Have you ever felt like you’ve done all the work?
You’ve reflected, talked things through, understood your patterns and maybe even reached the point where you can explain exactly why you feel stressed, anxious or overwhelmed.
And yet, your body still seems to be reacting as though something is wrong.
You know you’re safe, but your jaw is still tight. Your shoulders are still lifted. You struggle to take a full breath. You feel exhausted, but somehow you still can’t properly switch off.
Maybe small things trigger a much bigger response than you expect. Or you find yourself shutting down and withdrawing when everything becomes too much.
It can be frustrating, especially when you feel like you already understand what is happening.
But understanding something intellectually and experiencing it differently in the body are not always the same thing.
This is where the nervous system becomes really interesting.
Our nervous system is constantly responding to information from both inside and outside the body, and much of this happens automatically, before we have consciously thought about it.
The vagus nerve plays an important role in this process, particularly in functions associated with rest, recovery and regulation.
And this is also where body-based approaches such as CranioSacral Therapy can offer something different.
CranioSacral Therapy does not simply “switch on” or “reset” your vagus nerve. The nervous system is far more complex than that.
Instead, through light touch, work with the fascia and craniosacral system, and giving the body time to slow down and be listened to, we can create the conditions for the nervous system to begin responding differently.
Sometimes your mind already knows.
Your body just hasn’t caught up yet.
What Does the Nervous System Actually Do?
The nervous system is your body’s communication network.
It includes the brain, spinal cord and the enormous network of nerves that carries information throughout the body.
Part of this system is under conscious control. You decide to move your hand and your body responds.
But a huge amount happens automatically.
Your heart rate changes. Your pupils adjust. Digestion speeds up or slows down. Your muscles prepare for movement. Your breathing changes in response to what is happening around you.
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for many of these automatic processes.
It is commonly discussed in terms of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
The sympathetic nervous system helps mobilise the body for action and is commonly associated with our “fight or flight” response. When something requires your attention or feels threatening, your heart rate can increase, breathing can become faster, muscles prepare for movement and energy is directed towards helping you respond.
This response is not a bad thing. We need it. It helps us react quickly, take action, exercise, concentrate and protect ourselves when necessary.
The parasympathetic nervous system is commonly associated with “rest and digest”. It supports processes such as rest, digestion and recovery, helping the body conserve energy and settle when immediate action is no longer required.
We need access to both.
The goal of nervous system regulation is not to stay in “rest and digest” all the time or to eliminate fight or flight.
A healthy, flexible nervous system can mobilise when something requires action and then settle again once the demand has passed.
Problems can arise when the body has difficulty making that transition, for example when it continues behaving as though the threat is still present even when, consciously, you know you are safe.
What Is the Vagus Nerve?
The vagus nerve is the tenth cranial nerve and one of the major nerves involved in parasympathetic regulation.
Its name comes from the Latin word for “wandering”, which makes sense when you look at its path through the body.
The vagus nerve originates in the brainstem and travels through the neck into the chest and abdomen, communicating with structures including the heart, lungs and digestive system.
It carries information in both directions.
Interestingly, much of the communication travelling through the vagus nerve goes from the body up towards the brain, rather than the other way around.
In other words, the brain isn’t simply telling the body what to do. Your body is constantly sending information back to the brain about what is happening inside you.
The vagus nerve is involved in functions including heart rate, digestion, breathing and other processes associated with autonomic regulation.
This is one reason it has become such a major topic in discussions about stress and nervous system health.
The Vagus Nerve Is Not an On/Off Switch
You may already have come across practices intended to support vagal activity and nervous system regulation.
Breathing exercises, humming, singing, cold exposure and other body-based practices can all influence the nervous system in different ways. These can be incredibly useful tools for supporting regulation and building greater awareness of how our nervous system responds.
At the same time, the idea of simply “resetting the vagus nerve” can make something quite complex sound like an on/off switch.
A breathing exercise might help your body settle in a particular moment. Humming can influence breathing and vagal pathways. Cold exposure creates a different physiological response and can give us an opportunity to experience controlled stress and recovery.
