Healing an Anxious Nervous System
- Evelyn M. Sweno
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
My body has been stuck in fight-or-flight for the last fifteen years. When I was little I quickly learned that nobody else could help me manage these feelings of impending doom and nervousness that came from just simply thinking about going to the store with mom or staying at my grandparents house or even playing with the neighbors. In middle school I developed little crutches to distract my mind from spiraling into anxiety: whistling and constantly eating ice cubes or drinking water. As a teen I’d pause everything and go to my room all too often to just face the anxiety attack that came out of nowhere and go through these little lists in my head of what I might be subconsciously worrying over and needed to pray about... just sitting there, paralyzed with anxiety. There would be months when it died down and didn’t hold me back, and months when it dominated my life. Because I didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it, “It’s in my head and I’m still functioning so I must be fine”, I had to work through the mental side of it on my own. More recently around the time of my 21st birthday, anxiety just about crushed me as I learned where it came from and realized that nothing I was doing could stop it.
It’s important to recognize that both the mental/spiritual side and physical/health oriented side of any levels of anxiety are equally important. For the last couple years I’ve been able to learn how to work through an anxiety attack in my head and be okay with opening up to people at church about it—not getting direct counseling but already changing to a mindset of healing and being willing to give it up despite being so emotionally exhausted and not knowing how to move on. That attitude of surrender made me open to God’s little pointers at healing. But because I’d already been trying hard to maintain a healthier lifestyle I overlooked the actual health side of anxiety. So the thanks here goes to my mom for doing her own internet browsing and finding supplements after I finally spilled my guts about how bad the chronic anxiety had become.
The four points to this post for healing an anxious nervous system are:
Ending overstimulation
Deepening sleep
Eating enough organic protein
Supplements for nervous system health
The reality is most Americans deal with anxiety, most Americans are chronically sleep deprived and don’t know it, and most Americans are malnourished because of the overall quality of our depleted food, organic or not. Our culture greatly overlooks this and it’s almost unavoidable. Here I was thinking that I did well with my sleep schedule and homecooked organic meals but my actual nervous system was so depleted and over-stimulated that shaky nervousness became part of the clock work in my body, causing me to skip meals, lose sleep, avoid family and panic before going to church.
Even if you are getting the bare minimum of eight hours of sleep, you may not be sleeping deeply enough for your nervous system to heal—I definitely wasn’t. Even if you eat a regular two or three meals a day you may not be supplying yourself with enough protein to support your body—I definitely wasn’t doing that either and a patterned developed—and was recognized by my mom—that when I didn’t eat enough protein or skipped a meal I would become anxious within the next two hours, whether or not there was something for me to worry about.
After reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and The Light Doctor by Martin Moore-Ede, mom decided we were going to do a month-long experiment that somehow came at the same time my sleep schedule was already badly messed up. For all of February we did our best to limit all screen time and artificial light in the evenings and night. The first week sucked, we all wanted to watch TV and enjoy some gaming brainrot in the evenings, dad didn’t like having inadequate light over the dinner table and I strongly wanted to stay up late and write on a device. The intention of this experiment was to adjust everyone’s sleep schedules and circadian rhythms at the same time…it did that and more.
Very gradually we had been switching all the lights in our house to incandescent bulbs which emanate a less disruptive level of light (incandescent bulbs are expensive and hard to find now, and at first it was annoying that bedrooms weren’t as bright as when we had been using LEDs). This change got us used to lights being more calming and only used in the mornings and evenings when everyone was together. And from sunset to dark mom and I policed the house and tried to mimic the amount of light inside with to the amount of light outside, using candles and small lamps in the main rooms where we ate and hung out and gradually making it darker until the relatively universal bedtime of 9-10pm. It’s hard for me to explain the way my body instantly started to crave and relish these slow evenings and mornings that were purposefully not simulating. Indoor lighting is one of the most overlooked, negatively impacting parts of our environment and lifestyle, and seriously when we have lights on after dark it’s over stimulating our nervous systems often in a way we don’t even notice and adding to stress.
At the end of February it was reported that:
Everyone was waking up earlier on their own, intentionally going outside sooner for sunlight (even doing school work outside more often) and it was easy to wind down and fall asleep a few hours after sunset (even for my dad and brothers who were used to being on the screen until falling in bed).
Brain fog had significantly cleared up, even for my mom who is on a screen far less than the rest of us. We all started experiencing days to be almost twice as long just because of our clear minds and ability to focus for longer amounts of time and stay productive. School, chores, yard work all got done sooner, dad came home from work still tired and sore but not completely drained. My brothers became noticeably more creative just because they weren’t gaming all evening after school.
Moods and energy improved, just like when we made the switch to eating home ground whole wheat bread.
Almost everyone’s depth of sleep was doing better too. This was big for me, blue light really messes with the quality of my sleep. The difference was easy to see in my ability to dream in full color for longer amounts of time again and how I’d unintentionally fall asleep at a better time on the nights when I chose to stay up and write.
So this change of lighting has given my nervous system time to actually heal and wind down. I’m sad to see that family members are drifting back to the screens in the evenings now that our experiment is over. Getting up earlier and sleeping deeper has given me a better appetite and I choose to eat a protein filled breakfast again (whereas being nervous and tired kills my appetite even more) Anxiety still comes but at more manageable levels now.
Along with these intentional changes I’ve been taking a non-synthetic vitamin B-1 supplement. After learning about it in both Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind and several of Dr. Berg’s youtube videos, mom bought me some saying that taking it could end an anxiety attack within minutes. Of course I didn’t believe her but took a capsule the next time impending doom showed up and humored her. This is what I learned:
Vitamin B-1, also known as Thiamine, is used in the body to convert carbohydrates into energy, replenishing an over-used and possibly already malnourished nervous system. B-1 is depleted in the body when you eat a high carbohydrate diet—I eat a lot of carbs, that makes sense. Being deficient in B-1 most commonly looks like fatigue that doesn’t diminish with rest. Because the nervous system supports so many other bodily functions, vitamin B-1 aids in sleep, focus and brain health both now and later in life, skin health, and a strong cardiovascular system. It’s sold specifically as a nervous system supporting supplement.
As soon as I started taking B-1 it when I got anxious (about twice a day for the first two days) I felt a difference. Fatigue really did start to diminish. My body relaxed a lot faster after the mild clockwork anxiety attacks, and they gradually reduced intensity as well. I have no doubt that starting this supplement around that same time as the light experiment helped to restore the quality of my sleep. For further proof of our experiment with indoor lighting, the week after February ended we went back to watching TV on occasions in the evenings and this instantaneously disrupted our sleep schedules. Within two nights my brothers and I went back to being awake until midnight and not functioning in the morning until 10am. And with that our focus drained again. What was interesting for me though, was how after that I experienced anxiety at the thought of staying up late on a screen again, my body recognizing what the problem was and trying to ward me away from it. Now I’m able to choose and maintain these new habits that keep my nervous system from being over stimulated and greatly lessen my anxiety.
If you’re dealing with fatigue, chronic nervousness and anxiety or just trouble sleeping, taking natural vitamin B-1 supplements, guaranteeing more bio-available proteins in your diet, and adjusting the light in your house might be a huge help to you too.
In the Shade of the Silver Poplars provides content of general nature that is designed for informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Do your own research, consult your own sources, make healthy choices.
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