We’ve been doing a series on scientific ways to calm your nervous system, so I thought I’d put everything we’ve discussed so far in one place.
Our nervous system is constantly taking in information from the world around us — what we see, hear, feel and experience — and deciding how our body needs to respond.
When we feel stressed, threatened, overwhelmed or under pressure, our sympathetic nervous system becomes more active. This is commonly known as our fight or flight response. Heart rate may increase, breathing can become faster, muscles tense and our body prepares us to respond.
On the other side is our parasympathetic nervous system — often described as our rest and digest state. This is associated with slowing the heart rate, supporting digestion and allowing the body to shift towards recovery and restoration.
Neither state is inherently good or bad. We need both. The aim isn't to be calm all of the time, but to have a nervous system that can respond appropriately to stress and then come back down again afterwards.
Here are four simple strategies we've been exploring.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Have you ever noticed that you're holding tension in your jaw, shoulders or hands without realising it?
Stress can increase muscle tension, and sometimes we become so accustomed to that tension that we stop noticing it.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) involves deliberately tensing a muscle group for a few seconds before consciously relaxing it. You gradually work through different areas of the body — perhaps starting at the feet and working upwards.
The interesting part is the contrast.
By intentionally creating tension first, it can become easier for your brain to recognise what relaxation actually feels like. Research has associated PMR with reductions in stress and anxiety, and it may also be useful as part of a wind-down routine before sleep.
Try squeezing your hands into fists for around five seconds.
Then completely let them go.
Notice the difference.
Sometimes becoming aware of how much tension we're holding is the first step towards releasing it.
Inversions
This is one we often explore in yoga.
An inversion doesn't have to mean standing on your head. It can be as simple as legs up the wall, a supported forward fold or another comfortable position where the body is changed from its usual upright orientation.
One reason certain gentle inversions may feel calming is the relationship between body position, circulation and the baroreflex.
Baroreceptors are pressure-sensitive receptors found primarily around major blood vessels near the heart and neck. They continually provide information to the brain about changes in blood pressure.
When these receptors detect changes in pressure, the nervous system makes automatic adjustments to heart rate and blood vessel tone to help maintain stable blood pressure.
This cardiovascular reflex interacts closely with the autonomic nervous system, which may be part of the reason some supported inverted positions feel deeply relaxing.
There are also simpler explanations: you're usually still, supported, breathing slowly and taking a break from whatever you were doing five minutes earlier.
You don't necessarily need a complicated pose to experience that.
Birdsong
There is something about being outside and hearing birds that makes the world feel slightly quieter.
And there is some interesting science behind this.
Research examining people's experiences of natural environments has found associations between hearing birdsong and improvements in mental wellbeing, including lower levels of stress, anxiety and psychological distress.
From an evolutionary perspective, natural sounds may also provide information about the safety of our environment. A landscape filled with normal animal and bird sounds can potentially provide very different sensory information to the brain than sudden, unpredictable or threatening noises.
That doesn't mean birdsong is some magical switch for the parasympathetic nervous system.
But our environment matters.
What we hear, see and feel provides a constant stream of information to our brain. Getting outside, listening to natural sounds and giving our attention a break from phones, traffic, notifications and constant stimulation may be one very simple way to help the nervous system settle.
So perhaps your morning walk is doing more than just getting your steps in.
SCM Release
The sternocleidomastoid, or SCM, is the large muscle running down either side of the front of your neck, from behind the ear towards the sternum and collarbone.
It helps us rotate and side-bend the head, and it can also act as an accessory breathing muscle.
When breathing demands increase — during exercise, stress or respiratory difficulty — accessory muscles around the neck can contribute more to lifting the rib cage. Some people also develop breathing patterns where these muscles seem to be working harder than necessary even when they're at rest.
This is why I sometimes like combining gentle SCM release with slow breathing.
Rather than thinking of SCM release as directly "switching off" the nervous system, think of it as an opportunity to reduce unnecessary muscular tension, become aware of how you're breathing and encourage the diaphragm and rib cage to do more of the work.
You can gently turn your head to one side and feel the SCM become more prominent on the opposite side of your neck. Rather than digging deeply into it, use light pressure and slow movements.
Then take a few quiet breaths.
Let your shoulders relax.
Notice whether you can allow the breath to expand into your lower ribs rather than lifting through your shoulders and upper chest.
The common thread
What I love about these strategies is that they're incredibly simple.
You don't necessarily need another supplement, device or complicated morning routine to influence how you feel.
Sometimes it's changing what you're hearing.
Sometimes it's releasing tension you've been holding without noticing.
Sometimes it's changing your body position.
Sometimes it's simply slowing down and paying attention to your breath.
Our nervous system isn't something we need to "fix". It's designed to move between activation and recovery throughout the day.
The goal is flexibility — being able to switch on when we need energy, concentration or physical performance, and being able to settle again when the demand has passed.
And the more we practise creating these little moments of down-regulation, the more opportunities we give our body to experience what calm actually feels like.