Home / What's going on? / Nervous System Reset
Nervous System Reset · South Berkeley
Fight-or-flight was meant to be temporary.
Sympathetic activation is for emergencies. Something happens, cortisol surges, you run or you fight, and then it is supposed to switch off. For a great many people it never does. It gets locked on, and the body stays braced for years, adrenals worn down, digestion and healing waiting for a quiet moment that never arrives.
- Length
- 90 minutes
- Aim
- Parasympathetic, rest and repair
- Good for
- Chronic stress, poor sleep, bracing
- First step
- A free phone call with me
Why this is the foundation
Healing is a parasympathetic activity.
Your body cannot heal, and cannot properly digest, while it is in survival mode. Those functions are not urgent from a survival standpoint, so they wait. And if survival mode never switches off, they wait indefinitely.
Parasympathetic is meant to be the default. Rest and digest, rest and repair. Sympathetic is meant to be the exception. For most people now it is the other way round, and they have been there so long they have forgotten there was another setting.
Manual Lymph Drainage happens to be unusually good at this. The pressure is very light and the rhythm is slow and repetitive, which is close to the ideal input for shifting someone out of alarm. Most people fall asleep. That is not a sign the session is wasted, it is the point.
When you realise this is supposed to be our natural state, something changes.
What this is for
Not a massage, though it is deeply restful.
This is the service for people whose body has forgotten how to stop.
Chronic stress
The obvious one. Not a bad week, but years of running at a level you have stopped noticing.
Sleep that does not restore
Where you sleep and wake unrefreshed, because you never actually went down.
Bracing
Shoulders, jaw, breath held high in the chest. The body holding a position nobody asked it to hold.
After trauma or surgery
Any significant event can lock the system on. Surgery does it even when you chose the surgery.
Alongside chronic illness
Where the nervous system state is doing real damage to everything else you are trying to manage.
Before something hard
A surgery, a treatment, a decision. Going in settled is worth a great deal.
What the session is like
Quiet, on purpose.
I talk less during this one. With people I know well we sometimes chat, but especially with someone new I want you to feel yourself going into that altered state rather than being kept in conversation.
The work is very light and very slow. Some of it is on the face and neck, some on the body, and there is a good deal of simply staying still with your system while it decides it is safe.
People often say afterwards that it stayed with them for days. That is the part that matters. Not the ninety minutes, but what your body does with the reminder.
Worth saying plainly
What this is not.
It is not therapy
I am not a psychotherapist and this does not replace one. If you are carrying something that needs talking about, that is a different and equally important kind of help.
It is not treatment for a mental health condition
It can be a genuinely useful part of a wider picture. It is not a substitute for care.
It is not a spa relaxation massage
It is lymphatic work with a specific physiological aim. That it feels wonderful is a side effect, not the design.
One session is a reminder, not a cure
A nervous system that has been locked on for a decade does not resolve in ninety minutes. It does remember, though.
Before you call
Questions I get asked.
What actually happens in a Nervous System Reset?
Ninety minutes of very light, slow, rhythmic lymphatic work, mostly quiet, aimed at shifting you out of sympathetic activation and into a parasympathetic state. Most people fall asleep at some point.
How is this different from a relaxing massage?
A massage works on muscle. This works on fluid and on your autonomic state, using pressure so light it surprises people. The aim is physiological rather than muscular, though it is extremely restful.
Will I fall asleep?
Very likely, and that is a good sign rather than a waste of the session. Your system does not switch off while it is on guard.
How long does the effect last?
It varies. People often report several days of feeling different, and some describe it as remembering a setting they had forgotten. Regular sessions hold it better than occasional ones.
Is this suitable if I have a trauma history?
Often yes, and many people find it useful. It is not therapy and I am not a therapist. Tell me what I should know about touch and positioning and we will work within it.
Can I have this alongside other treatment?
Yes, and it frequently works best that way, particularly alongside chronic illness care or before and after surgery.
You may also want
Related to this.
The next step
Tell me what your week feels like.
Fifteen free minutes on the phone with me. Describe what is going on and I will tell you honestly whether this is the right thing, or whether something else in my practice suits you better.