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Finding Your Calm: How Balancing Your Nervous System Leads to Better Decisions
Practical steps to cultivate inner peace as the foundation for making decisions that align with your true needs
The Anxiety Behind Choices
Have you ever found yourself paralyzed by indecision, or responding to situations in a rush, only to regret your choices later? In this episode of Working Towards Our Purpose, we explore the powerful connection between our internal state and the quality of our decisions. I discuss how balancing your nervous system can help you respond to life’s challenges with greater clarity and self-awareness.
The Urgency Trap: Why It’s So Hard to Decide
Modern life bombards us with choices, from the grocery store, to online, and especially at work. This abundance of options and pressure to act quickly can trigger feelings of anxiety and urgency. An unbalanced nervous system can cloud our judgment. When urgency and anxiety take hold, even routine decisions can start to feel overwhelming, pushing us toward reactive or just poor choices that can keep us stuck and unfulfilled.
What Does It Mean to Balance Your Nervous System?
If “balancing your nervous system” sounds abstract, lets break it down in practical terms. It’s an out-of-sorts feeling, tense shoulders, racing thoughts, restlessness, heart racing, these are all signs your system is on high alert. When you’re in this mode, the smallest tasks or decisions can seem monumental. By contrast, when your nervous system is settled, you feel at ease, present, and better able to process what’s in front of you.
This is not just a mental exercise, physical cues, such as clenched jaw or shallow breathing, are good indicators that you’re out of balance. Becoming aware of these signals and knowing how to reset, is a game changer for making good decisions that are in alignment with your values.
5 Simple Ways to Balance Your Nervous System
Here are some tools to help you in finding your calm:
1. Slow Down
Contrary to workplace culture, most things aren’t as urgent as they are made out to be. Take a break. Step away from your desk, go for a short walk, or simply sit quietly. Just ten minutes away can help you reset your nervous system and approach choices with a clearer head.
2. Breathe Deeply
It may sound too simple, but focusing on your breath can work wonders in settling your mind and body. Try taking three deep, intentional breaths. Inhale fully, hold, and exhale slower than you inhaled. Do this 3 times in a row and notice how quickly your sense of panic starts to dissipate.
3. Move Your Body
Exercise. Whether it’s running, working out, playing sports, any physical movement creates positive momentum for your mind. Even a brisk walk around the block helps diffuse anxious energy and brings perspective.
4. Seek Community
Social interaction, like a call with a friend or a nod from a stranger at a coffee shop, can remind you that you’re not alone in your worries. Positive human contact helps ground you and prevents stress from spiraling.
5. Connect with Nature
Spending time outdoors, especially by water, is a powerful reset for your nervous system. If possible, take a walk in a park, by the ocean, or even look up at the stars or clouds. Nature tends to put lingering anxieties into perspective and offers a sense of peace that can’t easily be found indoors.
Why Calm Leads to Clarity
Ultimately, inner peace is the key to making choices that align with your true values and needs. When your nervous system is balanced, you’re more likely to process options thoughtfully, evaluate what’s important to you, and avoid reflexive decisions.
In a world that pushes us to do more, decide faster, and stay plugged in, take the time to slow down and cultivate your inner peace. As you do, you’ll not only improve your mood, you’ll discover the clarity and confidence to make choices that genuinely serve you.