Somewhere along the way, calm became the gold standard for mental health. But what if we've been measuring regulation by the wrong thing? In this episode, Jessica explains why nervous system regulation isn't about staying calm. It's about recognizing what's happening inside you, understanding what you need, and responding without treating every uncomfortable feeling like an emergency. You'll learn how to catch your earliest signals, why relief and regulation aren't always the same thing, and how to build a regulation menu that fits you.

In this episode

• Why "how do I calm down?" may be the wrong question
• Why calm is one healthy nervous system state, not the only one, and why flexibility is the real goal
• How your nervous system gives you information through body sensations, thoughts, and behaviors
• Why your early signals (a 3 out of 10) give you more choices than your loudest ones (a 9)
• How activation shows up differently for different people: busyness, irritability, control, reassurance seeking, and checking
• What shutdown and depletion can look like, and why a strategy for overstimulation may not help when you're disconnected
• How coping skills can become another way of demanding the feeling disappear
• The difference between relief and regulation
• Why a regulation menu works better than one perfect coping skill
• Why regulation is an experiment, not a performance

Key takeaways

• You don't have to be calm to be regulated. You can be anxious, irritated, or sad and still make an intentional choice about what happens next.
• Instead of asking "Did this make me feel better?", try asking "Did this help me respond differently?"
• The goal isn't to memorize 30 coping strategies. It's to know yourself well enough to have a few realistic options when your system starts giving you information.
• Tracking your early signals is about learning your patterns, not monitoring yourself all day for signs that something is wrong.

This week's healing experiment

1. Catch one early signal. Choose something small, not your biggest symptom or the moment you're already at a 10.
2. Pause and name it: "My system is starting to get activated," or "I'm starting to shut down."
3. Ask yourself, "What might I need right now?"
4. Try one thing.
5. Afterward, don't ask whether the feeling went away. Ask, "Did this give me a little more choice in how I responded?"

Resources mentioned

• My Nervous System Regulation Plan: a fillable, self-guided workbook that helps you identify your regulated baseline, recognize your signs of activation and shutdown, build your own regulation menu, and track what actually helps. Find it in the course and resource library at heal.jessicacolarcolcsw.com.
• Why You Can't Stop: Jessica's 7-module, self-paced course on the patterns underneath constant doing. Find it at heal.jessicacolarcolcsw.com.

Connect

📩 Sign up for the newsletter at healingismyhobby.com

📷 Instagram: @healingismyhobby

▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby

🩺 Clinical practice: jessicacolarcolcsw.com

📷 Instagram: @jessicacolarcolcsw

nervous system regulation, regulation vs calm, how to calm down, coping skills, regulation menu, nervous system regulation plan, early warning signs of anxiety, signs of nervous system activation, shutdown and depletion, dysregulation, relief vs regulation, anxiety coping skills, grounding techniques, overstimulation, emotional regulation, healing experiment, nervous system flexibility, reassurance seeking, checking behaviors, irritability and anxiety, mind-body awareness, CBT therapist, licensed clinical social worker, Healing Is My Hobby podcast, Jessica Colarco LCSW, Why You Can't Stop course

What the goal isn't to calm down? I know. That sounds a little strange coming from a therapist who talks about nervous system regulation. But I think about how often we approach uncomfortable emotions with one goal: make this stop. I'm anxious. How do I calm down? I'm overwhelmed. How do I get rid of this feeling? I'm irritated. How do I stop being irritated?

My heart is racing. How do I make it slow down? My mind won't stop. How do I shut it off? And when the coping skill doesn't immediately make the feeling disappear, we decide it didn't work. But what if we've been measuring regulation by the wrong thing? What if regulation isn't the ability to stay calm? What if it's the ability to recognize what's happening inside you, understand what you need?

And respond without treating every uncomfortable feeling like an emergency. That's what we're talking about today.

Hi, welcome back to Healing is My Hobby. I'm Jessica Collarco, a licensed clinical social worker and CBT therapist. And this is the podcast where we get curious about the patterns that shape how we think, feel, cope, and heal, both inside and outside of the therapy room. Over the last three episodes, we've talked a lot about doing, why we can't stop, why rest doesn't always feel restful.

And why some of us feel like we have to earn rest before we're allowed to take it.

Today I want to shift the conversation a little because once you start recognizing these patterns, the natural question is okay, so what do I do instead? And this is usually the point where people start looking for coping skills. Give me the breathing exercise, give me the grounding technique, tell me what I'm supposed to do when I'm anxious. And those tools can absolutely be helpful. But before we talk about what to do,

I think we need to understand what we're actually trying to accomplish.

Because nervous system regulation isn't the same thing as being constant.