These are all ways we can intentionally work with our nervous system.
But nervous system regulation is bigger than any one technique.
Our nervous system is continually responding to our environment, our body, our relationships, our thoughts, our emotions and our previous experiences.
And stress itself is not inherently bad.
Your ability to mobilise is useful. It helps you respond quickly, exercise, concentrate, set boundaries and protect yourself.
The difficulty is when your body repeatedly mobilises when it does not need to, remains activated long after a stressful experience has passed, or moves towards shutdown when things become overwhelming.
For me, regulation means flexibility.
Can your system respond when it needs to and then find its way back?
That is a much more useful goal than trying to be relaxed all the time.
What Does Nervous System Dysregulation Feel Like?
There is no single experience of dysregulation.
For some people it feels like being constantly “on”.
You may notice:
- difficulty relaxing even when you have time to rest
- jaw clenching or muscular tension
- racing thoughts
- feeling easily startled or irritated
- shallow or restricted breathing
- difficulty sleeping
- feeling restless despite being tired
- digestive changes during periods of stress
- feeling that you always need to be doing something
For others, overwhelm looks quite different.
You may feel exhausted, disconnected, numb or unable to motivate yourself. You might withdraw, struggle to think clearly or feel as though even small tasks require enormous effort.
And people can move between these experiences.
You might spend days pushing yourself through stress and then suddenly crash.
This is one reason I am less interested in putting someone neatly into a nervous system “type” and more interested in understanding their particular patterns.
What happens in your body when you feel pressure?
What do you notice when you are angry?
What happens when you want to say no but say yes instead?
What happens when you finally stop after a very busy week?
These patterns can tell us something about how your system has learned to respond.
Why Can’t I Just Think Myself Calm?
Sometimes you can.
Thoughts, attention and interpretation absolutely influence how we feel.
But anyone who has ever been told to “just relax” while feeling anxious knows that conscious thought is not always enough.
You can know intellectually that something is okay while your body is still responding.
Your heart may race.
Your stomach may tighten.
Your breathing changes.
Your shoulders rise.
Your jaw clenches.
This does not mean that your body is working against you.
It means that many protective responses happen automatically.
This is one reason body-centred work can feel different from approaches that rely primarily on talking or thinking.
Rather than only asking, What do I think about this?, we can also become curious about:
What happens in my body when I experience this?
How Might CranioSacral Therapy Support Nervous System Regulation?
CranioSacral Therapy uses light physical contact while working with the body’s tissues, fascia and craniosacral system.
During a session, you are fully clothed and usually lying comfortably on a treatment table.
Rather than asking your body to perform, stretch or respond to strong pressure, we begin by listening.
As the session progresses, breathing may slow or deepen. Muscular holding may soften. You might sigh, swallow, feel warmth or notice an area of tension beginning to change.
Some people enter a deeply relaxed, theta-like state, similar to the space between waking and sleep where the conscious mind becomes quieter.
Others remain completely awake while noticing their body settling.
There can also be periods of movement.
As fascial tension changes, the body may begin to unwind, gently turning, stretching or moving without you consciously directing it. I follow and support these movements rather than forcing them.
You can read more about what this actually feels like in What to Expect in Your First CranioSacral Session.
I do not think of this as me “regulating” your nervous system for you.
I am creating conditions in which your system has an opportunity to experience less demand, more support and greater awareness of what is happening internally.
Your body does the rest.
CranioSacral Therapy and the Vagus Nerve
So where does the vagus nerve fit into CranioSacral Therapy?
There are several anatomical and physiological reasons the two are discussed together.
The vagus nerve originates in the brainstem and exits the skull through an opening called the jugular foramen before travelling through the neck and into the chest and abdomen.
CranioSacral Therapy may involve contact around the cranium, occipital region, neck, thorax, diaphragm and sacrum, as well as other parts of the body.
The work also pays attention to the membranes and fluid environment surrounding the brain and spinal cord, fascial relationships throughout the body and the person’s overall autonomic state.
However, it would be too simplistic to say that a CranioSacral therapist touches a particular place and directly “stimulates the vagus nerve”.
