I met a bear cub last month and further nervous system musings.

A missive in which there was finally a brief reprieve in the heat and my nervous system down-regulated into comfort.

View from the north woods.

In August I visited the north woods.

I have been here for a week. My intention in coming here is to gather some things I’d noted that I needed and at least begin dealing with some of my belongings.

As a crafter, artist, collector person, I do like we all do and gather literal trash because I can maybe make something from it someday. And now that I’m spending more time in Dilworth, and thinking about how I want my life to look (and really if I actually want to move all this trash with potential to my new digs), I thought I might do something I’ve never done and begin sorting through it first (rather than moving everything and then sorting).

My parents keep a fifth-wheel camper set up on the opposite side of the garage. Dad uses it a couple of times a year for fishing trips and otherwise, it’s here for guests. Though I love my bed inside, I thought I’d give myself the reprieve of my own space. Or the feeling of my own space.

The first two days were beautifully chilly and rainy and I felt like myself for the first time in weeks. I did nothing but read and drink tea. The camper’s living space and large window face the trees and I really feel it’s the best view of the whole estate. If I avert my eyes from the house’s gas tank and the garage to my left, all I see are trees just feet from me.

On the Friday it’d started to warm (though it’s always just five or so degrees cooler here than it ever could be in Fargo-Moorhead) and I wanted to sit outside in the afternoon. There’s a new patio space at the front of the house, but the sun was directly on it so I set up a chair at the back of the camper just in front of the trees and read and journaled.

When I was finished an hour or so later and in need of a snack, I got up and found that my nervous system had fully dropped into the parasympathetic. I mean, my body was rooted and calm, it was like I’d smoked some cannabis.

When we take mindfulness practices into our lives, we’re encouraged to intentionally slow our movements, which regulates the nervous system: I’m brushing my teeth aggressively, is that necessary? My steps are quick, can I take it down a notch? Tune into the breath, slow it down.

I’ve found myself having to do that a lot. I’ve been so sped up. But I got up from that chair in front of the trees and my body was just in slow mindful mode. I didn’t have to think about or practice moving slowly back into the house, I was simply moving slowly and mindfully. I had become mindfulness. I didn’t have to work to savor my snack, I was just savoring it. Living in this state of mindful beingness is exactly why I moved to the north woods in 2021.

COVID lockdowns showed me that I needed slowness in order to function. I needed peace in my body, though I wasn’t sure of the path to it at the time. And being in a small city this spring and summer after so much time in the woods, I am becoming more aware of the juxtaposition between the two. I have something to measure each against. On the one hand: wherever we go there our nervous systems are. On the other, to my surprise, being even in a small town on the edge of a city is up-regulating and the woods or rural spaces are down-regulating.

The deeper I get into observing my nervous system, the more I’m aware of how it responds to, well, everything. The trees are down-regulating. The baby bear climbing a tree just 300 feet from me as I walk around the yard is up-regulating. Snuggling Copper, down-regulating. Lawnmower sounds, up-regulating. Digesting pasta, down-regulating. Coffee, up-regulating. And, so it is, back to those rainy days, down-regulating. Sun and heat, up-regulating.

It really is that simple.

We’ve all felt the down-regulating effect a rainy day has on us. Even the dogs like to curl up with a good book and a cup of tea on the sofa when it’s pouring out. But I hadn’t quite put together that the uncomfortable experience I have on hot, sunny days even while inside air conditioned spaces was my nervous system up-regulating.

Most people, as stated, report being energized (especially when a sunny day drops in after a long bout of rain), they get the yard work done, they play the sports, they feel happier.

This is great if one doesn’t already lean toward a relative state of up-regulation, on the brim of overwhelment a lot of the time, which is me. Up-regulating from that point tips me into chaos and my nervous system responds by overstiumlating and then shutting down. Everything is just too much, whereas the down-regulating effect of a rainy day balances my typically up-regulated ANS into a Ventral Vagal state and I become focused and calm.

Everything is, after all, energy, and our ANS is where we process that energy.

We also have the ability to down-regulate or up-regulate our nervous systems with various techniques: movement, especially any movement practice that includes tuning into and matching the breath with the movement; mindful meditation and body scans start to get us inside our bodies to feel out stuck places of energy in the form of pain and/or emotions; co-regulating with a trusted and regulated person (a therapist, a friend, a loved one), even just sitting with someone who is in a Ventral Vagal state has the potential to regulate our ANS; energy healing work like Reiki and Craniosacral therapy regulates the nervous system, among others. For me the most effective and in my opinion, the most direct link to the ANS is the breath. After all our ANSs have been tracing our experiences since the very first one. And so though I engage various tools, breathwork has become my primary tool.

If we’re deeply dysregulated, say stuck in a deep freeze state, time and patience with any of these practices is necessary. It would feel unsafe to our ANS to up-regulate out of a deep freeze in one session and it would shut us down further, so take it slow if that’s where you find yourself, but the deeper into the ANS I go, through research, practice, and observation, I start to become acutely aware of mine.

Which does seem to be particularly sensitive to stimuli. ANS dysregulation is one of the common traits of Neurodiversity (among other classified psychological disorders), but I think of it differently now that I’m doing this work. I’m not sure we’re naturally dysregulated so much as naturally sensitive, and without these tools and practices, they’ve become overtaxed and overwhelmed with the onslaught of simply existing in a world that wasn’t made for us.

I wonder what might happen for us with regular practice. I sometimes wonder if ANS regulation shouldn’t be our primary therapy, our primary care. I’d like to believe that with practice and patience, I might be less affected by external stimuli, and maybe I am compared to last year or five years ago. Or even that I’ll become capable of down-regulating on a hot, sunny day to a functioning level, but as it is I still feel like a ragdoll tossed about by the weather whether I spend time outside or not and my dream of moving to Scotland persists.

For now I’m grateful for the shift into autumn here in the northern hemisphere.

PS. It’s my birthday tomorrow Sept. 24., so if you feel supported or inspired by my writings and are able, now’s a great time to become a patron of Unraveling, Unmoored, which is becoming the primary place I publish my writings and is only $50 a year.

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Either way, I’m just so grateful you’re here and reading and I hope you’re being gentle with yourself.