I think calm has become the gold standard for mental health. Calm body, quiet mind, deep breaths, no anxiety, no irritation, no overwhelm. and if that's what regulation means, then every time you feel anxious, angry, energized, excited, overwhelmed, or stressed, you're somehow dysregulated. And that's not how human beings work. Your nervous system is supposed to move.

There are times when you need energy. There are times when you need urgency. There are times when something genuinely requires your attention. And if you're walking across the street and a car suddenly comes toward you, I don't want your nervous system saying, let's remain completely calm. I want it to mobilize. If you have an important deadline, some activation might help you focus. If someone crosses a boundary,

Irritation might be giving you important information. If something matters deeply to you, you may feel nervous, and none of those states are automatically a problem. Calm is one nervous system state. It isn't the only healthy one. The goal is flexibility.

into activation when I need it? Can I recognize when I'm there? And when the demand passes, can I eventually move somewhere else? That's regulation. One of the ideas I want you to carry through this entire season is this. Your nervous system is always giving you information. Your body might tell you, my chest feels tight, my jaw is clenched, my heart is racing, my stomach feels off.

I can't sit still. Your thoughts might sound like, what if? Something's wrong. I need to fix this. I can't handle this. Hurry. and then your behavior might change. You start overthinking, checking, seeking reassurance, avoiding, controlling, overworking, scrolling, snapping at people. Those are signals. And the earlier you recognize them,

The more choices you have about what happens next. Because there's a big difference between noticing my jaw is getting tight and I'm starting to feel irritated, and realizing you're activated after you've already sent the text, snapped at your partner, or spent two hours spiraling. Your earliest signals matter. Here's one of the reasons regulation can feel so hard. A lot of us don't notice what is happening until it's loud.

We notice anxiety when it's an eight out of ten. We notice overwhelm when we're crying in the bathroom. We notice irritability after we've snapped at somebody. We notice exhaustion when we physically can't do another thing. We notice shutdown after we've spent the entire day saying, I don't care, I don't want to, leave me alone.

But your nervous system probably gave you information before that. Maybe your shoulder started creeping toward your ears. Maybe you started holding your breath. Maybe you were rereading the same email. Maybe every little noise started to annoy you. Maybe you noticed yourself rushing even though you weren't late. Maybe you stopped responding to texts. Maybe one tiny decision suddenly felt impossible.

Those quieter signals are incredibly valuable because if I notice myself at a three, I have more options than I do at a nine. That doesn't mean I should be monitoring myself all day looking for signs that something is wrong. We're not trying to create another thing to obsess over.

We're learning our own patterns. This is especially important because activation can look very different from person to person. We talked this month about productive activation. For you, activation might look like getting very busy. For someone else, it might look like irritability. Maybe everything suddenly feels annoying. The person chewing next to you. The question somebody just asked you.

The notification on your phone, the fact that somebody is walking too slowly in front of you. And sometimes we make that mean I'm just in a bad mood. Maybe. Or maybe your system is telling you, I have too much input right now. Activation can also look like control. you suddenly need everyone to follow the plan. Or reassurance seeking.

Are we okay? Are you mad at me? Do you think this is gonna work out? Or checking the email, the tracking number, your symptoms, the bank account, the weather, the text. Again, none of those behaviors automatically mean you're dysregulated. We're looking for your patterns. What changes when your system starts believing something needs your attention?

But regulation isn't only about activation. Sometimes your system doesn't speed up. It slows way down. You might feel heavy, disconnected, foggy, exhausted, unmotivated. You may want to withdraw. Making decisions feels difficult. Maybe your thoughts sound like, I don't care. I can't do this. What's the point?

And this matters because the strategy you use when you're highly activated might not be the strategy you need when you're depleted or shut down. If you're overstimulated, you might need less input. If you're disconnected and depleted, you might actually need some input. Music, fresh air, light movement, a change of environment, connection, one very manageable task.

This is why I don't love giving people one giant list of coping skills, because the question isn't what's the best coping skill? The question is what state am I in, and what might help me respond to this state. There's something else I want us to be careful about. We can turn coping skills into another form of control. I feel anxious, I do a grounding exercise.

I'm still anxious, so I do another one, then another, then I Google another technique, and then I start wondering why none of them are working. And suddenly I'm anxious about the fact that I'm still anxious. The coping skill has become another attempt to make the feeling disappear immediately. And this is where I come back to what are we asking the strategy to do? Are we asking it to support us while we're uncomfortable?

Or are we demanding that it remove the discomfort? Those are two very different goals. Sometimes a grounding exercise won't make your anxiety disappear. But maybe it helps you stay in the situation instead of avoiding it. Maybe slowing your body down doesn't make the irritation disappear, but it gives you enough space not to react impulsively. Maybe going outside

Doesn't suddenly make you feel energized, but it helps you take one next step instead of staying completely shut down. That's meaningful. I think this is one of the most important distinctions we can make. Relief and regulation aren't always the same thing. Remember what we've been talking about this season. Checking can give you relief. Reassurance can give you relief. Avoidance can give you relief.

