WTH does a "regulated nervous system" even mean?

Summary

In this episode, Katie Wrigley demystifies nervous system regulation, clarifying what it truly means and how to achieve it. She shares practical tools, personal stories, and debunks common myths to help listeners understand and regulate their nervous systems effectively.

 Takeaways

Nervous system regulation is not about feeling calm all the time.
Tools like cognomovement can help regulate the nervous system.
Feeling emotions is essential; the goal is to process and come back to regulation.
A regulated nervous system allows handling life's chaos with more ease.
You don't have to give up chaos to be regulated; only dysregulation needs to be addressed.

Resources:

Private podcast: The Reclaimed Life Audio Files your decompression tank

Online Program for Nervous System Regulation

Transcript

Welcome back to the Catapult Effect Podcast. I am your host, Katie Wrigley. Today we're going to be talking about the truth about what nervous system regulation actually is and what it is not. This is a buzzword that we're hearing out there a lot right now. Like, I did this and my nervous system got regulated. So there's a lot of bullshit around it, and there's also pieces of truth. So this is exactly what we're going to walk through today. So let's start out with.

What the hell is a regulated nervous system? This is not something that happens at one point in time. You can hit being regulated at a point in time, and you can continue to keep your nervous system regulated. It does not mean that you're sitting on top of a mountaintop singing kumbaya, and every day is wonderful and nothing ever phases you, and you're calm all the time. That is not a reasonable outcome.

Some people, yes, have that level of peace. I'm not one of them. I don't know if you are. And I also have an extremely regulated nervous system to a point where I marvel a lot at like, how am I handling things this well? It doesn't mean that you aren't feeling emotions. It doesn't mean that you aren't melting down sometimes and having a major emotional reaction to one.

I just did a social post earlier this week about an unexpected bill that hit my account last week and totally put me into a spiral.

Breath got shallow, got really rapid, my heart was racing, my stomach was clenched, I lost my appetite, and I was melting down and crying on a call. Looked like I wasn't regulated in that moment. Here's where the difference is. Within 24 hours, I was back to dancing again. So nervous regulation isn't not feeling the thing, it's having the tools and understanding how to work with your body, how to work with your nervous system.

Katie Wrigley (02:07.776)
In order to come out of these downs and these lows so much faster. So let's talk about a couple of things that I've heard recently, just in different conversations with people or things that I've seen online.

One of the examples that came to mind, someone posted this beautiful video. Amazing body, super fit, holding plank, like not plank, but they were on like parallel bars or something, holding their legs parallel to the ground. And then they put their legs down like, nervous system regulated. No, it's not. Another thing that I've heard is, and this came from a friend of mine.

That someone is saying that, you know, like I've I've tuned my body to be able to shake for 20 minutes and now my nervous system is regulated. No, it's not. These pieces can be components and part of what you do to regulate the nervous system. But your nervous system is not regulated just because you held a badass pose for 30 seconds. It is not regulated because your body shook for 20 minutes. No. But those can absolutely

Be a part of releasing what is in the body, ways to communicate with the body, strengthen it. That is a part of nervous system regulation. So the shaking specifically, there is something called a trauma release exercise. And it can be incredibly effective to help release trauma from the body. I've experienced this myself on multiple occasions and actually had a client that I was working with a while ago, and he had reported one day, like, hey.

My body just started like shaking, but I wasn't freaking out. And I just kind of let it happen and let it shake for about 20 to 25 minutes. And I felt really good after and I felt really calm. And I was like, that's interesting. And it was interesting for two reasons. One, I actually hadn't heard of trauma release exercises, but then I'm like, I've actually had that happen multiple times when I'm doing psychedelic ceremonies. Actually, my leg cannot sit still.

Katie Wrigley (04:12.538)
When I do psychedelics, like they're just going, going, going, going, going. And it doesn't bother me. I just like literally cannot get it to say it sit still. It just needs to move. It just needs to be active. And it's because the medicine is helping to release that trauma for the body. So my body is intuitively shaking. Your body has so much wisdom. When you tap into it, you have so much more available to you. And the other interesting thing when my client had reported this to me.

