Sometimes you know you are safe, but your body does not seem to be getting the message. Your heart is racing. You cannot think clearly. You shut down. You feel restless, frozen, irritable, disconnected, or completely overwhelmed. And being told to "just calm down" usually does not make any of that easier.
In this episode of Notes to My Nervous System, I talk with Dr. Jayne McConnaughey about what can happen when the body responds to stress or threat, why those reactions are not simply a matter of willpower, and how another person's presence can sometimes help during difficult moments. We also discuss attachment, co-regulation, dissociation, trauma, and ways of noticing what is happening before immediately trying to force it away.
Why can your body feel overwhelmed even when you know you are safe?
Stress responses involve multiple systems in the body and brain. That means intellectually knowing "I am okay" does not necessarily cause uncomfortable physical sensations or emotional reactions to disappear immediately. People may experience increased heart rate, muscle tension, changes in breathing, difficulty concentrating, agitation, freezing, withdrawal, or feeling disconnected. Those reactions can occur for many reasons. They are not, by themselves, evidence of a trauma disorder or any particular diagnosis. One of the ideas we explore in this conversation is learning to notice what is happening without immediately interpreting the response as personal failure. Instead of: "Why can't I control this?" A more useful starting point can sometimes be: "What am I noticing right now, and what might help me get through the next few minutes?"
What is co-regulation?
One major topic in this episode is co-regulation. At its simplest, co-regulation refers to ways that interactions with another person can influence emotional and physiological states. A calm voice, predictable presence, respectful communication, appropriate physical proximity, or simply having someone remain with you during a difficult moment may make an experience easier to tolerate. That does not mean another person can "regulate your nervous system" on command. It also does not mean breathing together or using a calming strategy treats trauma. But relationships and social context can affect how people experience and recover from stress, which is one reason the quality of our interactions matters.
Why "calm down" often does not help
Imagine someone you care about is overwhelmed. The instinct may be to say: "Calm down." Usually the person already knows they would prefer to feel calmer. The problem is that an instruction does not necessarily provide a pathway to getting there. Instead, depending on the person and the situation, it may be more useful to reduce unnecessary demands, speak simply, provide some space, or ask what would be helpful. Sometimes support involves fewer words rather than more. And sometimes the person needs professional assistance rather than another coping strategy.
Nonverbal connection during stressful moments
We also discuss the role of nonverbal communication. Tone of voice, facial expression, pacing, proximity, posture, and whether someone feels pressured can all affect an interpersonal interaction. For some people, something as simple as sitting nearby or slowing the pace of a conversation can feel supportive. Others may need more physical space or less interaction. That is why there is no universal co-regulation technique. The useful question is not: "What is the nervous-system trick that works for everybody?" It is: "What is this person communicating that they need right now?"
What is dissociation?
Dissociation can describe experiences involving a disruption in someone's usual sense of awareness, memory, identity, perception, or connection with themselves or their surroundings. Experiences exist on a spectrum, and occasional mild dissociative experiences are not the same as having a dissociative disorder. Trauma can be associated with dissociation, but dissociation should not automatically be interpreted as proof of trauma. In this conversation, we discuss approaching these experiences without shame and recognizing when symptoms are persistent, distressing, or interfering with daily life and deserve assessment by a qualified mental health professional.
Attachment and the way we respond to stress
Our early relationships can influence later patterns of relating to other people. Attachment research offers one framework for understanding some of these patterns. But attachment is not destiny. People cannot be reduced to a single attachment "type," and difficult adult relationships cannot necessarily be traced directly back to one childhood experience. Dr. McConnaughey and I explore attachment as one lens for understanding how people seek connection, protection, reassurance, or distance during stressful situations.
Supporting someone who is overwhelmed
When someone you love is having a difficult moment, it can be tempting to immediately solve the problem. Sometimes support looks different.
It might involve asking:
- "Do you want me to stay with you or give you some space?"
- "Would fewer words help right now?"
- "Is there something specific you need?"
- "Do you want help figuring out what comes next?"
The objective is not to perfectly regulate another person's body. It is to respond in a way that respects their autonomy while reducing unnecessary pressure.
We also discuss religious trauma and the psychological impact that harmful experiences within religious environments can have for some people. Those experiences vary substantially. This is another area where broad nervous-system explanations can oversimplify complex experiences. Understanding someone's history, context, relationships, beliefs, and individual symptoms matters.
In This Episode, We Discuss
- What people mean when they describe feeling stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown
- Why stress responses are not simply a matter of trying harder to calm down
- What co-regulation does — and does not — mean
- How attachment experiences may influence later patterns of connection and stress
- Why nonverbal communication can matter during difficult interactions
- Ways to support someone without immediately trying to fix their reaction
- How clinicians think about dissociation
- Why trauma responses should not be reduced to simple nervous-system categories
- Religious trauma and the importance of understanding individual context
- How curiosity can sometimes be more useful than judgment when the body reacts strongly
Frequently Asked Questions
Stress responses involve more than conscious thought. Physical arousal, attention, emotion, previous learning, current circumstances, sleep, health, and many other factors can affect how someone responds. Knowing that a situation is safe can help, but it may not immediately change what someone is experiencing physically or emotionally.
Co-regulation broadly refers to how interpersonal interactions can influence emotional and physiological states. It is not a treatment by itself and should not be interpreted as one person directly controlling another person's nervous system.
They are commonly used descriptions of responses associated with threat and stress, but popular online versions often oversimplify the science. Human stress responses are dynamic and do not divide neatly into four universal states.
No. Trauma can be associated with dissociation, but experiencing dissociation does not establish that someone has experienced trauma or has a trauma-related disorder. Persistent or impairing symptoms warrant professional assessment.
Brief regulation or grounding strategies may help some people manage an immediate experience, but they are not substitutes for evidence-based trauma treatment when treatment is indicated.
From Erin Vandermore, Host
Her conversations explore the places where stress, relationships, parenting, education, and mental health meet everyday life — particularly the gap between knowing what we want to do and being able to access it when stress is high.
A key lesson transferred from therapy to education is that additional instruction is not always effective when an individual cannot temporarily process the guidance being provided. Although I tend to over-explain, providing excessive words can be counterproductive — an insight that led to creating the Mind Circuit Ease app. This realization informed the creation of Mind Circuit™, a classroom platform focused on a specific challenge: offering teachers a swift, low-effort method to execute a brief reset and resume instruction when a class loses focus.
