In this post, I’m going to explore 9 more micro habits you can do today that can help you get unstuck from depression, freeze or a shut-down trauma response. You’ll learn quick practices to climb the polyvagal ladder so you can feel safer and more energized.
Understanding Your Nervous System’s Polyvagal Ladder
Quick refresher.
Our nervous system has three general states. Ventral vagal is where you feel safe and connected, you feel calm and capable, and you can generally adapt to problems. The sympathetic state is where you feel more activated, alert, on guard, or anxious. And the dorsal vagal is where things feel overwhelming, or you feel powerless, or helpless. In dorsal vagal your nervous system triggers a parasympathetic response that can make you feel exhausted, heavy, or sluggish. You may feel like withdrawing from people or staying in your bed, or you might be pushing through but feel dead inside.
None of these states are “bad”. Having moments where you feel stressed out, or even where you feel like giving up and conserving energy can actually be really helpful and adaptive because that’s your nervous system’s way of trying to help you survive. But it becomes problematic when we get stuck in one of these states, when we’re anxious all the time, or stuck in depression or shutdown. That’s when the nervous system becomes less flexible and we get in a rut that’s hard to get out of.
What we need are some tiny habits that both restore your sense of safety, and help you get your nervous system to get more activated and regulated.
1. Blink and look around
The first thing I want you to do is to blink your eyes. Now open them. Slowly look around the room you’re in. Move your eyes from side to side. Start to move your head around, look up, look left and right. What do you see in your room? Name it out loud.
When you’re shut down, your gaze often gets stuck in a rigid tunnel vision or blurry. Slowly looking around the room—moving your head a little, noticing colors or shapes—tells your brain: “I’m safe enough here in my environment.” This exercise helps us move up the polyvagal ladder by increasing our sense of safety. The next activity will help us get activated.
2. Take fast breaths
You’ve probably heard that slow, deep breathing can be good for you. That’s true, especially if you’re stuck in an anxious state. Slow breathing can send a message to your nervous system that you’re safe. But if you’re stuck in a sluggish dorsal vagal state, we want to do the opposite.
Go ahead and try some short, quick inhales. Pretend you’re a bunny sniffing a flower. Take 3-4 quick sniffs. This can help send a message to wake up, get moving, get activated. If you can do this with an actual flower, the scent will also help activate your nervous system. You can do this right before a difficult task, or just as part of your morning routine to get more activated.
3. Change your environment
Here’s another tiny thing to try: change your environment to make it more stimulating.
We may try to think our way out of depression, but this often leads to ruminating, self-criticism, and getting more stuck. Let’s switch things up to send a new message to your brain.
Open the windows, turn on the lights, clean one area, sit outside instead of inside. Or switch up your work environment and go to a coffee shop or bookstore or library to work (or not work).
Mother Nature has the best environments for our nervous systems.Tons of studies have shown that time in nature is soothing for the brain and body. Green therapy, blue therapy—even just watching a nature documentary can help. Our environment sends messages of safety or danger to our primitive brain, so use it to your advantage. Just change your scene and see how it impacts your mood.
One of my wise followers told me Move a muscle, move a thought. We aren’t just minds, and we often can’t think our way out of a shutdown state. We need physical change to do that. And that takes us to our next habit…
4. Move your body when you’re stuck in depression
You probably don’t want to hear this, but exercise is literally one of the best treatments for depression and trauma. But it doesn’t have to be crossfit, so stay with me here. Your window of tolerance is the range of activities that you can do. They’re going to stretch you and probably put you out of your comfort zone, but they’re going to help you. For some people this might look like exercising for hours or running every day, but for others this might look like simply clapping your hands while sitting up in bed.
Here’s what you need to know: physical exercise is one of the most powerful tools for improving mental health because movement directly influences the brain and nervous system. When you move your body—whether through walking, stretching, dancing, or lifting weights—it releases endorphins and other feel-good neurotransmitters including endocannabinoids that boost mood and reduce anxiety and depression. Exercise also helps regulate stress hormones like cortisol, improves sleep quality, decreases inflammation, and strengthens your sense of agency by reminding you that you can take action to influence how you feel. It helps your nervous system believe that it is capable. Over time, consistent movement literally rewires the brain for better emotional regulation and resilience, making it easier to handle life’s challenges with a calmer, clearer mind.
If you’d like to learn more about simple changes you can make that can powerfully improve your mental health, check out my online course “Change your brain.” It’s part of my membership, which includes 9 other courses and a weekly live Q&A.
So what’s the best kind of exercise for depression? First, it’s whichever one you’ll actually do consistently. And research shows certain types are especially effective:
- Aerobic exercise Activity that gets you breathing hard—like brisk walking, jogging, swimming, or cycling—has the strongest evidence for improving mood. Doing 30 minutes of moderate activity three to five times a week can significantly reduce depressive symptoms, as much as medication for mild to moderate depression. And this study found that dancing was one of the best ways to do it!
Ultimately, the goal isn’t intensity — it’s regular, enjoyable movement that helps you reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system, and remind yourself that you can take action, even when your brain says you can’t.
You might be feeling overwhelmed or depressed about this, but let’s use your window of tolerance to dial in some movement that will actually work for you:
- Mind–body movement like yoga, Tai Chi, or dance, is particularly helpful when depression is tied to stress, trauma, or body disconnection.