Because I had actually noticed I had been shaking too. And I was like, huh, why am I shaking? I don't feel anxious. I don't feel uneasy. Like I'm just shaking. This is weird. But I had kind of had a similar response to him. In that case, like it was low-grade shaking that lasted for a few days. And then I hit another level of peace right after that. So these things as shaking the body, the plank poses, doing yoga, walking, these are all ways that you can.

regulate your nervous system. My favorite, of course, is cognizant movement. And that is the fastest path. And I have so much proof at this point of that nervous system regulation that I feel like I'm in a good position to be able to debunk the myths around it and really dive into what it actually is. Trying to think of some other examples, journaling, just sitting down and journaling is not going to regulate your nervous system. However,

If you are effectively journaling, that can be a huge part, a huge part of nervous system regulation. It's actually one that I use all the time because there is something magical that happens. A lot of people like swear in the pen to paper, and absolutely that is so much more effective. But I've been in tech and been typing for so long that I can type the speed of my brain, but I can't write at the speed of my brain.

And so I've actually found it just as effective to sit there and type. And the point is, you're you're asking yourself deeper questions. You're not just staying on the surface of this is what's happening and this is how it makes me feel. You're allowing yourself to go in that. So, point number one about irregulated nervous system, you are allowing yourself to feel the feelings that are there. They are gonna suck sometimes.

Katie Wrigley (06:35.414)
And I hear this a lot, like especially around the money piece. Like there's someone out there, I'm not going to mention any details about them, but they've made millions of dollars. And no personal details. I'm going to tell you some details about them. They have made millions of dollars and they are making a really huge investment right now that is terrifying. They also have a nervous system that is very, very regulated.

It doesn't mean that you don't freak out. What it means is that you're able to use the tools, you're able to come back from those freakouts much faster. And I really want to start to talk more about this and the content that I'm putting out there. And I had the idea for this episode when I saw an Instagram post when people are like, we need to stop talking about nervous system regulation and making people think it's your calm all the time. And I'm like, my God, yeah, they're right. Like,

I'm a little guilty of that too, because when you don't have a regulated nervous system, calm isn't even an option. Peace isn't an option. They literally are not available to you. That is one of the biggest signs that you know that you have a dysregulated system, is because that is how you feel. Like calm, what's that? Relaxing, what's that?

I didn't know what the hell that was until I started doing cognizement regularly over time. And by that point, my nervous system was so friggin' hot, it took a while to regulate it. But after doing it pretty regularly for the last five years, the shit that I have dealt with in my life in the last six months, just to give you a quick little nutshell, again, from the regulation point of view, not to make this about me, but I know I'm not the only one who's been through shit. 2025 was a

Doozy of a year for a lot of us. And I had in a six-month period of time, my septic pump broke. I had a mouse infestation, my boiler died, which by the way, all that together is about $15,000 in unexpected expenses. Happened in a 30-day period. And then as soon as I get through that and all those lovely extra expenses, then there were other things that happened too, like driving over a wheel weight.

Katie Wrigley (08:51.982)
But that tire was like 20 bucks because it was under warranty. But the other big things that happened after that is my dog had three different health scares. So it was six months of just blows to the system. Like first on the financial side. And that's when I really first noticed. Like when I got the notice that the boiler was dead, this was on a Sunday morning. I had no hot heat. It was one of the first cold mornings in Maine.

And I let myself feel the feelings. And then next day I'm like, how am I handling this so well? Because I know how to be able to process out the stuff and get back into a regulated state. So the next few months after that, my dog had an incident and she had had one a couple of years ago and then not again. And then two of these right before Christmas. She wound up actually, she's a fainting goat, if you've ever heard of that. It's something called vasovagal syncope.

