Ayurveda and Nervous System Regulation: Listening Before the Body Has to Shout

This summer reminded me that nervous system regulation is not the same thing as control.

For a long time, I think I understood regulation as being able to keep myself steady—to calm down, manage my reactions, and keep functioning. But the older I get, and the more deeply I study Ayurveda, the more I understand it differently.

Regulation is listening. It is noticing what the body is asking for before it has to become louder, and responding appropriately even when the answer is different from what usually works. Sometimes, it is allowing less to be enough.

The garden became one of my greatest teachers in regulation this summer — a place to nurture life, and to be nurtured in return.

When the Usual Tools Were Not Enough

I know nervous system dysregulation intimately.

My life has included enough trauma, instability, and chaos that vigilance became familiar long before I had language for it. Over time, I learned practices that helped me feel steadier: Abhyanga, yoga, Reiki, warm nourishing food, rhythm, and routine.

Those tools still matter deeply to me. But this summer was different.

The heat was intense. Perimenopausal heat layered on top of summer heat. Sleep became more disrupted, and my usual routines felt harder to rely on.

I began noticing signs that my system was struggling: a constant dull ache behind my right eye, eye twitching, more sensitivity, more tension.

Eventually, I ended up in the ER.

The medical evaluation was important, and I would never reduce that experience to one explanation. But in my own reflection afterward, I could not ignore how overloaded my system had felt leading up to it.

It became a turning point—not because I suddenly found the perfect practice, but because I realized I needed to listen differently.

Ayurveda Asks Us to Respond to What Is Here

This summer, full Abhyanga was not always what my body wanted. Oiling my feet became a smaller, grounding way to stay connected to the practice and care for the parts of me that carry so much.

This is one of the things I love most about Ayurveda.

It does not ask us to follow a routine blindly. It asks us to pay attention to qualities.

What is happening now? Is there too much heat, movement, stimulation, dryness? Too little rest?

What once felt grounding may not feel right in the same way during a different season, stage of life, or state of imbalance.

Abhyanga has long been one of my most important grounding practices, and I usually practice it daily. But this summer, with heat already high in my body, I found myself doing it less consistently.

That did not mean Abhyanga had stopped being supportive. It meant I had to stop treating regulation like a checklist.

I had to ask: what does my body need today?

Sometimes the answer was oil. Sometimes it was food, yoga, or Reiki.

And sometimes it was absolutely nothing.

The Practice of Doing Less

Sometimes the practice is not doing more. Sometimes it is allowing the body to be fully supported.

That last one is still difficult for me.

Rest sounds simple until you are someone who is very comfortable doing.

This summer, Savasana became one of my most important practices—not five minutes at the end of yoga, but thirty or forty minutes, sometimes every day.

I would lie down and let the body settle. Let the breath become less managed. Let myself stop producing, fixing, preparing, planning, or responding.

Occasionally, regulation meant cancelling something. Sometimes it meant leaving more space in my schedule or recognizing that a full day was not automatically a successful day.

I am still learning this. There is a part of me that wants rest to be productive before I fully allow myself to take it.

Ayurveda keeps reminding me that rest does not need to prove itself.

The Garden Became Part of the Medicine

The garden asked me to notice. A new flower, a bee, a tiny change from the day before — small moments of awe that brought me back into the present.

The garden became one of the greatest supports for me this summer—barefoot of course.

It gave me a quiet place to nurture life and, in return, to feel nurtured by it. The beauty, the bees, the birds, the surprise of what grew, the awe of watching a plant become something completely different from what it had been a few weeks earlier.

There was something deeply reciprocal about it.

I was caring for the garden, but I often felt as though the garden was caring for me too.

That feeling mattered.

I spend a great deal of my life nurturing other people, and I do not mean that negatively. It is work I love. But reciprocity feels different.

The garden did not need me to explain myself. It simply invited me to notice, tend, harvest, sit, walk, breathe.

And yet even something regulating can become another form of doing.

The abundance came, then the preserving, harvesting, drying, freezing, and the pressure to use everything. Suddenly, the garden that had been grounding me could also become another list.

That has been another lesson this year: something can be nourishing and still need boundaries.

The practice is not simply finding what helps. The practice is noticing when helping has tipped back into doing.

Regulation Is Not Perfection

Regulation is not about making everything neat and controlled. Sometimes it is learning to stay in relationship with what is alive, changing, and a little unruly.

This summer changed the way I think about nervous system regulation.

I no longer see it as getting myself back under control. I see it as learning to notice earlier, respond sooner, soften, receive, and change course.

It means understanding that my capacity may be different today than it was yesterday, and trusting that listening is part of the practice.

That is Ayurveda to me.

Not rigid routines. Not performing wellness perfectly.

Relationship—with the season, the body, the senses, food, movement, rest, and the earth beneath my feet.

Returning to Abhyanga, Differently

Returning to Abhyanga this fall feels less like adding another practice and more like making space to receive steady, nourishing care.

As fall approaches, I am feeling drawn back toward Abhyanga in a fuller way.

The cooler, drier, more mobile qualities of Vata season naturally make warmth, steadiness, oil, and rhythm feel supportive again.

I also plan to begin receiving Abhyanga from my own teacher in early September, and that feels important to me. I spend a great deal of time giving care. This fall, I want to practice receiving it too.

My hope is to continue seeing her monthly through fall and winter, as her schedule allows.

And that is part of why I continue to offer Abhyanga in my own practice—not because I believe one treatment fixes the nervous system. It does not.

But receiving steady, rhythmic, nourishing care can become one place where the body remembers what it feels like to soften.

My Seasonal Abhyanga sessions at Treehouse Studio are 75 minutes and are designed around exactly that experience: warm oil, repetitive rhythmic touch, time, quiet, and the chance to receive without having to manage the process yourself.

Each session also includes a handcrafted four-ounce seasonal oil used during your treatment, with the remainder going home with you.

For me, regulation has become less about doing the right thing perfectly. It has become about listening deeply enough to recognize what is needed, and responding with care.

Before the body has to shout.

With much love and care,

Jennifer

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