Nervous system regulation

Nervous system regulation is a buzz phrase at the moment and while I do think that’s a good thing, I think some crucial elements of regulation may be overlooked - especially for those in recovery from a restrictive eating disorder.

All the breathwork and meditation in the world will not regulate your nervous system if your body is physiologically under-resourced. What I mean by that, is that regular, adequate food is the most critical factor in your nervous system regulation as someone in recovery. The very state of being undernourished puts stress on the body. Compound that with the likely additional behaviour of compulsive movement and this only adds further stress to an already stressed body.

In recovery though there’s going to be a tradeoff between further short term dysregulation (aka a fear response) and long term ability to exist in a regulated state. And I say ability to exist in a regulated state because honestly no one is a serene being, entirely unaffected by stress all of the time. We all fluctuate in and out of a regulated state even without an ED. However, with an ED - due to both real physiological stress and psychological stress - most people are existing in a constant state of dysregulation. But I digress - what I’m getting at here is that recovery is going to require you to face that fear response and use other distress tolerance skills, that are not an ED, in order to regulate.

It is likely that you have been using ED behaviours as a way to avoid further distress. And in doing so perhaps you felt that you were doing an effective job of regulating. In many cases, perhaps to begin with the ED did serve a purpose, but now it is causing more harm than good. That is where we must get honest and accept that these behaviours are no longer regulating. They’re not delivering what they promised they would. In fact, those restrictive behaviours have caused a response in the body so that it no longer feels safe, and instead is in a chronic state of fight or flight. This cannot be meditated out of.

From an evolutionary perspective, a well-fed body is a safe body. When you provide your system with consistent, adequate nutrition, you are effectively telling your amygdala (the brain's alarm bell) that it is okay to stand down. Of course with an ED this is somewhat more complicated as food is indeed interpreted as a threat. However, this threat detection can be rewired - the physiological stress response of inadequate intake cannot. Your body and your nervous system will never adjust to operating optimally without adequate nutrition and adequate rest. True regulation is built from the bottom up. While top-down tools like mindfulness are helpful, they are secondary to the primal needs of your body. You cannot convince a starving brain that it is safe; you have to show it through the consistent, non-negotiable act of nourishment.

Ultimately, we have to stop treating nervous system regulation as a purely emotional endeavor and start treating it as a biological requirement. You can breathe, stretch and journal all you like, but if you are denying your body the energy it needs to function, you are effectively asking a car with no fuel to win a race. These regulation tools can be helpful - and they have an important place in recovery - but they are ineffective without physiological safety. A key piece of recovery is the process of proving to your nervous system that the famine is over. It is the brave work of choosing the temporary discomfort of a fear response over the permanent cage of a depleted body. True peace doesn't come from mastering a meditation app; it comes from rebuilding the physical foundation of safety that only adequate food can provide.