The “Nervous System Whisperer” Nahid de Belgeonne Shares the Best Way to Soothe Anxiety

Nahid de Belgeonne wants us to think of our nervous system like a toddler. "If your toddler wanted to eat, they would tell you," says the somatic movement educator . "They would tell you they wanted you to care for them or put them down to sleep. Our nervous system needs that regularity and tenderness, too."

It's no secret why de Belgeonne is known as "the nervous system whisperer." She became fascinated with the messaging system of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves when working with clients at her yoga and pilates studios in London. Seeing how they were in constant loops of tension and anxiety, she collaborated with them one-on-one, helping them to listen to their bodies and tap into their senses and breath. She taught them micro-movements to move energy and release stress. "And low and behold, they were able to disrupt whatever dysfunctional state or dysregulation they were in," she tells us.

de Belgeonne offers her nervous system wisdom through her online program The Soothe Programme and her book Soothe: Restoring Your Nervous System from Stress, Anxiety, Burnout, and Trauma. What's so compelling about her work is the hope it reveals. Through a deeper understanding of our bodily selves and accessible practices—including the one she offers us below—we can free ourselves from loops of stress and tension and feel more peace and ease.  

A CONVERSATION WITH NAHID DE BELGEONNE

You've been doing this work for a while. Have you seen a growth in people's interest in soothing the nervous system and looking to somatic work to ease stress?

Without a doubt! Our secular world isn't giving us the answers, and overconsuming isn't giving us the answers, so I think we're looking for deeper meaning. The truth is that we've tried all the hacks and fads, but we really need a deeper way of connecting with ourselves. So, this new understanding comes from a yearning to figure out how to be human in the world and how to connect with people. Somatic work really helps solve that riddle because it gets you connected with yourself. When you connect with yourself, you then have the capacity and the generosity to open-mindedly and peacefully connect with others and your environment.

We are humans living in this quite inhumane world. The speed of the news and the width and breadth of what we hear are almost too big for our nervous systems to bear. I believe that if you are the gatekeeper of your own nervous system. Literally, no one else will be. And when you're fearful, exhausted, and mistrustful, you're very easy to manipulate. So, I think we're experiencing a rejection of that, and instead, more people are wanting something deeper.

Movement, including micro-movement, is an anchor of your work. How is movement important in caring for our nervous systems? And what do we tend to overlook today in how we live?

Rather than thinking of our nervous system—and even us as human beings—as something that can just be pushed and pushed and pushed until it breaks, and then we recover and repair, there's a much better way to think of it. Throughout your day, your nervous system goes along like a little wave. You might have a blip, then you counter it, something else happens, then you counter it, and so on. When you experience a spike of cortisol in your system, the most important thing to do is to move it out. Movement is very regulatory, and it's how our brains evolved. Our brain evolved for complex movement and complex social organization. When our ancestors, who were hunter-gatherers, were being chased, they would have run away from something, and that dissipated the cortisol. Then, they would get back to their community and rest.

[These days] we just sit passively, receiving and receiving and receiving. And it's not just that we're passively receiving information and not doing much about any alarms we feel, but we also just stay sedentary. We're putting a lot of strain on our heads; they fall forward, and our stomach muscles often collapse. Sitting in this way puts a load on your internal organs, and they're not meant to be weight-bearing. Those things signal to your nervous system that you are in an alarm state. And if you're in an alarm state and all the processes that deal with that kick off. So, we constantly need to counter our modern lifestyle in every way that we possibly can.

The thought of being "the gatekeeper" for our nervous system, as you said earlier, speaks to how we can have agency over how we feel and respond. This is huge, considering how choice can feel distant when our world is so chaotic.

We are subject to so much content, and so much of it is confusing. That's why it's important to trust your own bio-intelligent body. My method allows you to listen to the signals coming from your body, pause to interpret them, and decide your course of action. I love it because it's not guru-based, it's not somebody telling you, and it's not dependent on someone else. It taps into your bio-intelligent wisdom, and once you do that, it's such a peaceful way to live.

Because you are always evolving, and your circumstances and environment are constantly changing, too. You can't control that, but you can control how you respond to it. Our technology is so fast, and we expect human beings to respond to it in a really fast way—and that's what is burning us out because we think we have to keep pace. A more useful strategy is to be able to counter the speed of it by slowing down and saying, 'Enough.'

Let's say we're feeling burnt out and stressed at the moment. In the States, we've just come out of Thanksgiving, and we're all entering the holidays. What is an exercise we can do to help us slow down and ease our nervous systems?

This is a lovely one, and I do it all the time.

• Sit on a chair. Have your sit bones on the edge of the chair and your feet on the ground. Remind yourself where your pubic bones are, underneath your pubic mound. Let them be a marker. And then remind yourself where your last rib is and let that be a marker.
• Sitting right on top of your sit bones, curl your pubic bones towards your last rib so your back rounds a little and your head sinks. Then, roll back to the top of your sit bones again. When you think of curling your pubic bones towards the last rib, it's nicer and more compassionate.
• Then, go the opposite way. Roll your pubic bones away from the last rib, allowing your belly to round and come forward and the chest to lift. Then roll back on your sit bones.
• Now, put that together with some breath. Exhale through the nostrils as you gently curl your pubic bones towards your last rib and round your back. Then inhale through your nostrils as you shift, and your belly goes forward and chest lifts. Exhale again as you round your back pubic bones to the last rib; inhale as you open up the chest and belly, and your pubic bones roll away from the last rib. Do that with yourself for a few minutes.

This is a gentle, easy way to metabolize stress; maybe you've just had a house filled with tricky relatives. Cortisol builds up in the body, so by doing this practice, you're moving your spine and getting fluids and blood to your brain. It helps you to reconnect with yourself easily, and linking your breath with your movement is super soothing for the nervous system.

You can even do this quietly in front of people, or if somebody a bit tricky is talking to you. I encourage people to not mind appearing weird in public. This allows you to soothe yourself and be forgiving of people who are irritating or saying outrageous things. You can regulate yourself, and then that sets the tone for others.  

Nahid de Belgeonne, known as “the nervous system whisperer,” is a UK-based somatic movement educator and breath and yoga practitioner. She focuses on private clients with her somatic and restorative system called The Human Method. Learn more and join here .