That is not how I understand the work.
Instead, I am interested in how the whole system responds.
Changes in breathing, muscular tension, body awareness, physical comfort and the experience of safety can all interact with autonomic function.
The vagus nerve is part of that picture, but it is not the whole picture.
Fascia, Breathing and the Nervous System
Fascia is another important part of my work.
It forms a continuous network of connective tissue throughout the body, surrounding and connecting muscles, nerves, organs, blood vessels and other structures.
When we are under stress, the response is not confined to our thoughts.
We brace.
The jaw tightens. The shoulders lift. The abdomen contracts. Breathing patterns change.
If these responses happen repeatedly, they can become familiar ways of holding ourselves, creating what we might think of as a holding pattern.
The body becomes accustomed to bracing, tightening or protecting in a particular way, sometimes even after the original stressor has passed.
Breathing is particularly interesting because it sits at the meeting point between automatic and conscious processes.
You breathe without thinking about it, but you can also deliberately change how you breathe.
The diaphragm, ribcage, neck, abdomen and surrounding fascia all participate mechanically in breathing.
This is why I may find myself working with the ribcage, diaphragm or surrounding tissues during a session even when someone initially came because of stress, headaches or tension somewhere else.
The body does not divide itself into separate departments.
When Physical Tension and Emotion Meet
Nervous system work can also bring emotional patterns into awareness.
Someone may come in because they feel permanently tense, but during our initial conversation we realise they rarely allow themselves to stop.
Someone else may clench their jaw and also recognise a long-standing pattern of not saying what they really feel.
Another person may feel responsible for everyone around them and notice that their body seems permanently braced for the next thing that needs their attention.
I do not assume that every physical symptom has a hidden emotional cause.
But I am interested in the connections when they appear.
During CranioSacral Therapy, an emotion, image or memory can sometimes arise unexpectedly as physical or fascial tension begins to change.
You may suddenly feel tearful. You might remember something you had not consciously been thinking about. A feeling may arise before you have words for it.
Sometimes this happens during unwinding, when the body begins moving spontaneously through a pattern of tension.
This is sometimes described as the tissues or body “holding memory”. I do not take that to mean that fascia literally stores autobiographical memories in the way the brain does.
Rather, our experiences involve our whole body.
The nervous system, breathing, posture, muscular patterns and connective tissues all participate in how we respond to what happens to us.
Sometimes when a physical pattern changes, something associated with that experience seems to surface too.
And if that happens, we can talk.
CranioSacral Therapy does not have to mean lying silently on the table while an emotional response is happening inside you.
We can explore what has come up while staying connected to what you are experiencing physically. Something that emerges on the table may also connect with a feeling, belief or recurring pattern we discussed at the beginning of the session.
My background in EFT, Matrix Reimprinting, somatic and energy work naturally informs how I support these moments.
Nervous System Regulation Does Not Mean Avoiding Difficult Feelings
This is an important distinction.
Regulation is sometimes portrayed as feeling peaceful, grounded and positive.
But being regulated does not mean never feeling angry, anxious, sad or afraid.
Those emotions contain information.
The aim is not to teach the body that uncomfortable emotions are another thing we need to get rid of.
Instead, regulation can mean developing a greater capacity to experience what is happening without immediately becoming overwhelmed by it or disconnecting from it.
This is sometimes described as our window of tolerance, the range within which we can experience emotions, sensations and stress while still feeling able to stay present and respond.
When we move outside that window, we may become highly activated, anxious, angry or overwhelmed, or move in the other direction towards shutdown, numbness or disconnection.
Nervous system work is not necessarily about making sure we never leave that window. Life will inevitably challenge us.
It is about gradually building our capacity to notice what is happening, stay with more of our experience and find our way back.
Sometimes that means settling.
Sometimes it means allowing anger to be felt.
Sometimes it means recognising exhaustion instead of pushing through it.
Sometimes it means noticing that your body wants to move.
And sometimes it means realising that a pattern you have repeated for years no longer feels right.
This is where my wider background naturally becomes part of the way I work.
