Are you aware that your nervous system is playing a role in how clutter affects you mentally and physically, and how you're approaching it, how you're working through it, and how you are staying on top of it?

84% of Americans, mothers in particular, have higher levels of stress than those living in well organized homes. And this stress is coming from their environment. 

So, the fact that the clutter in our homes is creating stress, that is when someone's going to call me for help. They can identify that it's the clutter. They are starting to put the connection together that their home, their space is not helping their stress levels. It's just increasing their stress levels. 

Today, I’m collaborating with Leah Davidson. Leah is a registered Speech-Language Pathologist and a certified Life Coach who specializes in helping people with traumatic brain injuries rebuild their lives. Leah’s training and experience has given her a unique perspective of the brain and nervous system, how they work and how resilient they are.

What does your nervous system do?

Leah notes the easiest way to think of your nervous system is, it's how your brain and your body connect and communicate with each other.

We often think of them as very separate but the nervous system is a communication channel that has several roles.

The main role is to work behind the scenes. It's taking care of your survival. It's running your breathing, your heart rate, your digestive system, your temperature control and its job is to keep you alive. 

The nervous system is done on an unconscious level. And it’s constantly scanning for safety and danger. It scans all 5 of our senses initially- things you can touch, you can see, you can hear, and it's picking up on cues to decide if there's safety or danger. 

It scans what's going on inside of you, so it's listening to your heart rate, your stomach gurgling, your thoughts, and what's going on between us relationally, that vibe that we have. 

Based on those three things, it decides if you are safe or you are in danger. Now this is not actual safety or danger. This is perceived safety or danger, and it's usually based. It takes all that information. It combines it with lots of your past experiences, lots of your past learning, and it will assign you a physiological state.

If it deems that you are safe, then you don't really notice a difference. You're put into what Leah calls team resilient, and that is where you just sort of go about your day. You feel good. You feel confident. You're getting things going. You can be curious and compassionate, and you can communicate. 

But if it scans danger, then the first thing it's going to do is want to protect you because you're in danger. Not necessarily true danger, but even if it’s a perceived danger. It ups your metabolism. It gets you ready to fight or flight. It gets you in this protection survival mode, what Leah calls team hyper. That's the first line, where you are ready. You can be a little bit filled with energy because you're ready to go to protect yourself. If you can't protect yourself or if you are spending so much time in this team hyper area expending all your resources or if the nervous system senses extreme danger, then it wants to conserve energy.

So it will completely shut you down and bring you down into a state of disconnect where you are shut down, hypoarousal, or what Leah calls team hypo, where you can conserve energy. 

So, essentially, it's scanning for safety and danger. Safety, you go to team resilient. You keep going. Danger, you're first going to go into a hyperarousal state. Too much danger, you're going to go into a hypoarousal state. The important thing to know about these states is when you're in hyper or hypo, you pretty much lose access to your thinking skills. So that means your thinking, your communication, your judgment, your decision making, your even your feelings, everything that you do will be in either a hyper or hypo state.

The important thing to know about these states is when you're in hyper or hypo, you pretty much lose access to your thinking skills, to your CEO, as I call her. So that means your thinking, your communication, your judgment, your decision making, your even your feelings, you are going to have limited access. 

So, understanding what state you're in is important because it sort of sets the path to what your thoughts, what your feelings, what your actions are, and it limits your ability to access your CEO who is the one that we want to be making the choices in our life.

How does the nervous system separate thoughts and your physical reaction to safety

Throughout our life thousands of impressions have shaped our nervous system, which is why we all have a different nervous system and why we all respond differently. 

Someone could experience one thing as being dangerous, whereas somebody else is like, what's the big deal about that? And it has to do with their nervous system - with their past experience, their past learning, and all on this precognitive level. 

So, the nervous system assigns you this state, and then based on the state, that is going to flavor all the thoughts that you have. So, if you walk into a situation and you sense danger or it's perceived as being dangerous, then your nervous system gets activated and your thoughts are likely going to be thoughts tinged with this hyper aroused state. They're going to be anxious, worried, ruminating, overthinking, and thoughts of nervousness and panic even with some aggression and defensiveness.

Now if you are more on the extreme end of hypo aroused, then you may think I'll never get this done. You'll be hopeless, helpless, sad and depressed. You may wonder what is wrong with you and feel a sense of shame. 

You may also get the added bonus of waffling between the 2 or having both of them at the same time, which is that free state, which is just like I feel hopeless and helpless, and I'm in a state of panic and defensiveness and all those things. 

Your thoughts are really going to be, in a sense, dictated by the state of your nervous system, which is why it's not always helpful to tell people, let's just change your thoughts. Let's just change the way you're thinking about the clutter initially. Because we can change your thoughts, but if you're still activated, you're going to be changing your thoughts to reflect the same kind of flavor. 

