Sometimes life is hard – the worst arguments can happen with the people we love most, we have stressful jobs that we need, or we have some kind of trauma that seems to get triggered out of the blue! My clients often wonder how to deal with this roller coaster of daily emotions. One way to help regulate your nervous system is to slow down and practice curiosity during moments that feel so big or move so quickly that words escape you. A simple but effective way to do this is by observing your bodily responses and labeling your emotions – “Name it to Tame it.”
The other night my husband said something that made me almost blind with anger. We were all in the kitchen together making dinner for our family and there were the usual stressors of trying to get everyone fed, bathed, homework, etc and off to bed. I was so angry that I stomped out of the room and yelled something hurtful.
Moments later as I sat in my bedroom alone, I could notice all the ways my system had been hijacked by the fight or flight response. My heart was pumping, my mouth was dry, my breath was shallow. I could feel a swirly energy inside of me. And as I sat there observing my thoughts and my anger and all the sensations in my body – I recognized that something big had just happened to me. While eventually I came to not feel so great about what I had yelled out at my husband, the intensity of my reaction was actually really important.
The Science Behind “Name it to Tame it” and How it can Help Regulate Your Nervous System
One of the first steps to beginning to calm down and regulate your nervous system, is to label the emotion. Harvard educator and psychiatrist Dan Siegel coined the phrase to help us remember this “name it to tame it.” Naming the emotions and bodily sensations helps us get the prefrontal cortex – your more cognitive, thinking brain-back online.
The pre-frontal cortex is almost like a control center of the brain, involved in planning and decision making and regulating. When you label an emotion, the cortex actually releases neuro-transmitters that help calm the amygdala, the part of your brain that is scanning for threat and can kick your systems into fight or flight behaviors. This in turn begins to settle and help regulate your nervous system.
“Great!” some of you might be thinking, “I much prefer my rational brain!” But ignoring your emotions isn’t actually the goal here. Usually when people are angry, they have good reasons for being angry! There’s a lot of really important information in those emotions that make you YOU and you don’t want to miss out on that. The goal should be to integrate the emotions and the logic – trying to get the feeling part of your brain and the observing part of your brain online at the same time. In other words, accepting and observing your emotions with curiosity instead of getting swept away by them.
Because once you are able to regulate your nervous system and can become curious, then you have choices about what to do with these intense emotions – maybe you need to take a walk, call a friend, set a boundary with someone, take a deep breath or get some exercise.
And this is a huge part of what we do in therapy. In working with couples, the more you can organize what’s happening between you and your partner when you’re triggered, you can be clear about what you want and how to advocate for it in a kind way – where you might actually get what you want and your partner might hear you!
In individual therapy, as your nervous system learns that it can feel difficult emotions in a regulated way, you build the capacity to stay in the present moment rather than being pulled back into old wounds or traumas.
Six Ways to use “Name it to Tame it” to Help Regulate Your Nervous System
The next time you feel an intense emotion, try a few of these tips:
- Notice where you’re feeling it in your body. Put a hand on that space and breathe into it.
- Be curious about what emotions you’re actually experiencing.
- Say to yourself “I notice that I’m feeling _____” (I like this because it gives you a little space from the emotion).
- Practice self-compassion This is not the time to tell yourself it’s not such a big deal (see my post on Kristen Neff).
- Feel yourself settle a bit before deciding what to do about it.
- Tune into your five senses. Sometimes tuning into your body can be overwhelming in these moments. If that’s the case, slowly turn and look around your room, notice what you can hear or smell, feel the softness of a blanket – be in the present moment!
The Only Way Out is Through
A word about self-compassion in these instances: I often hear clients say they wish they could just not feel something or that they wish they would have responded in a more logical way. I think it’s important to have a lot of acceptance here. Emotions just ARE – we can’t change them or make them go away. We of course are responsible for what we do with the emotions and at times may need to apologize or offer a repair for our reactions.
In the words of Robert Frost “The only way out is through” – things that we push aside or don’t want to deal with have a way of coming out sideways at some point. The much better path is through curiosity.
After I sat and observed all the ways that my nervous system had been triggered, noticing how angry I was, I began to feel myself settle a bit. I took some deep breaths and felt the way they calmed my body. I practiced self compassion by letting myself be curious about what had happened. And eventually I got myself regulated and in a place to talk to my husband about my reactions and the stories I was telling myself so that we could come together for a repair.
Feel Your Nervous System Settle
Your nervous system is supposed to react quickly when there is a perceived threat. Slowing this reaction down, observing, and labeling the emotion that you’re feeling helps you to take back more control of the situation. Naming it really does tame it – it allows you to practice compassion and curiosity and to get some space from these intense emotions so that you can regulate your nervous system better and be able to advocate for yourself in relationships and make better choices.