Rooted Through Recalibration: The Critical Need for Nervous System Regulation in Women

Nervous system dysregulation and regulation have become a growing, highlighted topic in recent years, and rightfully so. Far from being a popular trend, it’s a powerful cultural shift rooted in a deeper awakening for everyone across this planet.

Over-hustling, workaholism, overextension, burnout, and subsequent nervous system dysregulation are real and they’re at an all-time high. People are finally waking up to the truth that you can’t keep “pushing through” exhaustion and depletion. Our bodies were never designed or “wired” for this present-day, over-demanding culture. Especially women’s bodies.

Nervous System Dysregulation and Women

Women are more likely to experience nervous system dysregulation related to a long-standing intersection of biology, cultural expectations, habitual programming, and generational conditioning.

Why is this profound movement gaining momentum, and why is healing so imperative for women? Here are several possibilities:

• Sensitivity to Stress: Biologically, women’s bodies are highly sensitive to the catabolic effects of excess stress and cortisol, which can lead to disruptions in menstrual cycles, sleep, mood, immune function, and more.
• Cultural Conditioning: Women are socialized to accommodate others’ needs over their own. They are under the impossible pressure of being high-achieving, nurturing, and emotionally available at all times. They adjust to meet external demands, abandoning themselves in the process, leading to hypervigilance in the nervous system.
• Over-Productivity Paradigm: Our culture celebrates overachievement, constant output, and speed—traits associated with “masculine energy.” Women’s natural cycles and rhythms—hormonally, emotionally, and energetically—were never designed for this grind. Forcing a cyclic body into a linear system exhausts the nervous system.
• Work & Emotional Load: Women (still) often carry the responsibility of caretaking, household management, community building, and maintaining all relationships, on top of their careers and personal goals; this “double shift” leads to nervous system depletion without sufficient rest or recovery.
• Programmed Perfectionism: Generations of women have been taught that being busy, selfless, successful, attractive, agreeable, and “perfect” is a virtuous trait. This unreachable standard creates an inner critic who demands more, postpones rest, and equates self-worth with output, further dysregulating the nervous system.
• Body Wisdom Disconnection: Life tends to pull women into the head—logic, achievement, performance—and away from their body’s intuitive signals of need, fatigue, boundary, and desire. Ignored or suppressed long enough, the body experiences anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and autoimmune conditions.
• Unresolved & Ongoing Stress: From unhealed past childhood traumatic experiences to previous or present toxic relationships to modern-day life’s stressors (job, money, children, etc.), all of this can further weaken your nervous system, health, and vitality.

Normal Nervous System Function

Let’s summarize how our nervous system normally functions. Then, we’ll dive into regulation and dysregulation, followed by holistic therapies that can heal the nervous system and the whole person.

The Autonomic Nervous System has two main divisions or branches: Sympathetic & athetic.

The Sympathetic Nervous System is activated during a fear-based situation, when the body is feeling threatened to fight or run away, preparing it for acute stress or emergencies. This is based on a real or perceived threat. The body doesn’t know the difference. This activation increases heart rate and blood flow to muscles, dilates pupils, and prepares your body for immediate action. It’s a completely normal, healthy response.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System is associated with feeling safe, calm, and grounded and is more dominant during resting, meditating, or sleeping. This branch regulates heart rate, breathing, repairing the body, digesting and absorbing the nutrients from your meals, and more. Again, this is based on a real or perceived sense of safety and peace. It is balanced with the activated sympathetic nervous system’s effects. This is also a completely normal, healthy response.

Both the Sympathetic and the Parasympathetic Nervous Systems involve a rhythmic dance, an oscillating swing, and a harmonious balance between the two. They are equally crucial for survival and essential for a healthy body and existence. 

Nervous System Regulation and Dysregulation

Nervous System Regulation is both within your control and beyond your control. It means supporting your body to move between activated states of stress and grounded states of rest in an adaptable, healthy way. It’s the practice of helping your nervous system return to a calm, centered baseline after experiencing chaos, fear and stress. Regulation builds emotional stability, resilience, and a deep sense of safety and self-trust in your body.

Nervous System Dysregulation happens when your body is caught in a cycle of ongoing stress, instability, and frenetic energy, in survival mode, and struggles to return to a safe, calm, balanced state for a sustained time. Instead of transitioning smoothly between tension and relaxation, your body either stays chronically stimulated, anxious, and hyper-alert or shuts down and becomes disconnected, exhausted, and numb.

It’s as if the body’s internal alarm system is stuck on or shut off, even when there’s no real danger. Sometimes, your body flip-flops back and forth, like an emotional roller coaster you can’t control. Beyond just chronic stress, Nervous System Dysregulation is about your entire system losing its natural, inherent rhythm of activation and recovery.