Getting something done can give you relief. Scrolling can give you relief. But short-term relief doesn't always move you toward what you need long term. So instead of only asking, did this make me feel better? Try asking, did this help me respond differently? That's a completely different measure. Maybe your anxiety is still there, but you went anyway.

Maybe you're still uncomfortable, but you didn't check. Maybe you're still irritated, but you paused before responding. Maybe you're still sad, but instead of reorganizing your entire closet, you allowed yourself to actually feel sad. That's regulation. Not because the feeling disappeared, because you had more choice in what happened next.

That's why I like the idea of a regulation menu, not one perfect coping skill, a menu. When I need to slow down, what tends to help me? Maybe grounding, reducing sensory input, slow movement, progress progressive muscle relaxation, orienting to my surroundings. When I need to come back online, what helps? Music, fresh air, movement, connection.

Changing environments, completing one manageable task. When my mind won't stop, maybe I write the worry down, name the thought, ask myself whether I'm dealing with a fact or a prediction. Use mental grounding. Shift my attention instead of continuing to argue with the thought. And when I need connection, maybe I text someone safe, sit near somebody, ask directly for support.

Spend time with an animal, seek professional support. The goal isn't to memorize 30 coping strategies. It's to know yourself well enough that when your system starts giving you information, you have a few realistic options available. And here's something I really want you to hear. Regulation is an experiment, not a performance. You don't get a gold star because the grounding technique works.

You didn't fail because the walk didn't make you feel better. We're gathering information. I tried this, here's what happened. Maybe it helped, maybe it didn't. Maybe it usually helps, but today it didn't. Maybe something I thought would calm me actually made me feel more irritated. And that's useful information. Your nervous system isn't a math equation. We're not looking for anxiety plus breathing exercise equals calm. We're building awareness. We're learning.

When I feel like this, this tends to support me. When I feel like that, I need something different. That's personalization and that's work. So your healing experiment this week is very simple. I want you to catch one early signal. Not your biggest symptom, not the moment you're already at a 10, something small. Maybe you notice your jaw tightening. Maybe your thoughts start speeding up. Maybe you start checking your phone more.

Maybe you become unusually impatient. Maybe you start withdrawing. Maybe you notice yourself trying to control something that doesn't really need controlling. Pause and name it. My system is starting to get activated, or I'm starting to shut down. And then ask, what might I need right now? Try one thing. And afterward, don't ask, did it make the feelings go away? Ask,

Did this give me a little more choice in how I responded? That's the experiment. If today's episode made you realize I actually don't know what my early signals are, or I know a bunch of coping skills, but I don't really know which ones help me when. I created something specifically to help you work through that. It's called my nervous system regulation plan. It's a fillable, self-guided workbook that walks you through identifying what your regulated baseline actually feels like.

recognizing your own signs of activation and shutdown, and noticing what you tend to do when you're dysregulated. Then instead of giving you another generic list of coping skills, you'll build your own regulation menu based on what you need in different states. You'll also experiment with strategies, track what actually happens when you use them, and ultimately bring everything together into your own personal regulation plan. Because I don't want you to leave this episode thinking I need more coping skills.

I want you thinking I need to understand my system better. You can find my nervous system regulation plan in my course and resource library At heal H E A L dot Jessica Calarco L C S W dot com. And the direct link is in the show notes. And if you've been following this entire series and want to go even deeper into patterns underneath your constant doing, why you can't stop is my seven module self-paced course.

That takes this work much further. You can find it at the same place, heal.jessica colarco lcsw.com. So I'm gonna leave you with this. You don't have to be calm to be regulated. You can be anxious and regulated. You can be irritated and regulated. You can be sad and regulated. You can have a racing mind and still make an intentional choice about what happens next. Regulation

Isn't the absence of uncomfortable feelings? It's increasing your ability to recognize what's happening, understand what you need, and respond with more flexibility. And sometimes the biggest win isn't I made the feeling disappear. It's I felt it and I responded differently. That's your healing work this week. Catch one early signal, get curious, try something, see what you learn.

If you'd like to follow me on socials, you can follow me. You can you can find me on Instagram at Healing is my hobby and on YouTube at Healing Is My Hobby. You can sign up for the newsletter or read my blog at healingismyhobby.com. If you want to know more about my clinical practice, you can find me at Jessica Colarco LCSW.com or on Instagram at Jessica Colarco LCSW.

I'm Jessica Colarco and this is Healing is My Hobby. Remember, healing doesn't have to be your whole life. It can just be something you keep practicing along the way. I'll see you next week.