting my legal practice. But what I do know is that as I was trying to build my credibility and learn at this law firm, I would be fully prepared to engage with my boss and present to him my legal conclusions on a project.

and he'd come at me with these questions. And what I took is a very aggressive tone, but inside that little girl and me was just raging, feeling dismissed. And I would start to get angry and argumentative. And sure, as a lawyer, that was a useful skill. But even when I was able to kind of engage in a fiery exchange with this person, I was so physically uncomfortable. I could feel my heart racing. I could feel the heat in my face and my chest.

and my breath was really rapid and it was very uncomfortable and usually after those exchanges I would go back to my office and I would burst into tears because it was like there was so much emotion boiling up in me that I was just so triggered going way back years and years had nothing to do with him and it would just explode and so I knew there was something there and at the time I thought it was a me thing I thought well I'm not cut out for this

I'm not able to withstand that kind of pressure and that type of questioning. I'm not prepared enough. I don't know enough. I don't have the constitution for this job. Years later, we're talking maybe almost 20 years later, I'm in another similar kind of exchange. And this was when the pieces really started to click. It wasn't in a legal setting. It was in another setting where the man again was kind of the authority figure. And I had presented my case and I can't remember what I was pitching him for, but I was sitting down.

you know, all my ducks in a row and I was feeling really confident about what I was proposing. And right out of the gate, he interrupts me and starts talking about something completely unrelated. And once again, that little girl in me is feeling incredibly dismissed. I can feel it immediately, the heat, the tightness in my chest, the shift in my tone, the pace at which I'm speaking. And I didn't fall apart and I handled it.

But afterward, once again, I realized that that trigger kind of had all of those emotions boiling within me. And I wasn't thinking clearly in those moments. Yes, I'm able to react and be kind of argumentative and hold my own, but I'm not thinking logically. And I know that I'm not. And I think that that sort of fuels this later spinning around, I wish I had reacted differently.

I wish I had said this instead. I should have done that when he said that. And so even though I showed up, I physically felt terrible. I know I wasn't showing up as well and that all kind of fuel just spinning that would happen later on in life. And as I started getting deeper into this work, I started to realize that it's not about intelligence or preparation or having the constitution for having those types of discussions. It's none of that.

It's simply physiology and that I needed to explore and understand more about my brain and how my brain worked and why those types of exchanges really just set me off and disconnected me from the part of my brain that was logical and calm and reasonable because that part of me was just gone during those discussions. And in order to bring her back to the table, I had to learn more. 

So this led me into a lot of explorations around our brain and how our brain works in stressful situations. And what I learned is that when your brain perceives a threat, it moves into that fight or flight kind of primitive brain. Our amygdala, the threat detector in our brain, it kicks in. And I hate to use the word threat because the reality of it is there was no threat. These people were not trying to hurt me. But our brain…

was wired to perceive threats back in primitive times. So threats to life, safety, home. But today, those types of threats don't often exist. So a similar type of biological threat could be feeling dismissed, feeling talked down to, feeling unprepared, feeling challenged. Any of those things are gonna rate the same to your amygdala as a threat to life, safety, and home.

And so regardless of what type of threat it may be, it could be just simply feeling judged or feeling pressured. That is gonna trigger your amygdala brain. And that's really important to know because when that amygdala kicks in, it releases a whole bunch of stress hormones. What's really important to know and why I think this is so important for any type of a professional to understand is that it's like your brain has one driver's seat.

there's not even a passenger seat where they can provide like directions and support. There's one, there's one seat in the car of your brain. And when the amygdala kicks in, the grownup adult with the driver's license jumps out of the car. And instead the amygdala, that primitive fighter flight brain, it's in the driver's seat because there is only one seat in the car. And so when we're triggered that primitive brain,

jumps in the seat in our rational, cognitive, thinking, reasoning brain, they're gone. We lost them miles ago. And that's really helpful to know because if we want to have a reasonable, coherent, and logical discussion, we can't give space for that amygdala brain to step into the driver's seat and kick the prefrontal cortex out the door. So we've got to figure out, okay, if this is what's happening from a biological perspective,

I need to do something to shift my body physiologically so that that doesn't happen and I can stay in control.

helps us understand why these scenarios happen because it's not an indication of our failure. It's just an indication that we have entered a stress cycle and our brain is trying to switch drivers in the driver's seat. And that's all that's happening. It's no judgment, no criticism. But understanding this can help us change the stress

For many of us, this becomes a problem because we weren't educated and trained to recognize that this is happening in real time and we don't know how to move through it. Those emotions, once we're triggered, they feel really important And they feel like they know the answer and they know the response to everything that's happening around us. They feel like they matter because that's your primitive brain. It is designed.

to take control so you stay safe. And what ends up happening is because it feels so important and so persuasive, it's really easy to get stuck in that activation and not stop the cycle and retain control by your primitive brain.

all of this results in those outcomes where we overreact, we shut down completely, or we replay the situation for hours or days. And so we have this sort of incomplete stress cycle that just keeps running and running.

This month, we're talking about embodiment and emotional regulation. So today, I want you to start paying attention to what activation feels like in your body. What does it feel like when you're And I don't mean what's happening in your brain and all of the angry thoughts that are floating around. I mean in your body physically.

when you're feeling triggered? Do you have a tight chest? Does your breathing immediately change, get more rapid or more shallow? Do you feel tension maybe in your jaw? Maybe you grip your hands and squeeze them into fists. Once we start paying attention to our body, it gets a lot easier to change it because our body

knows what's happening before our brain does. And so I wanna leave you today with a few options that you can engage in when you start seeing this cycle happening. The first one is your breath, and it's very simple, and I know that this sounds like too easy to be true or helpful and to dismiss it, but I'm telling you, your breath is one of the easiest ways to stop the escalation of the stress cycle and keep your prefrontal cortex engaged.

