Overloaded nervous system: How to restore peace to your nerves

Your nervous system runs throughout your entire body and is responsible for communication between your brain and your body. It is a vital system for both conscious actions, such as picking something up, and unconscious functions, such as breathing, regulating your blood pressure, regulating your heart rate, and even regulating your body temperature.

Communication between your body and your brain—and vice versa—all takes place via your nervous system. If something goes wrong there—for example, due to illness, stress, or something similar—it can unconsciously influence many processes.

Consider, for example, developing high blood pressure due to chronic stress.

Bowel problems when you are emotional.

Or that it's just hard to think when you're sick.

But when is your nervous system really overloaded and what can you do about it? In this blog article, we take a closer look at that.

When is your nervous system overloaded

There are a number of things you can tell when your nervous system is overloaded.

For example, if you’re suffering from burnout, your nervous system is overloaded. If left untreated, this can lead to a range of health issues, such as high cholesterol, type II diabetes, heart disease, muscle pain, fatigue, headaches, digestive problems, respiratory problems, and even premature death[1].

That pain and fatigue are caused by your immune system not responding properly when your nervous system is under chronic strain (due to stress, for example). This leads to higher inflammation levels[2], which result in all those physical symptoms.

Psychologically, then, you may experience symptoms such as:

1. Depression
2. Insomnia
3. No more pleasure in work
4. Higher absenteeism (source 1).

Other research also endorses that insomnia is the result of hyperalertness due to the overly stressed nervous system[3].

Why does the nervous system respond?

That nervous system overload occurs because your nervous system communicates to your body about whether or not it is time to take action. The so-called fight, flight or freeze (freeze) response.

It doesn't matter whether you're under physical stress, such as when you play sports or fight, or mental stress, such as when you have to give an exciting presentation. In both cases, the sympathetic nervous system is activated and the parasympathetic nervous system is deactivated[4].

This sympathetic nervous system is ideal for quick reactions and quick reflexes. But anyone who practices martial arts knows that this cannot be sustained long-term.

The parasympathetic nervous system helps you relax and recharge so you can face the “battle” again the next day.

If your nervous system puts you in “fight mode,” you may notice increased muscle tension, (cold) sweats, and nausea. Some people may even vomit as a result.

Calm breathing and physical relaxation in turn activates the parasympathetic nervous system, allowing you to relax. This also prevents overloading your nervous system.

However, for some people it is very difficult to relax, even with exercises.

Causes overloaded nervous system

So when you have an overloaded nervous system you face all kinds of health problems. A Dutch study finds that people who have multiple health problems at the same time often have the following factors in agreement:

1. More often than not, they are women.
2. Lower educated.
3. Negative experiences in childhood.
4. More suffer from anxiety and depression[5].

Being a woman can be a contributing factor, as women are often still expected to shoulder many caregiving responsibilities. As a result, women are “on” more often than men, for example, because they do more around the house and take care of the children. In addition, they are more often informal caregivers.

A lower education can be stressful because it gives you fewer opportunities. In addition, the Dutch school system is set up in such a way that it can make you think you are "stupid" when this is not the case at all.

There are plenty of higher-ups who are not even smart enough to drill a hole in a wall to hang a painting.

The knowledge is just different and the limited opportunities can be stressful.

If you had a negative experience —or many negative experiences—during childhood, this often leads to a higher state of alertness in general. When you learn as a child that the world is not a safe place, this always causes extra stress when you’re outside the home compared to someone who has never experienced anything unpleasant.

Processing this type of experience can also do much to relax an overloaded nervous system.

Hypnosis against an overloaded nervous system

Hypnosis alone is a good technique for activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Thus, the hypnotic state alone promotes relaxation[6]. One proof of this is how blood vessels respond to hypnosis. These then relax more, than if a person does not experience hypnosis[7].

This is also why self-hypnosis can already be very effective in combating stress. Research shows that medical students who use self-hypnosis experience less stress and anxiety as a result. In addition, the immune systems of students who were “good” at self-hypnosis functioned better than those of students who were not as proficient[8].

So it has both mental and physical benefits.

A single 20-minute session focused on relaxation also already helps against chronic stress (causative agent of an overloaded nervous system). It even helped against anxiety and depressed moods. During these 20 minutes, participants listened to a recording that helped them get into hypnosis and gave a guided visualization. In the guided visualization, they were suggested to imagine themselves walking along the beach[9].

If this can already happen with just self-hypnosis and hypnosis involving listening to a pre-recorded guided visualization, go figure what can happen when real hypnotherapy is given to calm the overloaded nervous system.

Changing beliefs that cause stress

Ultimately, it is often beliefs that prevent you from taking a step back and continue to overload your nervous system.

Changing those is very important to change feelings about certain situations and to better indicate boundaries, for example.

We do this with hypnosis by applying regression. With this technique, you go back to the very first moment when, for example, you very clearly felt that you were overloading your nervous system. A limiting belief arose, and through regression, you “repair” it[10].

What happened next? Who were there? What were your feelings and thoughts?

As a child, you don't know everything. So if you think about it now, you can better see what alternative "adult" explanations there are for what happened back then.

Next, you need to do something to install a new helping belief to help you relax better.

Again, this includes a variety of hypnosis techniques, such as:

1. Empathize with people who were there. Simulate a conversation between those people and your inner child to heal a particular situation.
2. A conversation between your present self and your inner child, about that the situation of the past is over and that you can now take very good care of yourself.
3. Fast-phobia technique. A technique that helps you get out of the "on" state created by a particular situation.

Hypnotherapists can also use a combination of these techniques, along with visualizations and relaxation techniques, to help people reset their overloaded nervous system so it can relax again.

A post-hypnotic suggestion is often used to help the new belief take even deeper root in the subconscious. For example, you might receive the suggestion that you’ll notice you can relax much more quickly after experiencing stress—that you can let go of work when you’re at home, and let go of home life when you’re at work.

To check if the hypnosis session has worked in daily life, a follow-up appointment is made. If necessary, adjustments are made and you receive additional therapy if you still notice that your parasympathetic nervous system (the system that provides relaxation and a better immune system) is not activated enough.

Learn Hypnosis

Would you like to learn more about hypnosis so you can use it to help yourself (and others)? Then join our free online masterclass.

Download this free mp3 to experience the power of a hypnotic recording alone.

Or register directly for one of our events and trainings.

You can take the courses at our location, and you can also take the course days live online. Ideal if you are on vacation anyway, or don't even live in the Netherlands and want to take this training.

Click here for our calendar.

Click here for our training courses.

Do you have a question about our training program? Schedule a one-on-one consultation here.

Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:

Sources: