Building Nervous System Capacity: The Key to Lasting Anxiety Relief

The key to lasting anxiety relief is building ‘nervous system capacity’. Nervous system capacity is the amount of stress that we can experience without getting overwhelmed and having to disconnect from our bodies (by going into an intense high-arousal panic, zoning out or shutting down). The more capacity we have, the more stress we can handle without getting overwhelmed.

Anxiety & Nervous System Dysregulation

To understand why building ‘capacity’ is essential, we need to understand what anxiety is and what causes it. Anxiety is the result of a dysregulated nervous system that is stuck in survival mode (aka Fight-Flight). We become dysregulated when we experience chronic and/or traumatic stress that is too big or too much for our nervous system to handle, and so the Fight-Flight survival stress gets trapped inside of our bodies. For many of us, we have A LOT of this stress stuck in our bodies - it’s as if our bodies are full to the brim with survival energy. The result is that we get stuck in a chronic state of Fight-or-Flight, which is where anxiety comes from.

Understanding Nervous System Capacity

One helpful way to think about capacity is by imagining your body is a container. That chronic and/or traumatic stress that goes unresolved fills your body up with balls of survival stress. Some of our bodies are so full of these stress balls, that there’s no room for them to move - they’re stuck - and the more stress balls we have in our body, the more space they take up. Eventually, when our body is completely full of stress balls, they start to push at the edges of our body. This is where anxiety comes from. It’s old, stored up Fight-or-Flight survival energy that is pushing at the edges of your body and is seeping out as anxiety.

It’s important to understand these stress balls want to come out - your system wants to have capacity and be regulated - but unfortunately, this doesn’t just happen on its own. To heal anxiety and restore regulation, we need to help these stress balls leave our system. But rather than forcing a release to happen, we want to focus on growing capacity and creating more space in our system for these stress balls to get unstuck and release organically. As you create more space in your system, you give those stress balls room to actually move out of you. If you don’t create this space and these stress balls have no room to move, they won’t come out.

Growing Nervous System Capacity

The key to growing capacity involves getting really good at feeling what is happening in your body. The only way these stress balls will leave your system is by feeling your way through the energy that is trapped inside of them. In other words, you’ve got to feel it to heal it. We need to be able to feel and stay present to the big tidal waves of emotion and sensation that are stuck inside of these balls, so that they can run their course and deactivate (which they will, if we let them).

The challenge that most of us have with this is that the emotions and sensations that are trapped within these stress balls can be intense and scary. The racing heart, shortness of breath, the terror - it can be incredibly overwhelming - and if we don’t have the capacity to be with these emotions and sensations without getting overwhelmed by them, our body will shut down what we’re feeling, which means that these balls stay stuck in our system. We also end up with MORE survival stress being added into our system because of the overwhelm we’re experiencing (and our system gets retraumatized).

So, growing capacity and our ability to feel into those stress balls is something we do very slowly over time, bit by bit. With time, patience and practice - we can grow our capacity and increase our ability to be with the biggest and most intense of internal experiences. In doing so, we create more room in our system so that these stress balls have an opportunity to naturally release. Over time, as these old stress balls organically leave our system (and as we learn how to prevent new stress balls from getting stuck), we are able to heal our nervous system, restore more regulation and overcome chronic anxiety.

Where to Start Practicing

To start building capacity, there are three key steps you can take:

1. Orient: Growing capacity requires that we be able to stay present in the here and now, whilst we are feeling our internal sensations. Orienting helps to bring ourselves into the present moment by using all of our senses to connect with our surroundings. Engage your senses—touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound— with interest and curiosity to anchor your awareness in the here and now.

2. Notice the good: Growing capacity means paying more attention to your internal sensations (the scientific term for this is “interoception”). An easy way to start is by paying attention to what your body feels like when you feel good or when there’s a little more joy and relaxation. Maybe it’s when you’re hanging with a good friend or having a laugh watching a movie.

3. Notice small stressors: Another way to build capacity is to notice the smaller stresses throughout the day. For example, the body is put into a little bit of stress when we go up the stairs and our heart rate goes up, or when we’re driving and we need to be more alert, or when we’re exercising. When we can see these more benign ‘stressors’ in our life that are not threatening and harmful, we then have an opportunity to pause in those moments and feel the increase in intensity in our body. Maybe you feel your heart rate go up or maybe you feel a flush in your face. This is the time to practice being in the body, feeling the sensation, while also staying connected to your environment through orienting.

If you’re looking for more support in this process, “Becoming Free From Anxiety” provides a blueprint for growing capacity, healing your nervous system and overcoming anxiety. Through a comprehensive blend of somatic and cognitive practices, you will learn exactly what you need to do in order to experience lasting anxiety relief. To learn more, click here.