Nervous System

The Rhythm Within (Part One)

Meditation is a time-tested anti-anxiety strategy that dates back thousands of years. My story with it is like that of many others who have given it a try. For many years, I dabbled in various approaches to meditation, but for whatever reason it never turned into a consistent practice. After many failed attempts, I finally decided to take a more structured approach. I enrolled in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class, which met every Sunday night for eight weeks. This time . . .

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The 3 R’s: Regulation, Resilience, Resourcefulness (Part Two)

Compulsive sexual behavior can be the cause and the effect of a dysregulated nervous system, but what do you do to regulate yourself more efficiently? In order for balance and regulation to become a familiar internal state, you’ll need to integrate a self-regulation or co-regulation practice into your daily lifestyle. This can only occur, though, when you’ve learned . . .

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The 3 R’s: Regulation, Resilience, Resourcefulness (Part One)

When I went to graduate school at UCLA in the early ‘90s, there was no mention of the nervous system in any of my classes. The mind-body-spirit connection may have been a brief footnote, but all I learned about the nervous system was the fight-or-flight response, a survival instinct mentioned in my undergraduate psychology classes. Three decades later . . .

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The Intersection of Attachment and the Regulated Nervous System (Part One)

Reliable relationships are what help infants regulate their nervous systems, and attachment patterns are founded in this connection between a baby and its caregiver. Unfortunately, many of you did not have emotionally dependable parents, leaving you at risk for compulsive behaviors. In 1988, British psychoanalyst John Bowlby wrote A Secure Base, which sparked . . .

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