Running from the lion
your nervous system is not the enemy
The savannah was brutal, but it was honest.
When the grass moved and danger appeared, the body knew what to do. Your nervous system flooded your veins with cortisol, hammered your heart against your ribs, and gave you a binary choice to either outrun the teeth, or fight them. When the danger passed, the body could then settle again. The threat had a shape, the stress had somewhere to go and the nervous system could complete the cycle. Pretty straight forward, right?
Today, we are still running from the lion, we just can’t find where it’s hiding. We are living with bodies that still recognise danger, but can no longer locate it clearly. The modern nervous system exists in a state of constant activation because it is trying to navigate conditions humans are not really designed to sustain indefinitely. Endless notifications, surveillance disguised as productivity, social disconnection, financial pressure, sensory overload, chronic uncertainty, the expectation to perform continuously while appearing emotionally unaffected... It’s constant and it’s relentless. We have traded acute physical danger for a low-grade, perpetual hiss of existential dread.
Book your space here for May’s webinar - Dysregulation reframed as misaligment
Our biology has not fundamentally changed, but the environments surrounding it have.
The problem is that modern stress doesn’t arrive as a single, visible threat anymore. It arrives as accumulation, fragmentation, ambiguity. The nervous system does not receive a clear beginning or ending. It just receives signal after signal after signal that something is not safe, predictable, or manageable.
The sad part is, that when we cannot make sense of that internal alarm, we often turn against ourselves. We call ourselves lazy when we are exhausted. We call ourselves dramatic when we are overwhelmed. We call ourselves dysregulated when our body is responding coherently to chronic strain.
I believe this is one of the main misunderstandings at the heart of how we talk about dysregulation. What if, much of the time, it is evidence of misalignment?
Misalignment between ancient biology and modern expectations.
Misalignment between human needs and industrial pacing.
Misalignment between sensory systems and environments built without taking them into account.
Misalignment between our need for connection and a culture that celebrates being independent.
And so, a nervous system is reacting to conditions, which ironically, we instinctively understand when we look at animals. For example, when a caged animal paces endlessly inside a concrete enclosure, we recognise that the environment itself is incompatible with the creature’s needs and the behaviour makes sense within the context, yet humans are rarely afforded the same compassion. We place ourselves inside relentless systems and then pathologise the body for struggling inside them. We ask people to adapt to impossible conditions while treating their distress as personal dysfunction. It doesn’t make sense.
Of course, nervous systems protest! Of course, bodies collapse! Of course, we reach a point where focus disappears, emotions intensify, shutdown happens, or survival responses take over! I’d be more shocked if this didn’t happen…
It’s worth mentioning that not every experience of misalignment is caused by environment alone, and not every struggle disappears when conditions improve, but so many people have spent years trying to fix themselves without ever questioning whether the environments surrounding them are fundamentally misaligned with what their nervous system requires to feel safe, connected, and regulated.
This reframing matters because shame keeps people trapped. If you believe your nervous system is defective, you will spend your life trying to become someone else, however if you understand your responses as information, you can begin asking different questions.
What is my body responding to?
What pace is unsustainable for me?
What sensory input is overwhelming me?
What expectations constantly push me beyond capacity?
What kinds of environments allow me to breathe easy?
Regulation is not about learning to tolerate distress more effectively... Sometimes it is about recognising that the body is accurately detecting misalignment and that changes the conversation entirely. The goal is no longer perfect self-control inside harmful conditions. The goal becomes creating lives, systems, relationships, schools, workplaces, and communities that human nervous systems can meaningfully inhabit without constantly entering survival mode.
Remember, the body is not the enemy here. The modern world, for all its fractures, is the world we have and we can at least change how we interpret the noise.
On the 20th of May, I am aiming to reframe dysregulation as misalignment.
If this interests you, please book your space here. A recording will be provided to all ticket holders.
Upcoming events:
On the 19th of June you can find me in London, speaking at the Autism & ADHD Show.
In August I am taking part in the Autistic Mental Health Conference.
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