Taming the Lion

Your senses (hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, tasting) give your nervous system important information about your surroundings. Cues of safety for your senses may include hearing a friendly voice, the sound of ocean waves crashing on a beach, seeing a genuine smile, or smelling a beloved family member’s perfume when they give you a hug. These types of cues can help you stay grounded in a state of safety.

But remember that negativity bias? Your internal surveillance system is still working in the background, diligently scanning for any hint of threat. If it senses one, it can very quickly (in less than one second) activate a stress response to help you fight or run away from it. Either of these strategies require a lot of energy.

You aren't meant to live in an activated state over a long period of time. It’s meant to give you a quick burst of extra energy to respond to a short-term threat to your survival, and once you’re safe, your body should settle, shifting from the stress state back to a feeling of ease.

Here’s the problem: all sorts of relatively small threats also catch the attention of your nervous system and can trigger a similar stress reaction as if you have a wild animal chasing you. You don’t want to waste time considering options if your physical safety is truly at stake, so when you shift all the way into activation, the part of your brain that uses logic and reason shuts down.

But this isn’t limited to threats to your physical wellbeing. Humans are sensitive to threats to our emotional and social wellbeing too, and these can also move you into an activated response.

If you lose connection with a sense of safety that could keep you grounded, the intense emotions and chaotic energy that comes along with activation may result in dysregulated feelings and behavior.

A dysregulated “lion” state is easy for people to pick up on. This might look like: an angry facial expression, snapping or yelling at someone, storming off, a child throwing a tantrum, hitting someone, or attacking someone with unkind words.

We do tend to witness this state more frequently with young children, because the logical, reasoning part of their brain is far from developed. By the time we’re teens or adults, we’ve often learned to keep dysregulation buried inside in order to comply with social expectations. But, we’re more likely to let our inner lion come out at any age if we are already feeling stressed.

Sometimes, activating energy will trigger you to say or do something you’ll later regret. Other times, you may hold that energy in, try to project that you’re “fine”, but you feel the internal burden of the stress (this, I refer to as a “duck” state). When demands and emotions pile up to the point of overwhelm, you may feel a constant swirl of chaotic energy and stress hormones in your body. Over time, this can lead to inflammation and serious health concerns.

Moving in and out of activation is part of being human. It’s unrealistic to try to avoid ever being activated. Rather, the goal is to more frequently stay tethered to the safety state even while you are feeling some activating energy. If you can avoid shifting all the way into activation, you can still access that reasoning part of the brain, to remember and use strategies that regulate your emotions and prevent them from taking you to a state where you feel out of control, overwhelmed, or stuck in activation.

If you often find yourself in activation, SSP can begin to soothe that stuck chaotic energy. You can also take steps to soothe yourself and tether to safety so you can release that activating energy.

A great way to stay tethered to more regulated energy is mindful breathing. Slow your breaths down, and breathe out for a longer count than your in-breaths. For example, breathe in 1-2-3, and breathe out 1-2-3-4-5. When we breathe out slowly, it directly engages the calming branch of the autonomic nervous system, shifting your state from activated towards safety.

Another way to become more regulated is to intentionally add sensory cues to your day that your nervous system finds calming or grounding. Add a photo to your workspace or somewhere at home that reminds you of a place that feels safe to you. When you look at it, engage all your senses in imagining you’re there. For example, a photo of a beach lets me imagine smelling the salty air, feeling the wind on my face, watching the waves crash on the sand, feeling the sand under my feet. Research suggests that using imagery that engages our senses can help reduce the production of stress hormones in our body and help us reconnect to a state of safety.

Importantly, practice skills like breathwork and imagery when you’re feeling fairly calm. Otherwise, it’s difficult to access and use them once you’re in an activated state. The more you engage in regulating practices, the more you’ll be able to use them when you need them. (Bonus: the more you integrate these practices into your routine, the less often you’ll find yourself overwhelmed in a stress state!)