What we need to do first is we need to learn how to regulate ourselves, bring ourselves to that safe zone where we realize that we are safe and we have access to our thinking skills, we can come up with thoughts that are going to help serve us because the flavor of our nervous system is one that invites in connection and communication and curiosity and all those things. 

So that's kind of why the nervous system really has to be our starting place because it is guiding the direction that we're going to be going in.

What to do when your nervous system feels off kilter

1. This is your biology and physiology and how your nervous system responds is not your fault. All of us feel dysregulated at times.
2. Create routines and understand on a fundamental level how your nervous system works. And it’s important to reset your stress cycles on a daily basis.

Work on your nervous system daily

Your nervous system is similar to bruising your teeth, it’s something you have to deal with every day for the rest of your life. 

You need to regulate your nervous system hundreds of times a day, it just takes a few seconds to do it. 

It's building up the awareness to notice when you're getting activated and then to do something about it, and we do that hundreds of times a day. And as we continue to do that, we start teaching our body what it's like to be in a regulated state. And then that becomes more of our natural set point where we crave to go back there.

So we push ourselves or we invite ourselves to get back to that regulated state so it's like a cumulative effect. Initially, you may be like, oh, is this really helping? And then 6 months down the road, you'll have an interaction with somebody, and you'll just recognize you handle it so much differently. Or you'll walk into your closet, and you'll just very casually start decluttering some things and moving things over without getting dysregulated. 

That's the perk when you are dealing with it every single day.

How to reset your nervous system

Leah teaches a 3-step process to resetting your nervous system.

1. Establish that you are safe - because remember our nervous system doesn’t recognize between actual and perceived danger.
2. Ask myself am I safe? If you are feeling tension, or a pounding heart you can go into a relaxed state. Ragdoll is perfect for this.
3. Do you need to take a break from what you are doing? Maybe go for a walk, get some fresh air, set a timer on when you will stop what you are working on, etc

What is body doubling in relation to our nervous system

Body doubling or coregulating is one of the number one go-to ways to coregulate with somebody. It is how we first learn nervous system regulation. 

And then throughout our life, we are wired to connect partly because of our need for coregulation. And that is why when we go through difficult times or we're feeling overwhelmed, it can be very helpful to have someone who is very, very grounded. Simply their presence of grounding, even if they say nothing or do nothing, their presence is coregulating, and our nervous systems communicate with each other, and they can send each other messages of safety.

Overcoming perfection and releasing expectations

Leah notes she was definitely veering on the side of that perfectionist quality. Not wanting to put anything out there that wasn't perfect, holding herself to such a high standard to the point that she just wouldn't move ahead. And, ironically, it has been her work with the nervous system, teaching people about the nervous system, how she’s been able to let that go. 

Leah realized if she’s going to wait until she understood everything perfectly or had the perfect business setup or the perfect way and never made mistakes, she would never put her work out into the world.

She had to say to herself, “I will do my best. It doesn't have to be perfect, good enough, but it is more important that it gets out there than it is to be perfect.” 

Letting go of that expectation is but the results have been incredible. The more she put out there, the more she was willing to learn and make mistakes and grow from, the more people she was able to reach. 

And to have the feedback from people that are saying things like, you changed my life or changed my direction or you helped me in my business or helped me raising my kids and that just blows me away by that and thinking, I'm so grateful that I didn't wait until it was perfect because I would still be waiting. I wouldn't be doing this interview. I wouldn't be talking to you. I wouldn't have a business. I wouldn't be making changes in my own life, in my own relationships because I was holding myself back and staying so small because I needed it to be perfect. 

So, just letting that go has been hard, but it has been so rewarding. 

Connect with Leah

Website: www.leahdavidsonlifecoaching.com

Membership link:  https://leahdavidsonlifecoaching.com/connections

Instagram:@leahdavidsonlifecoaching

Facebook: @leahdavidsonlifecoaching

Podcast: Building Resilience

Clubhouse: @leahdav


If you'd like to listen to my podcast chat with Leah Davidson, you can find the episode on the Less Clutter. More You. Podcast. After taking a listen, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Send me a message on Instagram @chesterfieldorganizingco or at [email protected] and share your thoughts.

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Hello, I'm Maggie! I am the author of this blog and the owner of Chesterfield Organizing Co. I help people just like you declutter and organize their physical space so they can create the space for what matters most in all areas of their life.

As a professional organizer, it's my job to use patience and compassion, above all things, to guide you through the process of clearing the clutter, creating systems of sustainable organization, and/or helping you move with more ease. Whether you want an in-person service, organizing membership, or online service, Chesterfield Organizing Co. is here to help!