But what would happen is we'd be out playing in the yard, and my happy dog would suddenly get wobbly and fall over like she was drunk. It would scare the crap out of me. So that was thousands of dollars, multiple specialists to help nail down to figure out that it is not something that's gonna harm her. And we wound up finding a harmless heart murmur at the same time. So we now know that about her. And like, great, this is awesome. Got a week of relief. And then suddenly she's having accidents inside the house.

My dog is very, very clean. She gets she was embarrassed when she was a puppy and she couldn't hold it in the house. So I'm like, and she wasn't even noticing that she was peeing. So I'm like, something's wrong. Bring her back to the vet. Turns out that Anaplasma, a tick-borne disease, which they can still get despite preventatives, and I am religious with her preventatives. Anaplasma was kicking back up in her body.

And thankfully, because we had done rigorous testing, we had her baseline and we did another tick titer. We are actually able to see that the disease was getting bigger in her body. Great. We get her through that. She's on 30 days of doxycycline, which wrecked her gut. And then three weeks after we get through that, we get the all clear that her kidneys are okay again and she isn't peeing inside the house. She's acting like my dog again. She's got her energy back. Stools still weren't super.

Katie Wrigley (11:10.657)
Good, not to get into too many details there. Then she had her birthday three weeks after this. I gave her a couple of treats that she's had in the past, no issues whatsoever. And that poor dog went into a downward spiral, comes back with a diagnosis of irritable bowel disease. I forget what they call it now, chronic something I can't pronounce, formerly known as irritable bowel disease. Put her on a different diet. She's thriving again. But that was six months of hit after hit after hit after hit.

And on top of that, my mom has advanced dementia. I'm also trying to grow a business. I'm also trying to heal from a toxic relationship. That is a lot in one nervous system. And I show up the way that I do with the enthusiasm, with the energy that I do, because I know how to regulate my nervous system. It is multiple different inputs.

There are a lot of different ways to do that. A lot of my friends do cogna movement. That is the main thing that they do. And that gives them the nervous system regulation. And that is still my number one go-to. I don't think I'm going to ever really try to process out problems without cogna movement because you get such deep, insightful information. You know, like my unexpected bill. It wasn't about the money. Like, clearly, like.

Why in the world would a bill send me into a tizzy when I've got the money to cover it? I had even more money coming in that week than going out. Like, doesn't make sense. It wasn't about the money. It was about something else. It was actually about deep shame that I had found. I'm like, whoa, wow, that's still there. Cleared it out, journaled about what I found, boom, back to feeling good again.

And want to encourage you to look for that social post that I put out there. You can find me on Instagram at the Catapult Coach. Same thing with LinkedIn and Facebook. And you can see more details there. The regulation, again, this is the ability to pull yourself out of these lows. And a big part of that is allowing yourself to feel your emotions. Something that most of us, including me, want to resist. The only way out is through.

Katie Wrigley (13:30.944)
And when you allow your body to process the emotions, when you learn how to talk to your body, use your body in ways that are going to give your nervous system different inputs, you can have a regulated nervous system. I have police officers who have regulated nervous systems. Did they when they came to me? No. Do they now? Yes. And there at times they're like, I'm surprised I'm doing so well. I'm like, this is actually a really good sign. Like you're sleeping at night. Yep, sleeping fine. No problem.

Okay. Like I seem to be thriving in the chaos of work. It's not bothering me. And I don't understand it. I'm like, your nervous system's regulated. You've done the work, the workouts that you do, allowing yourself to process at the level you do, like all of this is how you're able to handle these things. So it's being able to move your body in ways that are going to be resourceful for it. Walking is a fantastic way to heal and work through things.