Two options, one is simple box breathing, where if you imagine creating a box with your breath, you're breathing in for four counts, that's one side of the box. You're holding it for four counts, that's the top side of the box. You're exhaling for four counts, that's drawing the other side of the box, and you're holding for four counts, that's the base of the box. If you can engage in that type of tactical breathing, it will activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which tells us,

that everything is okay, that the threat has passed. Physiologically, this is the simplest way to stop the fight or flight brain from throwing your prefrontal cortex out the driver's door. Another simple breathing exercise,

Think about when you're scared about something or you're stressed about something and then all of a sudden the threat has passed and you're relieved, you breathe out really, really heavily. There is a reason that we do that and it is because when our exhale is longer than our inhale, it once again signals to that parasympathetic nervous system that the threat is gone and we can go back to breathing normally and engaging that prefrontal cortex.

These types of breathing exercises, they're not just theory, they're actually taught in a lot of law enforcement type of environments because they work and they improve our decision making under pressure because they keep that grown up brain, reasonable, rational brain, they keep that part of you in the driver's seat. And so we need that driver to be there in order to make better decisions.

Either of those breathing exercises have been shown to lower your cortisol, increase heart rate variability, which is key to resilience, and it restores access to the prefrontal cortex. So we regain our cognitive footing just by paying attention to the breath. And it doesn't take very long, a minute, two minutes, can keep you in the driver's seat and stop that slide into the stress cycle.

Another tool for your tool belt here is the 90 second emotional reset. And I think this one is so fascinating because of what it tells us about the stress cycle. Research in neuroscience shows us that the physiological lifespan of a chemical surge of adrenaline or cortisol, those stress hormones, the lifespan of those chemicals is 60 to 90 seconds.

And I think that's really fascinating because what that tells us is that for 60 to 90 seconds, it's just biology. There's nothing we can do about the stress hormones flooding our body. But if we can get past that 60 to 90 seconds, whether the cycle continues and whether that emotion continues, it's no longer chemistry, it's choice. And it's our choice to gravitate into those thought patterns, those angry stress patterns.

that keep that emotion going and in fact keep that emotion building.

So what this means is that initial spiking chemicals is automatic and there's nothing that we can do about it, but any prolonged reaction and engagement in those emotions is part of our own mental rehearsal and patterning that we can rework through these practices. So this 90 second reset is simply allowing that initial wave to pass without feeding it.

And then once that wave passes, we can engage some of these other tools like the breathing exercise and the next one I'm gonna share with you. We can engage those tools after those 60 to 90 seconds and learn to react differently and create new neural pathways and patterns in response to threats and stress. So the last one that I think is really simple to engage is to simply name the emotion.

Research tells us that affect labeling, simply naming the emotion, reduces amygdala response, which is just fascinating. All it takes is you internally saying, I'm feeling really angry. I'm feeling really irritated. Doing that mentally can reduce the intensity of the emotion. So you can imagine having a stress trigger. You start feeling it in your body. And the moment you recognize that, you can say to yourself, okay, I need...

60 to 90 seconds because this wave is coming and there's nothing that I can do about it. And we just let it come and we observe it in our body and we feel it and we sort of stay put for 60 to 90 seconds. During that time, we might say to ourselves, I'm feeling very angry and feeling very frustrated. And simply in that moment, watching your breath, trying to elongate the exhale or engaging some of that box breathing, that's it. That's all it takes.

to not engage in that stress response and allow ourselves to show up more intentionally, more rationally, and more in alignment with how we want to be in that moment. way for us to start paying attention to those triggers and recognizing all of this that's coming up. doesn't necessarily have to do with this person in front of me right now. It came from way back, from years and years ago, and I'm not going to bring it forward and place it in this exchange.

Instead, I'm just gonna let my brain and my body try and protect me from a threat that it discerned decades ago. Good for it, that's what it's supposed to do. But I'm just gonna let that happen. And I'm not gonna ride that crazy train. I'm not going to let the emotion dictate my responses. I'm gonna take a beat, pay attention to it, take some breaths, and then I'm gonna move on and show up in the way that I want to. So that we don't have to beat ourselves up afterwards and we don't have to spiral afterwards.

because we regained control and kept our prefrontal cortex in that driver's seat and we showed up as our best. That is all it takes to start changing that overreaction, that freezing and sort of overthinking exchanges after they happen.

So today, pay attention to those triggers. See how it feels in your body and allow your body to be the first signal that we need to start engaging some of these tools. Take a beat so that we don't start spiraling and we create a new pattern of showing up moving forward. once you start to recognize I'm feeling really activated or triggered right now.

That's when we learn to interrupt the pattern. And that's when I'm building this month on the free podcast as well on the premium podcast. I'm simply providing you with the tools to move away from reaction to more intentional responding and choosing how to move forward.

This month on my premium podcast for $5 a month, we are exploring this very topic where I'm gonna be giving you tools to get better at these skills. It's about learning how to come back to our body and allowing our body to show us what's really happening so we can better emotionally regulate

If you're ready to start feeling differently and showing up differently, not just thinking differently, join us on the 30 day series in my premium podcast. All of the links are in the show notes. I hope that some of you will join us there and see how much this work can truly change your emotional environment and allow you to show up as your best self. Until next time, my friends, we're gonna continue this journey on embodiment and emotional regulation.

Next week, we continue this topic by getting a little bit deeper into the interactions between our thinking brain and our feeling body and why we can't use logic to get ourself out of stress, but also how we can leverage our prefrontal cortex brain to not only change the way we feel, but to change the way we show up and what we ultimately create in our life. I hope that you will join me next week as we continue this discussion.