Nervous System Archives - Dr. Daina Patel

Category: Nervous System

Why your nervous system won’t let you relax (and it’s not your fault)

Posted on March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Dr. Daina Patel

You’ve been told to relax.

Maybe by your doctor. Maybe by your massage therapist. Maybe by someone who has never felt the particular frustration of trying to relax a body that refuses to cooperate.

Here’s what I want you to understand: you’re not bad at relaxing. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It just hasn’t gotten the signal that it’s safe to stop.

What’s actually happening

Your autonomic nervous system runs on a simple logic: threat or safety. When it detects threat — real or perceived — it activates your stress response. Muscles contract, breathing gets shallow, your heart rate increases, your attention narrows. You go on alert.

The problem is that your nervous system can’t always tell the difference between a bear and an overflowing inbox. It doesn’t distinguish between physical danger and chronic financial stress, or between an immediate threat and years of accumulated emotional load. It just responds.

And when the threat signal has been running for long enough — months, years, sometimes decades — your nervous system learns that staying on alert is the default safe position. Not because you’re anxious or broken. Because it adapted to the conditions it was in.

That adaptation shows up in your body as chronic tension. Shoulders that live near your ears. A jaw that’s clenched even when you’re sitting still. A neck that never fully releases. A lower back that braces for impact even when you’re lying in bed.

This is not a character flaw. This is a nervous system that learned to protect you and then never got the memo that things changed.

Why “just relax” doesn’t work

Telling yourself to relax when your nervous system is in threat mode is like telling your immune system to stop fighting an infection. You can want it. You cannot will it.

The nervous system responds to inputs, not intentions. What that means is you can’t think your way out of a threat response. You have to give your body a physical signal that it’s safe.

That’s what the breathing, the humming, the warm shower, the slow gentle movement are doing. They’re not relaxation techniques. They’re inputs — specific, physiological signals that tell your nervous system: the threat has passed. You can let go.

What actually helps

Vagus nerve stimulation is the most direct path. Your vagus nerve is the main pathway of your parasympathetic nervous system — the rest and digest response that’s the opposite of fight or flight. Stimulating it sends a direct signal to your brain that it’s safe to downregulate.

Humming, gargling, cold water on your face, slow exhalation, gentle movement — all of these stimulate the vagus nerve. None of them require equipment, appointments, or significant time. They require consistency.

Predictability and pattern help too. Your nervous system calibrates based on what it can predict. When you have consistent inputs — a morning routine, an evening routine, regular sleep times, regular meals — your nervous system has less to monitor and less to respond to. That predictability is itself a safety signal.

Reducing sensory load matters more than most people realize. If you process sensory input more intensely than average — and a lot of people with chronic tension do — then reducing input is a real intervention. Quieter environments, lower lighting, fewer simultaneous demands on your attention. This isn’t weakness. It’s working with your nervous system instead of against it.

The thing that takes the longest

The hardest part isn’t learning the tools. It’s staying consistent when you can’t immediately feel the results.

Because the nervous system doesn’t update in one session. It updates with repetition. Every time you do a breathing exercise and nothing terrible happens, that’s a data point. Every time you hum before bed and wake up slightly less tense, that’s a data point. Slowly, incrementally, your nervous system learns that safe is possible.

It took time to build the pattern. It takes time to change it.

You’re not behind. You’re just starting.

Ready to start? Download my free nervous system reset guide here.

Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Please read the Disclaimer here.

How to breathe correctly (and why it matters for your neck pain)

Posted on March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Dr. Daina Patel

Most people are breathing incorrectly.

Not badly. Not dangerously. Just in a way that’s quietly keeping their nervous system in a threat state and making their neck and shoulder tension worse.

Here’s how.

The mechanics first

Your diaphragm is the primary muscle of breathing. It’s a dome-shaped muscle that sits at the base of your ribcage. When it contracts, it flattens downward and your belly expands. That’s a proper breath.

When you’re stressed, anxious, in pain, or just habitually tense, your diaphragm stops doing most of the work. Instead, your accessory breathing muscles take over — your scalenes, your SCM, your upper trapezius. These are the muscles in your neck and upper shoulders.

If you’re breathing that way all day, every day, those muscles never get to rest. They are literally working with every single breath you take. That’s why neck tension comes back no matter what you do. You haven’t addressed the breathing pattern driving it.

The neck-breath connection

The scalenes are a group of muscles on the sides of your neck. They run from your cervical vertebrae down to your first and second ribs. One of their jobs is to lift the ribcage during inhalation — a secondary breathing function that becomes primary when you’re a chest breather.

If you’re breathing shallowly through your chest all day, your scalenes are working constantly. Chronically overworked muscles become tight, tender, and eventually they start compressing things. The brachial plexus — the nerve bundle that runs through the scalenes down into your arm — can get compressed. That’s where the arm tingling comes from.