Getting out in the sun, you're getting happiness hormones coming into your brain. Dopamine, serotonin well, dopamine actually comes in different ways. You get serotonin coming in. If you're walking fast enough and far enough, or you're doing other exercises, you're also getting endorphins in there. So you're giving yourself all of these things that are going to help the brain feel better. You are out in nature. Even if you're walking around in a city, you're still outside in fresh air or whatever looks like fresh air to you. I actually

Get to have that where I am in Maine. I'm very blessed. You're away from screens. The screens are, they're so necessary for life these days, and they're so bad. And I think the thing that people don't understand is that you don't have to give up anything that you don't want to give up if your nervous system is regulated. You are going to be better at the things that matter to you when you have nervous system regulation. Here's what it gives you.

It gives you margin. One of my clients used that term. I'm like, yes. Fuck yes, margin all the way. It is the ability to handle life. We need that margin. And so, with all the things that I use for my story that I'm sharing from the last year, I didn't have much margin. I still don't. And so I am constantly, continually.

Katie Wrigley (15:57.881)
Focusing on things that are going to expand that margin. You know the margin is gone when you're snapping at people, when everybody's pissing you off, when you can't sleep, when you have that low hum of stress, you're waking up at 3 a.m., something is weighing on you, but you can't quite face it. You can't place it. Like, what is this? What is eating at me? Your margin is gone. Your nervous system is not regulated. When the nervous system is regulated,

It feels peaceful in the body. It feels easy. It feels so good. Your mind feels good. It's going at a normal pace, or maybe you're getting a bunch of creative ideas. I had a huge epiphany last night. So my brain is going crazy today in the best ways. I'm just getting downloads left and right. All of the things that you want to do, you don't lose out on anything. You don't even have to let go of the chaos. If you like the chaos,

You don't have to let it go. You don't have to let go of anything that you don't want to let go of to have a regulated nervous system, except for the dysregulated nervous system. That's the only piece that you give up. And believe me when I say, like, my God, it's so much easier to live in a body that is regulated. And if you know my story from further back, with all the diagnosis I had been given, which I almost forget to talk about because it doesn't.

It's not me. It was never me. But complex regional pain syndrome. Severe complex post-traumatic stress. Centralized sensitization. That's when your entire body is sensitive to pain. Complex regional pain syndrome for me was just one leg. anxiety, depression, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of these extra diagnoses that came in, I was very dysregulated. Stress hives every day.

taking multiple antihistamines just to get through allergy season. And we had major pollen here this year and I barely had a runny nose. Those are all signs that the nervous system's dysregulated. So you do have to get rid of the dysregulation and the allergies and all of those things, those go away when the nervous system is regulated. And if you want more detail about this, I want to invite you to join me on my private podcast.

Katie Wrigley (18:21.73)
So I have my book coming out. You may have heard of this already, from Crutches to Half Marathon. It's going to be coming out in just a few weeks. I will keep you prosed on the launch date. Would love to have you come and join me. And I am launching a private podcast that goes along with that. It is only $10 a month. There's three episodes to start with. And then there's going to be two episodes each month. So

This the episodes are going to go back and forth between a story, either from one of my clients, always shared with permission and with anonymity. I change everybody's name and I still run it by the person to say, Hey, are we are you okay with me bringing this story to my audience? And if they say no, you don't hear it. but pretty much all of them have said yes so far. Very lucky that way.

Because and then the other episode that we do is a tip. So I'm gonna give you a tip to help yourself in that moment when different things come up. And so I want to encourage you. I'm gonna drop the link in the show notes, come join me over there. And we're gonna go deeper than we do on this podcast. And I'm gonna wrap up there for today. And thank you so much for joining me. I trust that you got some good nuggets about how to start to regulate your nervous system.

I'm also gonna drop in something else for you. I have a low ticket offer. It is only $47. You get access for an entire year. And it is what I call the six keys to freedom. And when I was in those states of high stress, high pain.

Freedom was the only thing I wanted. And I got that freedom. And these keys in this program are what I did and continue to do so that I continued to have that freedom. So I'm going to drop the link in the show notes for that as well. So you can actually start to take action to regulate your nervous system, get those inputs going to balance the things that are bringing you into dysregulation. All right. Thank you for joining me today. And until the next episode, please be well.