If you’ve been feeling stressed, constantly bloated, or like your body is stuck in fight-or-flight mode, here are some ways to heal from the inside out. When your nervous system is dysregulated, it affects everything—your digestion, your sleep, your mood, and your ability to handle daily stress. These three simple practices can help you restore balance.
1. Start Your Morning Without Your Phone
Thirty to sixty minutes of no phone in the morning is something I didn’t know my body needed until I started doing it. Your cortisol is already naturally at its highest when you wake up in the morning. Grabbing your phone immediately floods your brain with even more stress signals—notifications, emails, news—before you’ve even had a moment to ground yourself.
Keep your phone face down before you go to sleep. In the morning, get out of bed and do your skincare, make some breakfast, drink some water, and grab your journal. Journaling first thing in the morning has been a game-changer. You can also do a quick stretch, listen to a guided meditation, or read a few pages of a book.
Once you start getting into the rhythm of it, you begin to lose the dependency on your phone. It’s actually such a freeing feeling. You start your day from a place of calm instead of from a place of reaction.
2. Activate Your Vagus Nerve
Activating your vagus nerve is one of the most powerful ways to regulate your nervous system. Your vagus nerve runs from your brain stem to your gut. It’s the longest nerve in your body and it’s where your parasympathetic nervous system lives—the part responsible for rest and digestion.
When your vagus nerve is activated, you’ll notice your heart rate slowing down, your breathing deepening, and your digestion switching on. Regulating your nervous system is directly tied to your gut health, which is why stress often shows up as bloating or digestive issues.
You can activate your vagus nerve simply through humming, breathwork, or even splashing cold water onto your face. Other ways include massages, lymphatic drainage, red light therapy, and restorative yoga. Find the method that resonates with you and make it a regular practice.
3. Build a Bedtime Ritual
Your body does most of its repair work—both physically and emotionally—while you sleep. A dysregulated nervous system can affect how deeply you sleep, and poor sleep affects your nervous system the next day. It’s a cycle, and the best way to break it is to build a consistent bedtime ritual.
Aim for seven to eight hours of sleep. The healthy sleep habits you hear about are 100% true: keep your room cool and dark, avoid harsh overhead lighting, and try to reduce screen time about an hour before bed. Instead of scrolling, try a guided meditation, journaling, or reading.
The Connection Between Stress and Your Body
It’s remarkable how your nervous system is connected to so many different areas of your body. Sometimes, feeling inflamed or bloated has less to do with your diet and more to do with the stress you’re carrying throughout the day. When you regulate your nervous system, you’re not just calming your mind—you’re healing your body from the inside out.
