Regulating Your Nervous System — 5 Trauma-Informed Ways to Feel Safe Again
When Your Body Doesn’t Feel Safe
Have you ever felt calm one moment and suddenly overwhelmed the next — your chest tight, your heart racing, your mind spinning? That’s your nervous system trying to protect you. For many of my clients, this constant feeling of being “on edge” isn’t just stress — it’s the body’s way of saying, “I don’t feel safe yet.”
When we’ve experienced trauma or prolonged stress, our nervous system becomes overly alert. It doesn’t realize the danger has passed. Healing isn’t about “getting over it” — it’s about teaching your body that it’s safe now.
Understanding the Nervous System and Trauma
The nervous system has two main parts:
The sympathetic system (fight, flight, or freeze)
The parasympathetic system (rest, calm, and repair)
When trauma happens, your brain and body store the memory as a survival map. Even after the event is over, certain sounds, smells, or thoughts can re-activate the same danger response.
Over time, this can lead to chronic anxiety, muscle tension, irritability, or shutdown. In my work providing trauma therapy in Alexandria and Fairfax, I often help clients recognize that these reactions aren’t “overreactions” — they’re body memories.
1. Ground Through Your Senses
When you feel anxious or disconnected, grounding through the senses helps you return to the present moment. Try:
Naming 5 things you can see
Touching 4 things you can feel
Listening for 3 sounds
Noticing 2 smells
Tasting 1 thing
This simple exercise tells your body, “I’m here, I’m safe, this moment is different.”
2. Use Your Breath to Signal Safety
The breath is one of the quickest ways to communicate safety to your body. When you exhale slowly, your brain releases calming chemicals that tell your body to relax. Try 4-7-8 breathing:
Inhale for 4 seconds
Hold for 7
Exhale for 8
When practiced regularly, this helps retrain your body’s default setting from tension to trust.
3. Gentle Movement Helps Unfreeze the Body
Trauma can live in the body as frozen energy — tight shoulders, clenched jaws, or shallow breathing. Gentle movement helps release that stuck tension. You don’t have to do an intense workout; simply stretch, take a mindful walk, or sway to music.
“Healing doesn’t always happen through words — sometimes it begins with movement.”
4. Co-Regulation: Borrowing Safety from Connection
Healing doesn’t happen in isolation. When you’re with someone who feels calm, your nervous system mirrors theirs. This is called co-regulation.
In therapy, part of the healing happens simply by being in a space where your body learns that connection can be safe again.
5. EMDR: Healing the Root, Not Just the Reaction
While grounding and breathing bring calm, EMDR therapy helps that calm last. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) helps the brain reprocess old memories and sensations that keep your body in alert mode.
In sessions, we use gentle bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or tones) to activate both sides of the brain. This helps the body integrate the memory as “in the past,” allowing real, lasting regulation.
Many clients say after EMDR:
“My body finally feels like it believes I’m safe.”
You Deserve a Nervous System That Feels Safe
If your body is always on alert, healing is possible. Together, we can help your nervous system find balance again through EMDR therapy in Alexandria and Fairfax VA.
to start your healing journey.