What Your Nervous System Has Been Trying to Tell You

Coaching as co-regulation. When you are truly seen — not managed, not judged, not fixed, just witnessed — your nervous system registers safety

And why being truly seen might be the most powerful thing you've never tried

Science has quietly confirmed something we've known in our bones for a long time: a well-regulated nervous system is the foundation of almost everything that matters to us.

According to research rooted in Polyvagal Theory — the neurophysiological framework developed by Dr. Stephen Porges — our autonomic nervous system is the hidden conductor of our inner life. When it is regulated and feels safe, we gain access to our capacity for attention, learning, and genuine self-awareness. Our decision-making sharpens. Our intuition speaks more clearly. Our sleep deepens, our digestion steadies, and our immune function improves. Even our confidence and mental clarity, those qualities we tend to treat as personality traits, are significantly shaped by the activation state of our nervous system. (Polyvagal Theory: Current Status, Clinical Applications, and Future Directions — PMC)

And yet. We live in a world that is genuinely, relentlessly demanding. Uncertainty is the new baseline. Conflict — in the news, in our relationships, in our own heads — never quite stops.

How, in the middle of all of that, do we actually persuade our physiology to feel safe?

We're Already Trying

Here's something worth pausing on: you're already doing this work, even if you don't call it that.

Every functional adult has developed their own toolkit for settling themselves down. Whether you hike or bike, meditate or libate, turn up the bass until the walls shake or sink into hot or cold water and stay there until the world goes quiet — these are not idle habits. They are your nervous system strategies. They are, in the deepest sense, part of how you know yourself.

The trouble is that for most of us, these coping patterns are largely unconscious, inherited from trial and error rather than chosen with intention. They work — sometimes. Not always. And some are healthier than others. For many people, especially those living with ADHD, chronic pain, trauma histories, or other conditions that maintain nervous system activation as a kind of permanent background hum, no single strategy is ever quite enough.

Given how much hinges on nervous system regulation — our health, our choices, our relationships, our ability to grow — this feels like a subject that deserves more than a passing thought.

Three Tools That Are Always Available

There is actually a well-researched list of practices that help regulate the nervous system. Exercise, cold exposure, creative expression, time in nature, music — the research is rich and growing.

But three tools stand apart. They are free, require no equipment, and are available to you anywhere, at any moment, right now. The first two you can offer yourself. The third is something we can offer each other — and research suggests it may be the most powerful of all.

Conscious breathing. This one has centuries of practice behind it and is now well-supported by neuroscience. Slow, diaphragmatic breathing — particularly extending the exhale — directly stimulates the vagus nerve, activating the parasympathetic "rest and digest" system. A single session of slow, deep breathing has been shown to measurably increase vagal tone and reduce anxiety. (Scientific Reports, 2021; Frontiers in Human Neuroscience — Gerritsen & Band, 2018)

Self-awareness. The capacity to notice what is happening inside you — to name a sensation, recognise a pattern, observe a feeling without being consumed by it — is one of the most powerful forms of self-regulation we have. According to Polyvagal Theory, this kind of interoceptive attention helps shift us out of defensive autonomic states and into what Porges calls the "ventral vagal" state: the physiological ground of safety, connection, and cognitive openness. (Polyvagal Theory — Porges, PMC)

Being truly seen. And this is the one that changes everything.

Being Truly Seen

Being genuinely seen — fully acknowledged, without judgment or agenda — is not a nice-to-have. It is, neurobiologically, one of the most powerful regulatory experiences a human being can have.

Co-regulation, the process by which one person's calm nervous system helps settle another's, is a core principle of Polyvagal Theory. We are wired for it from birth. When we feel safe in the presence of another, when someone's attention holds us without evaluation or expectation, something shifts in the body. Cortisol drops. Oxytocin — the neuropeptide most associated with trust, bonding, and social safety — is released, actively reducing amygdala reactivity and dampening the fear response. (Journal of Neuroscience — Meyer-Lindenberg et al., 2005)

That's not a metaphor. That's biology.

When you are truly seen — not managed, not judged, not fixed, just witnessed — your nervous system registers safety. And from safety, something remarkable becomes possible: clearer thinking, more honest self-perception, more courageous choices, and access to the intuition that gets buried when we're running on stress.

This is precisely what a skilled life coach offers. Not advice. Not answers. A quality of attention — unconditional, unagendered — that creates the physiological and psychological conditions for you to think clearly, feel fully, and know yourself more honestly.

This is something that you can also learn to do for yourself too. Stay tuned for more posts and classes.

A Gentle Invitation

If any part of this resonates, consider trying one of these right now. Take a slow breath, exhale longer than you inhaled, and notice what shifts. That's not nothing. That's your vagus nerve. That's your body answering.

And if you're curious about what it would feel like to work with a coach trained to offer that deeper quality of presence — the kind of being-seen that research suggests changes us at a neurological level — find yourself an ICF-certified coach, or reach out to me, Monique Shefer.

You may be surprised how much clearer everything looks when you're finally given the space to exist, fully, without apology.

The science referenced in this post draws on peer-reviewed research including Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory (PMC), studies on diaphragmatic breathing and vagal tone (Nature/Scientific Reports), and neuroimaging research on oxytocin and social safety (Journal of Neuroscience).