Why regulation is only half the truth

What throws my nervous system out of balance?

Often the focus is on how to calm down, stabilize, or find your center again. But at least as important is the question: What actually throws your nervous system out of balance?

Without this understanding, self-regulation often remains an attempt to suppress symptoms – instead of identifying the actual causes.

Your nervous system is not an engine room

From a medical perspective, your nervous system works continuously to maintain internal balance – the so-called homeostasis . The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are extremely sensitive to stress. If stressors are persistent or very intense, this regulation can be disrupted. This is not a personal failing, but simply biology.

Was bringt Ihr Nervensystem überhaupt aus dem Gleichgewicht?

There are typical factors that reliably disrupt this balance:

1. Persistent overload

Too many tasks constantly activate the sympathetic nervous system – the body's internal "accelerator." This keeps your body in a subtle state of alert: muscle tension, poor sleep, little exercise in the fresh air, rapid breathing. Not because you can't handle enough, but because the system is overloaded.

2. An excessive pace of life

When stimuli bombard you faster than your body can process them, chronic stress develops. Physiologically, this means your parasympathetic nervous system – your "calming system" – barely gets a chance to do its job. This leads to inner restlessness, irritability, and the feeling of constantly "falling behind."

3. Uncertainties in life

The brain needs predictability. Without it, the stress axis (HPA axis) is more strongly activated – a biological protective mechanism. Uncertain employment, unstable relationships, or unresolved future issues often keep this axis permanently activated.

4. Financial burdens

Financial worries act on the nervous system like a constant threat. The stress response system operates in the background – often unnoticed – and raises your baseline level of tension.

5. Loneliness or lack of support

Humans are biologically designed for co-regulation. Without exchange or emotional closeness, your nervous system has to stabilize itself – an enormous additional burden.

6. The pressure to constantly have to function

This social stress works quietly but intensely. The inner thought "I can't fail" activates the same systems as real danger. Your body hears: "Keep going – no matter how you feel."

7. We perceive the symptoms – but not the underlying conditions.

We often only notice stress when our bodies start screaming for help: sleep problems, exhaustion, irritability, palpitations, migraines, tinnitus. But the real burdens usually lie in the circumstances that repeatedly trigger these symptoms. It is precisely this overlooking of the causes that leads to chronic stress.

8. Stress is not a weakness, but a protective signal

From a medical perspective, stress is often a sensible reaction:

Your body is signaling: "It's becoming too much – I'm protecting my resources."

Feeling tired, overstimulated, or exhausted is not a personal failure. Needing breaks is not a sign of weakness. It simply means your nervous system is working—for your benefit.

Your nervous system is probably not losing its balance because you are "too sensitive". It is reacting perfectly appropriately to an environment that often demands more than a single person can sustainably bear.