UCSD - University of California - San Diego

06/09/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/09/2026 09:14

Why Is Everyone ‘Regulating’ Their Nervous System

Published Date

June 09, 2026

Article Content

Your job is "bad for your nervous system." So is your relationship. Your overflowing inbox. Your packed social calendar. Maybe even your group chat.

Across social media, people are increasingly using the language of "nervous system regulation" to explain stress, anxiety and emotional overwhelm. Videos about being "dysregulated" and sharing ways to calm the body - from cold plunges to breathing exercises and other techniques believed to activate the vagus nerve and trigger the body's calming response - have become a booming category of online wellness culture.

We asked Janna Dickenson, a licensed psychologist and assistant teaching professor in the Department of Psychology, to explain why the language of nervous system regulation has suddenly become so popular online - and what people are getting right and wrong about it.

Why is everyone suddenly talking about "nervous system regulation" online?

"A great thing about all of this is that people are finally naming emotions for what they are: responses that are felt in the body and interpreted by the mind. When we have an intense emotional experience, our autonomic nervous system - which controls automatic bodily functions like heart rate, breathing and sweat - reacts. That's how emotions are felt in the body.

Janna Dickenson

When something upsetting happens, the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the body's 'fight or flight' response, triggers release of adrenaline and changes in blood flow - by moving blood away from the abdomen and toward the extremities - that prepare us to respond to danger. And that's actually a wonderful thing. Your ideal world is one in which your body responds to stress. The issue is that many modern threats are not true life-or-death situations, but our bodies can still react as though they are.

I think where some of the conversation online gets oversimplified is when people say things like, 'This is bad for my nervous system.' Nothing is really bad for your nervous system. Your nervous system is a responsive system. It's the way your brain and body respond to what's going on in your environment.

What people usually mean is: 'I'm having an upsetting emotional experience that I do not want.'

Stress responses themselves are not inherently unhealthy. We need our stress responses so that we can meet the demands of our environment. When our bodies do not have a typical stress response, that can actually be associated with worse mental health outcomes. For example, research tells us that people who have blunted cortisol reactivity to stress - meaning that their bodies don't react as much in response to a stressor - has been associated with greater risk for developing PTSD. In other words, we want a stress response to happen. It's our body's way of making sure we can actually cope with the stressor!

I also think people love the idea that something is bad for their nervous system because it makes them feel like it's not their fault. When something is framed biologically, it can create a sense of detachment. It becomes, 'It's not me that's getting upset, it's my nervous system.'

A lot of the practices tied to nervous system 'regulation' - cold plunges, breathing exercises, vagus nerve stimulation - are really about helping people tolerate distress in the moment.

The vagus nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, the system responsible for helping the body rest and recover. It helps slow heart rate, lower respiration and shifts blood flow from the extremities to the abdomen. These sensations can lead us to interpret that feeling as calm. So when people do things like cold plunges, they may genuinely feel calmer afterward. Submerging your head in ice-cold water can trigger what's known as the 'diving reflex,' which shifts blood flow in your body towards your abdomen, and results in that calmer physiological state.

But these are coping tools. They're not going to change your life. They help people get through the moment.

And these practices are probably most helpful when they're paired with something deeper - mindfulness, reflection, insight into the actual problem you're experiencing. If you are too distressed to reflect, you can use these 'distress tolerance' strategies to shift your bodily state. Once you get a more adaptive state of mind, then you can actually engage with the tools that do change your life, like considering your values, making yourself uncomfortable or taking values-based action. If you use them in isolation, you're probably not going to get very far. But if they help you slow down enough to actually engage with what's happening in your life, that's when we start to see the benefits."

UCSD - University of California - San Diego published this content on June 09, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on June 09, 2026 at 15:14 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]