Nervous system hacks/resets

September 22, 2021 2:02 PM

What do you do, in the immediate moment, to reset your sense of feeling okay?

Interested in the more unique/personal techniques for resetting after something really unpleasant has happened, beyond going for a walk or taking some slow deep breaths. Maybe also medications or similar to look into for one-time use could be good.

Some techniques that I have used:

- hand coordination exercises that activate both left and right brain (like these BrainGym drills), especially if they are hard enough that you really have to concentrate on what's happening with your fingers (pretty magical at interrupting negative thought patterns, and available anytime)

- dunk face in a big bowl of cold water (activates mammalian diving reflex, makes heart beat slower and lots of other physiological changes, honestly pretty effective but not always socially available)

- make my eyes follow a straight horizontal line (like where a wall meets the ceiling) back and forth, making sure it mostly fills my field of vision (this kind of very regular eye movement feels almost like hypnotizing myself, I got it from EMDR therapy)

- drink chamomile tea

- eat really good sushi

posted by danceswithlight to Science & Nature (34 answers total)

I keep a bottle of essential oil in orange scent in my purse. The smell seems to help my brain reset. My therapist suggested it as a way to break an anxiety circle.
posted by Ftsqg at 2:12 PM on September 22, 2021

Sounds cliche but if something is able to make me laugh while I'm upset it's almost impossible to go back to feeling upset again even if I try. And I know this because I do try. I can still not like the thing, but the emotional balloon is popped.
posted by bleep at 2:13 PM on September 22, 2021

I walk into another room and make really high pitched excited nonsense noises at my dogs so they think something very good is happening and go into multipositional swarm mode which always cheers me up. And then we go outside for a minute and have a treat.

I don't know how there is coping if you don't have a dog, sorry.
posted by phunniemee at 2:18 PM on September 22, 2021

Omg box breathing!!! Breath in for 4, hold for 4, breath out for 4, hold for 4, repeat.
(Or 5, 6 pending your lung size). It resets your vagus nerve. After 5-10 min of breath pending how anxious I am I can feel the body just… relax.

CBD gummies ! They work.

PharmaGABA over the counter from health food store.

Sugar. Just a bit, not a binge. Sorry. But it releases whatever high you get from carbs.

My favorite scent.

Go for a run.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:44 PM on September 22, 2021

Scream at full volume for thirty seconds
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:45 PM on September 22, 2021

(Sorry I know you said no breathing but check out box breathing… it resets the oxygen / carbon dioxide balance in the blood that tells the vagus nerve to calm the F down, so it’s categorically different than “just take some deep breaths”).
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:48 PM on September 22, 2021

Do some sort of small, immediate kindness: Hold the door, overtip, help someone, etc. Cleaning a room also works.
posted by mochapickle at 2:51 PM on September 22, 2021

Three. Deep. Breaths.
Slow, belly-expanding breaths.

It doesn’t fix my problems, but gives me a fighting chance to not make them any worse.

And that’s at least half the battle
posted by armoir from antproof case at 2:59 PM on September 22, 2021

I moved into a house that came with an elliptical machine. When I need a nervous system reset I use the elliptical for at least 5 minutes -doesn't take very long, and I can do it between customer service calls while I'm WFH. So far, it's helped every time I've used it this way.
posted by mcbeth at 2:59 PM on September 22, 2021

I like to go for a walk in the park and strike up a conversation with one of my neighbors. Gentle, innocuous nice exchanges between friendly people seem to snap me out of it.
posted by ananci at 3:03 PM on September 22, 2021

Haven't tried it, but from some imgur dump/grabbag of advice, there's a popular 54321 method to deal with anxiety.

https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/5-4-3-2-1-countdown-to-make-anxiety-blast-off

Sit quietly. Look around you and notice:

5 things you can see: Your hands, the sky, a plant on your colleague’s desk
4 things you can physically feel: Your feet on the ground, a ball, your friend’s hand
3 things you can hear: The wind blowing, children’s laughter, your breath
2 things you can smell: Fresh-cut grass, coffee, soap
1 thing you can taste: A mint, gum, the fresh air

posted by sebastienbailard at 3:04 PM on September 22, 2021

Shot of tequila. At one point, decades ago, I had a prescription for Valium. Works wonders.
posted by AugustWest at 3:16 PM on September 22, 2021

Go lay under a weighted blanket. This has been the best investment of my life. Sometimes I don't even realize how jacked up my heart rate is until I've been lying under the blanket for 10 minutes and start to feel it coming down.

