Why Managing Your Nervous System Is the Key to Stress Management and Burnout
Are you feeling overwhelmed, stressed, sick and tired? Or are you in your forties and have started the journey of perimenopause, which obviously brings an array of new challenges in the next phase of your life? You’re on the right medication, and you do rest, maybe not as often as you’d like, and yet you just can’t get out of the slump. You feel emotional, burnt out, fatigued and not quite yourself. Well, this is a key indication that you are in oxidative stress, and why managing your nervous system is the key to stress management and burnout.
At the heart of our wellness retreat lies a simple but powerful mission: to help you understand why daily restoration is essential and how to fill your cup consistently so you don’t spiral into burnout and unwanted emotional dysregulation.
A Real-Life Case: The Single Mom in Survival Mode
Today, we’re sharing a typical client story to illustrate the kind of consultation and counselling we offer. She’s a single mom, running her own business while raising her children. Recently, the father of her minor children lost his job, which meant she had to take on extra clients to compensate for the loss of child support.
This is more than just stress – it’s chronic survival mode. She’s barely coming up for air, and like many of us, she’s not breathing properly. When your body is stuck in “go-go-go” fight-or-flight mode, your central nervous system is in overdrive. And when this continues unchecked, it leads to something called oxidative stress.
I taught her how to regulate her emotions and prevent burnout with a basic understanding of the nervous system and a routine she can follow each night to release the pressure of the day and wake up relaxed, with enough sleep and rejuvenated, ready to take on all the challenges that will present themselves the following day.
What Is Oxidative Stress, and Why Should You Care?
Oxidative stress means your cells are starved of oxygen. And when that happens, three critical things break down:
- You stop absorbing nutrition effectively – even if you’re eating well.
- You stop absorbing hydration – even if you’re drinking litres of water.
- You stop releasing toxins, which leads to inflammation, weight gain, and hormonal imbalance.
You can’t manage your hormones unless you first manage your stress hormones. That’s where our work begins.
Understanding Your Nervous System: Sympathetic vs. Parasympathetic
Your central nervous system has two parts, sympathetic and parasympathetic. Here’s a short description to help you understand this in a practical way.
Sympathetic:
The fight-or-flight mode. If you can’t fight or flee, you freeze, which leads to procrastination, overwhelm, and even PTSD-like symptoms. In a car this would be the pedal you push to go.
Parasympathetic:
The rest-and-digest mode. Think of it like paraplegia—your body must stop, calm down, and reset. In a car, this is the brake pedal. You can’t keep driving; somewhere you must use the brakes, and if the brakes fail, you’re in a lot of trouble.
Many clients say, “I know what I need to do, but I just can’t get myself to do it.” That’s the freeze response. It’s not laziness – it’s biology.
The Sleep Paradox: Why You’re Still Exhausted
Even if you’re taking sleeping tablets, you may wake up feeling drained. That’s oxidative stress at play. Your body is producing trillions of new cells overnight, but if your nervous system is still charged, those cells carry yesterday’s emotional baggage. So how do we solve this problem?
The Stress-Decompress Cycle – It’s a Lifestyle
When your nervous system is hyped, your emotions are hyped. Trauma, stress, and difficult emotions become even harder to process and regulate. That’s why decompression is non-negotiable. You simply must create a habit to do the following. And yes, it might not be easy in the beginning, but it’s a key component to living a life of success without falling prey to emotional dysregulation, fatigue and even worse, an autoimmune disease.
Managing Your Nervous System: Stress, Decompress and Repeat
During the Day:
Remember the car pedals – as you drive, remind yourself to brake, aka breathe (4 breaths in, hold for 7 counts and out for 8 counts).
Whether you’re driving, sitting at your desk or taking a brisk walk. Breathing is the first step in mini decompression techniques to reset that nervous system and prevent the overwhelm that could follow.
Sleep Routine:
- Bath or shower to wash away the negative energy of the day
- Breathing exercises to decompress the nervous system (we have videos about breathing to show you how).
- Meditation or prayer or journaling to get the junk out of your mind and centre yourself
It’s not indulgent – it’s essential to survival and success.
Prevention Is Better Than Diagnosis
Oxidative stress is the common denominator of all disease. It leads to inflammation, which is a buzzword in the medical industry today. You cannot just see a medical doctor; you must change your lifestyle, and this includes moving, food, sleep and stress.
Prevention is not only better than cure – it’s easier to manage than treating a medical diagnosis. That’s why we teach you how to regulate your nervous system, restore your breath, and reclaim your energy.
At our retreats we do breathwork and trauma and emotional release exercises and counselling to assist with lifestyle and stress management, plus you get treated to amazing massages, oxygen sauna therapy and so much more. You can check out the details of our retreat here.
Like our single mom slash entrepreneur, take control of your health and your future, and do whatever it takes to get back into balance physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically and spiritually.
Don’t wait till it’s too late; get hold of us today and take your health to the next level.