An Introduction to Nervous System Activation
Throughout the school day, educators navigate ongoing sensory, emotional, relational, and environmental input that can build into accumulated nervous system activation over time. When activation continues to build without opportunities for regulation, it becomes harder to stay flexible, connected, reflective, and intentional in our responses.
What Happens When Nervous System Activation Escalates?
As activation escalates, access to higher brain functions decreases, which means it becomes harder to think clearly, problem-solve, stay patient, or respond thoughtfully in challenging moments. Instead, the nervous system begins operating from more reactive lower brain states focused on protection and survival.
When we think about escalation, it is common to visualize behaviors that are associated with hyperarousal, such as becoming louder, faster, or more intense. However, escalation can also move in the opposite direction. Nervous systems can also be hypoaroused, with responses including shutting down, collapsing, withdrawing, or losing energy.
Nervous system escalation can present as hyperarousal and hypoarousal, which means the nervous system is no longer operating from a place of flexibility and reflective thinking.
What Can We Do When Nervous System Activation Escalates?
So far in our summer blog series, we have explored interoceptive awareness and learning to notice and name what is happening inside our bodies.
Sometimes simply recognizing and naming our internal experience is enough.
Sometimes it isn’t.
Sometimes, the nervous system needs movement.
How Can Movement Support Regulation?
Movement can support regulation and help the nervous system process activation instead of carrying it throughout the day. It can reorganize sensory input in real time, down-regulate hyperarousal, increase attentiveness, and bring energy back into the nervous system when we are shutting down or collapsing.
The somatosensory cortex plays a significant role in regulation, and large portions of it are connected to the hands and face. This means that patterned movement involving the hands or face can strongly impact how regulated we feel.
The key is finding movements that work for regulating your nervous system. Regulatory needs differ from person to person, so it is important to explore and notice which types of movement help you feel more organized, settled, alert, or grounded.
Types of Movements You Can Explore
Proprioceptive Input
Proprioceptive input includes movement or pressure that provides feedback to the muscles, joints, and body. This type of input can help organize activation and increase body awareness. You may notice your nervous system responds better to rhythmic repetitive pressure or steady constant pressure. Explore both and notice what feels regulating to your body.
Some examples include:
- Deep or heavy pressure by squeezing up and down your arms or legs
- Applying pressure to the top or back of your head, neck, or face
- Wall squats or wall push-ups
- Using resistance bands between your hands, arms, or legs
- Wrapping a resistance band around your body and pulling forward like a hug
- Pressing your hands or fingers together
Hand Movements
Simple hand movements can provide grounding sensory input through touch, pressure, and patterned movement. These movements can provide cues of safety to the brain, helping activate the parasympathetic nervous system and support regulation even in the midst of stress.
Some examples include:
- Lightly tapping your fingers on a desk or your legs
- Passing a soft object between your hands
- Rolling or squeezing something in your hands
- Rubbing your palms together
- Pulling and then pushing on your fingers
- Use thumb and forefinger to apply pressure on inside of pinky (the side facing your ring finger, near the base) then make small gentle circles, and finally use feather-light strokes back and forth
Face Movements
Small, intentional movements of the face, jaw, and head can provide sensory input that supports the release of tension that accumulates throughout the day. These movements may also stimulate the vagus nerve, a cranial nerve that plays an important role in bringing the nervous system into a more regulated state.
Some examples include:
- Chewing gum
- Press fist under chin wihle opening mouth
- Massaging your jaw, temple and/or sides of neck
- Push cheeks upward with palms
- Fill cheeks with air or move air from one cheek to the other
- Massage outer ears in small slow circles
Bilateral or Rhythmic Movement
Bilateral movement involves both sides of the body working in sequence. Rhythmic movement involves movement with a steady rhythm or cadence. Both can support nervous system regulation through rhythm, sequencing, and sensory organization.
Some examples include:
- Rocking or swaying while seated or standing
- Shifting weight between your feet, or stepping from one leg to the other
- Butterfly hugs by crossing your arms and tapping opposite shoulders
- Sitting on a yoga ball or rocking chair
- Rolling or shaking your shoulders, arms, ankles, or legs
- Touching one elbow to the opposite raised knee and then switching to the other side
How Does This Support Students?
These movements are learning tools that support regulation, engagement, attention, and access to learning when used intentionally in the classroom environment.
We have found that when students are explicitly taught how and why to use movement as a learning tool, even young students are capable of identifying which works best to support their nervous systems and can use them appropriately in learning environments.
Rather than treating movement as a distraction, we teach students how to recognize what their nervous systems need and how to use these tools during the school day.
What’s Next? A Nervous System Shift Called Congruence
The next and final blog as part of our summer blog series will explore a nervous system shift called congruence. Read next week why alignment between our internal state and external responses matters for nervous system regulation and in relationships.