I don't find them helpful myself, but lots of people swear by progressive muscle relaxation and autogenic training. It really does seem to help in a way that just deep breathing doesn't, I just haven't been able to harness it myself (but I have weird body feedback stuff that may get in the way).

Re: as-needed medication, this is what lorazepam is often prescribed for.
posted by brook horse at 3:24 PM on September 22, 2021

Listen to your favorite music.
posted by Rash at 3:32 PM on September 22, 2021

This is similar to your exercise of eyes along a straight horizontal line, but more intense: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eFV0FfMc_uo
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 3:41 PM on September 22, 2021

Dance therapy, and I'm someone who doesn't generally dance. I have a set of mood-adjustment playlists (the folder is called Need A Boost Or A Hug and the playlist names are Feeling Sad But That's Okay, Feels Like A Hug, You Got This, and Go Take Names!) and sometimes find it very helpful to either choose a song or just hit shuffle and dance around the room. Depending on the playlist, I may be doing a moody goth-spin dance or I might be doing something that comes as close to aerobics as I'm likely to do. Afterwards I may not feel "better" but at least I feel different.

If it's middle-of-the-night anxiety or rumination, I usually lie in bed silently reciting the metta meditation (a version based on Thich Nhat Hanh's, which begins "May I be happy, peaceful, and light. May I be safe from injury. May I be free from anger and fear, afflictions and anxiety").

I also remind myself about what my Zen teacher says about how "feelings" are often only conditioned responses to sensation and part of a five-step process:

First there is MOVEMENT: Something happens in our lives, something shifts, slips, advances or evolves. It may be a big event, a tiny incident, someone’s passing comment or a nearly imperceptible change in the environment.

Second, there is SENSATION: We feel or experience something physically – a twinge of pain, a flood of heat or cold, a clenching or emptiness in our body, a vibration or fluctuation we can’t name.

Third, we have A THOUGHT: We consciously or unconsciously identify the sensation and assign some kind of reason or meaning or value to it.

Fourth, we have an EMOTIONAL REACTION to the thought: It may be a flash or wave of a certain feeling or it may be a combination of them – grief, fear, anger, irritation, shame, nervousness, hurt, desire, relief, etc.

Fifth, there is BEHAVIOR: We take some kind of action or reaction, verbally, physically or attitudinally – either to stop the feeling, escape it, or to do something else about it.

Of course, in real life, this evolution is not so neat and ordered. All these events may seem to occur at once, or in a confused jumble. Also, the impacts of our behavior invariably set up new movements and new sensations, thus initiating new cycles.

Sometimes I find it helpful to try to identify what movement or minor shift kicked me into the current cycle of feelings.
posted by Lexica at 3:50 PM on September 22, 2021

engage in a work of quality. clean your kitchen, but really *fucking* clean it. with your full attention.

can be any size task. 30 min is the sweet spot.
posted by j_curiouser at 3:56 PM on September 22, 2021

Make a mental list of something: chocolate bars, dog breeds, Shakespeare plays, car models, whatever. Try to list like 30 things. Usually that will de-escalate you a bit.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 4:09 PM on September 22, 2021

Name your sensation / emotion and put the reason into words.

“I’m breathing really heavily and my stomach hurts, why?”

“Ah- I feel angry. I feel angry because Jen cut me out of the loop at work and I’m concerned I’ll the one blamed if she messes up the project.”

Doing that can take the fangs away quite quickly. Naming the problem can help put you back into solution mode and make it much easier to identify a corrective action:

“Ok, I need to bypass Jen and get back into the loop on this, who should I contact to ensure I’m not excluded from this project? Maybe I’ll talk to Nick. No, he’ll take Jen’s side. I’ll talk to Lee.”
posted by nouvelle-personne at 4:13 PM on September 22, 2021

I do a variation of the 5-4-3-2-1 thing mentioned above.

