The Stress Spiral: Why Our Bodies Get Stuck
Chronic stress, trauma and persistent pain can overwhelm our system. The autonomic nervous system splits into two key branches:
- The sympathetic system: your gas pedal – activating fight, flight, or freeze responses.
- The parasympathetic system: your brake – helping you relax, digest, and heal.
When stress dominates, the parasympathetic “brake” becomes weak. The result? You’re perpetually tense, anxious, or worn down.
Over time, this imbalance predisposes us to poor emotion regulation, cognitive impairment, and physical symptoms:
- Irritability, emotionally ‘up and down’, fear, avoidance
- Sleep disruptions, mental fog
- Pain sensitivity, digestive issues, fatigue
Understanding this imbalance is the first step toward healing.
The Power of Variability: Your Heart’s Hidden Message
You might think the heart beats steadily like a metronome. In reality, a healthy heart variably adjusts between beats – inhaling speeds it up, exhaling slows it down. This is known as Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and it’s a key indicator of your body’s resilience and adaptability. A high HRV means a responsive, balanced nervous system; a low HRV reflects rigidity and stress.
Studies show people with PTSD, depression, substance misuse issues, or chronic conditions often have lower HRV, signalling poor body–mind communication and flexibility. However, HRV can be trained and improved over time.
HRV Biofeedback: A Gentle Path to Rebalance
HRV Biofeedback teaches you to naturally boost your parasympathetic activity through breath.
- You breathe at a steady, slow pace—typically 5–6 breaths per minute, known as your resonance frequency—a rate where heart and breath rhythms align.
- Watching your heart’s response in real time, you learn to train mind-body coherence, triggering a cascade of physiological and neurological processes that lead to better psychological and physical outcomes.
- Over time, this rhythmic breathing becomes embedded, helping you tap into a state of grounding, calm and clarity, even without the device. It’s like building “mental fitness”.
Why Breath and HRV Matter for Everyday Life
HRV training and resonant breathing can enhance your well-being across multiple domains:
- Reduces anxiety and stress by increasing emotional regulation.
- Improves sleep, focus, and mood through vagus nerve activation.
- Decreases pain sensitivity by calming sympathetic arousal.
- Builds resilience—increases ‘psychophysiological flexibility’.
- Boosts cognition by supporting executive function, attention, and memory.
- Enhances physical performance, improving coordination, endurance, and recovery.
Imagine your body gently returning to homeostasis, with each breath guiding you back into balance.
Real-Life Tools for Building Calm
The concept of harmonious oscillation, like the tides or circadian rhythms, is echoed in both Eastern philosophy and modern self-regulation science; HRV training is a modern way to realign with your ‘internal’ rhythm. Today’s portable ECG-based devices, which can be linked with smartphones, allow you to track and improve your HRV in real-time, in the comfort of your home, turning your biofeedback practice into your daily ritual.
A Nervous System Aligned with your Life
In a world that glorifies overdrive, many of us live in a state of chronic nervous system dysregulation – until burnout or illness forces us to stop. However, you can proactively retrain your nervous system to function optimally; restoring energy, clarity, and health.
If you’d like to explore Biofeedback, nervous system retaining or optimising your mental and physical performance, Thea Chadwick specialises in guiding individuals through integrative physiological, psychological, and behavioural therapies; restoring balance, building resilience, and helping you thrive.
Thea Chadwick