- Outdoor activity, especially in natural light, adds an extra antidepressant boost by resetting circadian rhythms and increasing vitamin D levels. Active chores like chopping wood or weeding the garden are also great.
I heard a great story about a woman who, due to health problems, couldn’t leave her bed. So she watched Richard Simmons and clapped to his dancing. Over time she got healthier both physically and mentally, and was eventually able to get out of bed and actually do the aerobics. So be gentle with yourself and just do a tiny bit more each day.
- Stretching your neck and shoulders
- Massaging your face
- Tapping
- Wiggling – If standing feels like too much, start with your toes. Wiggle them. Then maybe your fingers. Small movements can remind your body that you’re alive and capable of action.
5, Connect with other people
We Americans live in this hyper-individualistic society. The messaging we constantly get is that self-help and self-care are the most important tools for mental health. But that’s not how the nervous system works. Our nervous system actually depends on people to regulate. We need co-regulation to soothe or activate in a sustainable way. You need to be around people, so please reach out or put yourself in situations where you’re going to be around good people. Here are some of the best, most soothing and activating types of connection for your nervous system:
- Laughing
- Hugging
- Eye contact
- Talking
- Just being in a loved one’s physical presence
You’ll probably need to take action to make this happen: schedule a recurring lunch date, make a plan with a friend to take turns in each other’s gardens, volunteer at school or nursing home.
The next two habits seem like they contradict each other, but bear with me. They are to cut out a few things and bravely face a few things.
6. Cut some stress from your life
What are some really stressful things that you can just take a break from? Maybe not permanently, but you need some room on your plate to be able to take the time your body needs to heal. Can you decrease your stress by 5%? By 1%? Maybe this looks like turning down an opportunity at work, or allowing yourself to “not be perfect” in some area like parenting or cleanliness. The goal here is to give yourself some margin, some mental resources to face the problems in your life. And that takes us to #7.
7. Stretch your window of tolerance
Do one hard thing every day. Pick one challenge to face, whether it’s cleaning out a drawer or going to therapy or setting that boundary. Use a buttload of positive self-talk and surround yourself with positive people. “I can do hard things!” “Let’s go!” or even “It’s a good day to have a panic attack! Bring it on!”
It may seem counterintuitive, but you actually strengthen your sense of safety when you leave your comfort zone and challenge yourself to get into the growth zone.
And this is the other interesting thing about the polyvagal ladder: you can’t usually jump from dorsal vagal right to the ventral vagal, the safe and calm. Usually, we have to go through the activated state or the anxious state in order to get there. Like we might have to make a huge to-do list of all the things, and that might make us feel really anxious, and then we just pick one of the things to do, and we take action on that, and that can help us move out of this dorsal vagal state into ventral vagal, going through anxiety.
8. Eat well and stay hydrated
Sometimes our body slips into shut-down/depression because it’s simply run out of energy. You’re so sleep deprived, nutrient deprived, dehydrated, or worn out that your body has decided to force you into a waking hibernation by slowing everything down, including your mood. [Emma adlibbed more here.] Your body tries to force you to replenish your resources. So one of the ways we can support ourselves and improve our health is by taking the time to restore our body’s physical resources. I’m just going to mention a few ways to do this.
- Nourish your body. Check for nutrient deficiencies. There have been multiple studies showing that nutrient deficiencies make people less resilient and more likely to develop mood disorders. One study even showed that for people who had just survived an earthquake in New Zealand, the group that were provided a high quality multivitamin were more resilient to the stress than the group without a multivitamin. What does this mean? Nourish your body. When possible, eat a lot of healthy plants with bright colors. Talk with your doctor about getting checked for nutrient deficiencies.
- Drink water. You don’t need to go overboard here, because more isn’t necessarily better. But make sure to drink enough water to be well hydrated.
9. Improve the quality of your sleep
Depression, anxiety, ADHD and a bunch of other mental health conditions are closely related to poor sleep quality. AND improving your sleep is a powerful way to improve your mood. I’ve got a playlist on this, but there are some basic steps you can take.
- Get rid of caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and other drugs.
- Sleep hygiene. Don’t nap during the day. Don’t use your bed for work or other stressful things. Create a soothing nighttime environment. And have a consistent wake up time each day.
- If you’re struggling with insomnia or poor sleep quality, there’s some more advanced things you can do to work on that- from doing a sleep study to CBT-i, there really are some good options.
Don’t just settle for poor sleep quality. You can help your brain and body by making sleep a priority.
Bonus: Healing Beam of Light Body Scan to Get Out of Dorsal Vagal Shutdown
OK, now a little bonus. One of my favorite little meditations is called “Healing Beam of Light”. If you feel cold, stuck, frozen, or depressed, it can help to visualize the sun rising and the beams of light gently warming you. Let the light energize you starting at your head and moving to your toes. I made a little recording of this video which is coming out soon!
OK, so there you have it, 9 micro habits that can help you with depression or a shut-down trauma response. Don’t feel like you have to do them all. Just add in one or two each day and watch as you get a little more energy, a little more flexibility, and you feel a little more calm and capable.