I trained in yoga and meditation, EFT, Matrix Reimprinting, somatic and energy work, alongside CranioSacral Therapy.
If something emotional arises during bodywork, we can talk about it.
We can become curious about the belief or recurring pattern connected to it while still paying attention to what is happening physically.
The bodywork and conversation do not have to be two separate things.
What About Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn?
You may have heard terms such as fight, flight, freeze or fawn, as well as shutdown, ventral vagal and dorsal vagal states, used when discussing the nervous system.
Fight and flight describe mobilisation towards confronting or escaping a perceived threat.
Freeze can involve becoming stuck or unable to act, while fawn is commonly used to describe a protective pattern of appeasing, pleasing or accommodating others in an attempt to maintain safety or connection.
That might look like automatically agreeing with someone, struggling to say no, trying to keep everybody happy or putting another person’s needs before your own even when part of you does not want to.
These responses are not necessarily conscious decisions.
Sometimes they are patterns the nervous system has become very familiar with.
Some of the language around different autonomic states comes from Polyvagal Theory, developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges. Polyvagal Theory offers a useful way of thinking about how our bodies respond to safety, threat and social connection.
Rather than judging these responses as something being wrong with us, we can become curious about what they may be trying to do.
Instead of asking:
What’s wrong with me?
We can ask:
What might my nervous system be trying to do here?
That shift can change the relationship we have with our body’s responses.
Can CranioSacral Therapy Help With Anxiety?
People do seek CranioSacral Therapy for anxiety, particularly when anxiety has a strong physical component.
Perhaps you understand your anxious thoughts but still feel constantly tense.
Maybe you struggle to breathe deeply, clench your jaw, experience a tight chest or find it almost impossible to truly rest.
CranioSacral Therapy offers a body-centred way of approaching those experiences.
That does not mean CST is a cure for anxiety or that every person will respond in the same way.
For me, its value lies in giving someone an opportunity to experience their body differently, to notice patterns that usually happen automatically and to practise being present with sensation without needing to immediately change it.
Over time, that awareness can become meaningful in its own right.
What Happens After a Nervous System-Focused Session?
People respond differently after CranioSacral Therapy.
You may feel deeply relaxed, lighter, quieter or more grounded. You might notice changes in your breathing or muscular tension.
Sometimes you simply feel tired.
This can be particularly noticeable for people who have been functioning in a highly activated, sympathetic state for a long time. When the body finally has an opportunity to settle and move towards more parasympathetic activity, you may suddenly become aware of how tired you actually are.
The session has not necessarily made you tired. Sometimes slowing down simply allows you to feel the exhaustion that was already underneath all that activation.
Emotions can also continue to move after the session, particularly if something meaningful surfaced while we were working.
I recommend drinking a little more water than usual afterwards. CranioSacral Therapy involves working with the body’s tissues and fluid systems, and good hydration supports normal tissue and fascial function.
If possible, give yourself some space afterwards rather than immediately filling the rest of your day.
You do not need to analyse everything that happens.
Notice how you feel.
Sometimes that is enough.
CranioSacral Therapy for Nervous System Regulation With Me
My approach to nervous system work is not about teaching you how to remain calm regardless of what is happening around you.
It is about becoming more able to listen to yourself.
What happens in your body when something feels wrong?
What happens when you feel safe?
Where do you hold tension?
What feelings do you find difficult to stay with?
Which patterns keep repeating?
And what changes when your body is finally given enough time to slow down?
I practise in the beautiful therapy rooms at HUMA in Estoril, where I wanted the physical environment itself to support that sense of slowing down.
My sessions are primarily offered in English. I also speak Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese, which can be helpful for clients who naturally move between languages, even when English remains the main language of our sessions.
If you are completely new to CST, you may want to begin with What Is CranioSacral Therapy? The Ultimate Beginner Guide.
Or, if you would like to know exactly what happens when you come to see me:
What to Expect in Your First CranioSacral Session
You do not need to arrive already knowing how to regulate your nervous system.
We begin by becoming curious about what your body is already telling you.
Book a CranioSacral Therapy session with Natalie.