A client came in for a massage recently and, as I began working around her shoulders, she said, “I can’t seem to switch off these days”. I hear versions of this quite often. We usually imagine tension as something we would notice. A tight back, aching shoulders, a racing mind, difficulty sleeping. But when you’ve been carrying tension for long enough, it can gradually become your normal.
You stop noticing that you are bracing yourself for the next event. You don’t realise you’re holding your breath while answering an email. You become accustomed to rushing from one thing to another, thinking ahead, solving problems and keeping track of what everyone needs. Your body has become very good at being “on”.
I sometimes describe this part of our nervous system as an over enthusiastic inner firefighter. He’s extremely useful when there is actually a fire. He gets the engine started, gathers the crew and gives your body the energy it needs to deal with whatever is happening.
The difficulty comes when the emergency is over but the firefighter doesn’t quite stand down. He’s still watching for smoke.
Was that email a problem? Why did she say that? What have I forgotten? What needs doing next?
None of these things necessarily feels dramatic. In fact, you may not think of yourself as stressed at all. You’ve simply become accustomed to living with the firefighter on duty.
Learning to notice when you’re switching on
One of the most useful things you can begin doing is noticing your own early warning signs. For example: you might notice yourself becoming less patient, more irritable and short tempered, experience brain fog, start making silly mistakes, feel anxious when you don’t normally, can’t sit still, feeling tired but can’t sleep. These are not signs that your nervous system is doing something wrong. They’re signs that it is preparing you to respond.
The question becomes: Do I actually need to be on high alert right now? And if the answer is no, what helps your body recognise that?
That is quite different from telling yourself to “just relax”. For some people it might be feeling their feet on the ground and looking around the room. For someone else it could be walking outside, slowing their breathing, listening to music, having a massage, talking with someone they feel comfortable with, or noticing one place in their body that already feels reasonably okay. Part of learning to switch off is discovering what works for your nervous system.
Finding Your Off Switch
This is what I’ve been exploring in my online course, Finding Your Off Switch — 5 Simple Steps for When You Feel Stressed, Tense and Can’t Relax.
We start by learning to recognise your own signs of revving up, then explore why safety needs to come before relaxation and practise different ways of helping your inner firefighter recognise when there isn’t actually a fire to fight.
The aim isn’t to be calm all the time. We need our “on switch”. It gives us energy, motivation and the ability to respond when life needs us. We also need to be able to come back down again.
Your off switch isn’t missing. You may simply have become so accustomed to being switched on that you’ve forgotten what switched off feels like. And that is something your body can begin learning again.
If you’d like to do the course
Finding Your Off Switch is an online course that you can work through in your own time over a few weeks. The course is $50.
If you’d like to join, use the Contact Me page on my website and let me know you’re interested in the Finding Your Off Switch course. I’ll get back to you with the details.