Pick an object in the room and list five adjectives to describe. Move to another object and list four adjectives. Move to another object, etc all the way down to one. I try to think of the most detailed words I can think off. For example, there are some roses on my dresser. I could say they were just red, but I try to think of a better color word to describe them.
posted by kathrynm at 4:20 PM on September 22, 2021

Organising objects so they fit nicer somewhere. I also have a small jigsaw puzzle (30 woodcut pieces) that I keep at my desk if I need to stop and process a difficult emotion.
posted by iamkimiam at 4:33 PM on September 22, 2021

Very hot bath, where you sweat. Iced drinking water with the very hot bath.
posted by Hypatia at 4:51 PM on September 22, 2021

Take a deep belly breath, and exhale slowly through pursed lips. This stretches out the lungs and feels really good.

GABA, l-theanine, CBD, magnesium. I've taken them in various combinations with no ill effects. YMMV.

Warm blanket and a cup of hot green tea sometimes works wonders. Or comfort food like canned chicken noodle soup, or even hot chicken broth.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 6:20 PM on September 22, 2021

I do a sort of full body extended horse snort.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 6:39 PM on September 22, 2021

Box breathing for sure. Laying on the ground with my legs up against the wall for 5-10 minutes, particularly great combined with the deep breaths held at top and bottom.

Totally mundane tasks that occupy my brain; last night for instance I ran down the proper usage and distinction of who vs whom mentally for a bit (I’m an English teacher so your version of this may vary! If I were at all decent at math I’d do algebra).

Doing something nice for my dog; being around my dog in general.
posted by nancynickerson at 6:50 PM on September 22, 2021

I go for a drive.

I used to smoke.
posted by NotLost at 7:38 PM on September 22, 2021

Taking a shower is what I do Whenever I don't know what to do.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 8:11 PM on September 22, 2021

NLP anchoring can be good for this if you strengthen the anchor regularly.
posted by crunchy potato at 8:36 PM on September 22, 2021

I recently learned about and have been experimeting with EFT. An example.
posted by missmobtown at 9:37 PM on September 22, 2021

I've been burning sage.
posted by soakimbo at 10:23 PM on September 22, 2021

When I'm having a morning that's a little bit flustered and panicky, I've learned to catch myself and breathe. It's not really the breathing so much as the catching it early and knowing that if get panicky then I'm more likely to forget my phone, lose my keys, or do something else that will escalate my anxiety. And usually whatever I'm getting flustered about is really okay, and I can remind myself of that: "Hey, you're just 5 minutes behind. No one cares. It's fine. There's time to clean up this spill."

Another thing that can help is naming whatever is in the room with me. "There is a stack of 9 Discworld books on the shelf. Next to that is the produce book I've never really used. Next to that is ... etc."

At work when I get stuck and stressed out I step away from my desk and play a game on my phone for a few minutes. It took me a while to notice that I was doing this, and to realize that this is an actual technique that actually works, but it does. My brain shifts focus to something besides that irritating email or mistake or whatever, calms down, and then I'm better able to come back to my desk and make a decision that I'm okay with.
posted by bunderful at 5:41 AM on September 23, 2021

Others have mentioned the vagus nerve and how it can help calm you. One of the best ways to quickly take you out of an unpleasant mood is splashing a lot of cold water on the face and back of the hands. It activates the vagus nerve and stimulates the dive reflex (which is a cool rabbit hole of info on its own). More tips on stimulating the vagus nerve, and a video, here.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 6:44 AM on September 23, 2021

I dive into a book. For best results it should be something funny but emotionally cathartic. I aim myself right into it until I have been entrained with the mood of the book long enough that whatever unstabilized me feels like something that happened before I read the book, rather than something currently happening.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:14 AM on September 23, 2021

Some things I do:

Set a timer and clean something vigorously for 10-15 minutes to get some of that anxious energy out and work on something that's actually within my control.
Read a few pages of a soothing and beloved book.
Stand outside and just look up at the sky.
Run cold (or warm, depending on the season) water over my wrists for a minute.
Find a 1-5 minute meditation on Insight Timer. I am always so amazed by how much it helps, I used to think it wasn't worth bothering with if I couldn't do a longer stretch of time, but even one minute helps tremendously.
posted by anderjen at 8:09 AM on September 23, 2021