Feeling Overwhelmed? Your Nervous System Needs This Holiday Reset
- Ali Astrid Moto
- Nov 28, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 9, 2025
As the holiday season approaches, many of us feel a familiar blend of anticipation, tenderness, overwhelm, and pressure. We decorate our homes, prepare meals, gather with loved ones, and do our best to keep up with traditions. Yet beneath the surface, another part of us speaks—a quieter, more vulnerable voice asking for grounding, comfort, and connection.
We often spend so much energy caring for our physical health—sleep, food, movement, routine—but our emotional health deserves that same level of devotion. In fact, our emotional and physical worlds are not separate. They are deeply entwined through the intricate workings of our nervous system. This is where Polyvagal Theory offers something truly transformative.
Emotional Health Lives in the Body
Your emotional well-being isn’t just “in your head”—it’s a biological experience shaped by the state of your autonomic nervous system. When you feel safe, supported, or joyful, your body reflects this. When you feel overwhelmed or stressed, your body reflects that too.
Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, helps us understand why this happens. It explains how our nervous system responds to the world around us and within us—constantly scanning for cues of safety or threat.
In simple terms:
When we feel safe → our “social engagement system” turns on. We can connect, communicate, and regulate.
When we feel overwhelmed or unsafe → our survival states take over. We may fight, flee, shut down, or numb out.
This is not failure. This is biology. And it’s why tending to emotional health is essential—it’s how we support our body’s natural rhythms and responses.
Why This Matters During the Holidays
The holidays can awaken joy, connection, nostalgia—but also grief, overstimulation, family dynamics, financial pressure, loneliness, or old patterns. Even the most beautiful moments can be emotionally complex.
Polyvagal Theory reminds us:Your nervous system is responding, moment by moment, to what feels safe or what feels challenging.Caring for your emotional health during the holidays is not indulgent; it is wise, compassionate, and necessary.
Below are a few simple, supportive Polyvagal practices to help you return to groundedness, safety, and connection.
Polyvagal-Informed Practices for Holiday Emotional Health
1. Orienting: Find Your “Here and Now”
This gentle practice helps your nervous system feel safer by letting it visually confirm that your environment is not dangerous.
Try this:
Pause.
Slowly look around the space you’re in.
Let your eyes land on colors, shapes, lights, or objects that feel soothing or interesting.
Take your time. No rush.
This gives your body real-time evidence that you’re safe enough to soften.
2. Co-Regulation Moments
Connection is biological medicine.
Try this:
Sit beside someone you trust.
Breathe naturally.
Let your nervous system sync with theirs through proximity, a soft conversation, or simply being near each other.
If no one is physically present, phone or video calls can also offer nervous system safety cues.
3. Vagal Toners: Humming, Singing, Gentle Vocalizing
Your vagus nerve loves sound vibration—especially from your own voice.
Try this:
Hum your favorite holiday tune.
Chant “mmm” or “om.”
Speak softly to yourself with warmth.
Vocal vibration activates your social engagement system and calms the body.
4. Weighted Comfort: Anchoring Through Pressure
Deep pressure is grounding and helps bring the nervous system out of overwhelm.
Try this:
Use a weighted blanket or place a heavy pillow across your lap.
Wrap yourself in a thick scarf or soft shawl.
Press your hand gently onto your chest or your thighs.
This engages the body’s sense of containment and safety.
5. Grounded Transitions: Before You Walk Into a Room
Holiday gatherings can be a lot—noise, energy, expectations.
Before entering a space, try:
Place both feet on the ground.
Inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 6.
Remind your body: I can take this moment by moment.
Shorter exhales cue safety and co-regulation.
6. Glimmers: Actively Seek Small Moments of Safety and Joy
Glimmers are the opposite of triggers—tiny cues of safety or delight.
Try this:
Notice warm lights.
A soft blanket.
A child laughing.
The smell of pine or cinnamon.
A moment of quiet.
Let these moments land. Let them matter.
Honor Your Emotional Well-Being This Season
When you tend to your emotional health, you strengthen your capacity for joy,
connection, presence, and authenticity. You also expand your ability to meet difficult moments with compassion rather than collapse or overwhelm.
Polyvagal Theory teaches us that emotional health is not about “powering through”—it’s about learning to recognize the states of our nervous system, gently supporting ourselves back into safety, and remembering that resilience is built through small, kind, intentional practices repeated over time.
This holiday season, may you move at the pace your nervous system needs.May you find glimmers in unexpected places.And may you remember that caring for your emotional health is one of the most loving gifts you can give yourself—and everyone around you.
Are You looking for the Gift of Understanding your Nervous System better? Want to know more about your emotional intelligence and well-being?
I'll be teaching this and so much more at Attune & Restore: A class build just for you to become attuned to your internal world and start an amazing relationship with your incredible Nervous System.
Are You Tired of Being Tired? Learn How to Say "No." And give yourself the bonus gift of
protecting your peace. You deserve it. LEARN MORE
May Your Holidays be full of connection and peace,
Ali
Comments