Here are some common symptoms and ways that Nervous System Dysregulation can show up:

Hyper-arousal: Fight or Flight

• Constantly on edge, like something bad is about to happen
• Trouble sleeping because your mind won’t shut off
• Little things trigger big emotional reactions: irritability, anger, impatience, anxiety
• Feeling rushed or restless even when there’s no real urgency
• Sympathetic nervous system overdrive: increased heart rate, tense muscles
• “Checking out”, e.g., scrolling your devices, being over-caffeinated, overworking, or busy-ness to avoid slowing down

Hypo-arousal: Freeze or Fawn

• Feeling numb, disconnected, or apathetic about things you once enjoyed
• Decision-making feels overwhelming, even for small tasks
• Chronic fatigue, despite sleep or rest
• Procrastination because you feel paralyzed by fear or uncertainty
• Over-accommodating others to avoid conflict or discomfort
• Emotionally disconnected in relationships, even with yourself

Nervous System Dysregulation adversely affects your entire body, including:

• Brain and Nervous System: depleted neurotransmitters, decreased gray matter and cognitive function, mood swings and personality changes, brain fog, difficulty with attention, focus, and memory, sleep interruptions, increased risk for mental health conditions: depression, disorders, including dementia.
• Heart: irregular heart rate and rhythm, high blood pressure, elevated LDL cholesterol, heart disease
• Women’s Hormones: irregular or cessation of menstrual cycles, heavy bleeding, painful uterine cramping, worsened PMS, severe perimenopause and menopause symptoms, early menopause,
• Metabolism: thyroid disorders, erratic blood sugar, insulin resistance, diabetes, weight gain – belly fat
• Adrenal: excess cortisol and adrenaline (stress), nervous tension, muscle twitching, leading to cortisol depletion (exhaustion)
• Inflammation: chronic pain, joint aches, autoimmune disorders, inability to fully recover and heal from all health conditions
• Skin and Hair: premature aging, dryness, wrinkles, eczema, hair loss
• Digestion: irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, malabsorption, ulcer, abdominal pain
• Early Mortality: related to a chronic state of dis-ease
• And more…

What Women Can Do to Regulate Their Nervous System

Women are not incapable or terrible at handling stress. Often, they are carrying too much for too long, without the personal, relational, and therapeutic support they need and deserve.

Nervous System Regulation isn’t about becoming stronger at pushing through life’s challenges. It’s more about unlearning negative conditioning, patterns, habits, and behaviors that have disconnected women from their wholeness, power, and truth.

The great news is that your nervous system is designed—neurologically wired—to heal resiliently and restore a healthy equilibrium within the body where transformation occurs.

Here are some of the best holistic practices and ways women can regulate their nervous system and honor their body, mind, heart, and spirit.

• Conscious Breathing: Slow, deep, intentional breathing signals safety to the body. Practices like box breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, and longer exhales (exhale > inhale) shift the body toward parasympathetic nervous system mode.
• Grounding in Nature: Spending time in nature—barefoot on the earth, walking amongst trees, hiking along trails, sitting alongside water, listening to birds—recalibrates the whole body, calms the brain waves, and co-regulates the nervous system.
• Physical Movement: Consistent exercises that you enjoy not only strengthen and condition your body, but they also help lower cortisol, increase vital oxygen, and reset your nervous system.
• Do what you LOVE: Making time for activities and hobbies that light you up floods your body with serotonin and dopamine, reduces stress hormones and allows your body to remain in the present moment calmly
• Human (and Pets) Touch: We (and our beloved pets) are wired for emotional and physical connection, touch, love, and closeness. Oxytocin and serotonin are secreted when we feel connected, rebalancing our nervous system.
• Regenerative Rhythms and Rest: Our bodies crave rhythms, such as sleep cycles, meal times, rest periods, and healthy routines. Prioritizing sleep and embracing rest can help rebuild a sense of safety within your body and your life.
• Nutrient-Rich Meals: Our bodies thrive on foods and beverages that are nourishing, replenishing, and abundant in essential macro and micro nutrients. Food is your best medicine, especially for revitalizing your nervous system.
• Meditation: A regular meditation practice teaches your nervous system that it is safe to slow down, rest, and heal. Shifting you out of survival mode and into calm awareness, meditation lowers stress hormones, rewires the brain for greater resilience, fosters new ways to resolve problems, and generously heals the nervous system.
• Psychotherapy Practices: EMDR, Brain-Spotting, CBT, IFS, and many others allow the body to release stored trauma, stress, memories, and dysfunctional patterns, become unstuck, and provide a safe, internal healing environment for the body and nervous system to restore serenity and freedom.
• Emotionally Safe Relationships: Sacred spaces where you can express yourself authentically, without judgment, are essential and deeply healing; community, sisterhood, and uplifting, empowering friendships provide co-regulation for the nervous system; we heal in safe connection, not isolation.
• Spiritual and Energetic Healing: We are spiritual, energetic beings having a human experience. Practices like mindfulness, energy work, prayer, gratitude, affirmations, and heart coherence reconnect you to something far greater than your human fears; regulation is deeply receptive to the healing power of energy.
• Naturopathic Medical Support: A Naturopathic Medical Doctor sees the whole person – body, mind, and spirit – and can support the healing of your entire body, including your nervous system. Your body can restore health through functional lab testing, addressing the underlying causes of dysregulation, balancing all hormones, including adrenals, alleviating inflammation, and restoring vital nutrient levels. Integrating herbal medicine, nutritional therapies, mindfulness practices, lifestyle medicine, bio-identical hormones, and personalized treatment protocols empowers you with essential tools to regulate stress responses, rebuild resilience, and reconnect to your innate ability to heal.

Nervous System Regulation means rebuilding safety, trust, rhythm, and connection in your body, environment, relationships, and spirit. Healing the nervous system isn’t about force. It’s about offering your body a steady, loving reminder that peace is its natural state.

To receive your personalized evaluation and healing protocol, schedule an appointment with Dr. Kristi Tompkins today.