Your upper traps are doing similar work. Lifting your shoulders slightly with every breath, staying chronically activated, contributing to the pattern of shoulder tension that never fully releases.

This is a structural consequence of a neurological pattern. Breathing wrong isn’t just a habit. It’s a symptom of a nervous system running in threat mode — and it causes real physical problems.

How to breathe correctly

Belly breathing, not chest breathing. When you inhale, your belly should expand first. Not your chest, not your shoulders. Your belly out, then your lower ribs expand, then maybe your chest very slightly at the top. When you exhale, the reverse — chest down, ribs in, belly falls.

Test yourself right now. Put one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly. Take a breath. Which hand moves first?

If it’s your chest — you’re a chest breather. Your scalenes and traps are working overtime.

Breathe through your nose, not your mouth. Nasal breathing filters the air, warms it, humidifies it, and produces nitric oxide, which dilates blood vessels and improves oxygen delivery. Mouth breathing bypasses all of this and tends to be shallower and faster, which keeps your nervous system in a slightly more activated state.

Slow it down. A breathing rate of around 5–6 breaths per minute is associated with maximum Heart Rate Variability — a measure of how well your nervous system can regulate itself. Most people breathe 12–20 times per minute. Slowing down your breathing is one of the most direct inputs you can give your nervous system.

Try this: inhale for 5.5 seconds, exhale for 5.5 seconds. That’s roughly 5.5 breaths per minute. Do this for two minutes. Notice what happens in your neck and shoulders.

The double inhale for acute stress. If you’re acutely stressed or your tension is high, try a physiological sigh: a double inhale through the nose (one big breath and then a small sniff to fully expand the lungs) followed by a long, slow exhale through the mouth. Stanford research published in 2023 found this to be the most effective single breathing technique for rapidly shifting your nervous system state. It deflates the small air sacs in the lungs that collapse under stress and signals safety to your brain within seconds.

Why this matters long-term

Correcting your breathing pattern is one of the most underrated interventions for chronic neck tension. Not because breathing is magic, but because the pattern has real mechanical consequences.

Chronically overworked scalenes compress nerves. Chronically activated upper traps pull on your cervical spine. Shallow chest breathing keeps your sympathetic nervous system running. And all of it reinforces the tension pattern that brings you back to the chiropractor, the massage therapist, the physiotherapist — over and over.

You can’t stretch your way out of a breathing problem. You can’t adjust your way out of it either, long term. You have to address the pattern.

Start with five minutes of belly breathing today. Nose in, belly first, slow. That’s it.

Want more tools for your nervous system? Download my free guide here.

Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Please read the Disclaimer here.

Can stress cause pain?

Posted on March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Dr. Daina Patel

In short, yes.

Keep reading to learn how and what you can do to reduce pain.

The Autonomic Nervous System

To understand the link between stress and pain, we have to talk about the autonomic nervous system. This system regulates our stress response.

There are 2 parts to this system: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

The Sympathetic Nervous System

(aka the fight/flight/freeze response)

This is our first reaction to a stressful situation. It is extremely helpful when faced with a dangerous situation, like being faced with a bear.

Where this response becomes an issue is when it comes up in day-to-day situations like getting a stressful email, worrying about an upcoming work meeting, scrolling through IG, or wondering whether or not lifting that laundry basket will “throw out” your back again.

What initially happens when you feel stressed is the adrenaline starts rushing. This happens pretty instantly. You may notice this or you may not.

At about 10 minutes after the stressful situation, we start producing the hormone cortisol. Cortisol is important and we need it but when too much is produced or when it is constantly produced, that can lead to more inflammation. Inflammation leads to increased pain sensitivity so we tend to feel more pain.

Back to the question – can stress cause pain?

So YES, if you were wondering – can stress cause pain.

On top of that, when we feel stressed, we also tend to tense up our muscles, increase blood pressure, heart rate, etc. and lead to other long-term problems.

AKA nervous system dysregulation.

Short term this stress response is protective, but we don’t want this happening unless it’s absolutely necessary!

Long-term, this continuous response can lead to persistent pain (where it becomes hard to find pain relief), constant tight and stiff muscles, burnout, constantly feeling tired, and always being in fear of what will happen next AKA feeling anxious.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System

(aka the rest & digest response)

The rest & digest response is where you want to shift your body to when in a sympathetic (fight/flight) response. This is where you feel calm, can lower inflammation, reduce pain, and just feel overall more comfortable in your body.

As the name suggests, this is where our body can rest and digest our food.

In a true rest state, our body can actually heal. This is where you can eliminate toxins causing inflammation, reduce overall inflammation that is leading to pain and pain sensitivity, and actually start the repair process for any injuries.

Feeling stressed while you eat affects your digestive system, causes food to not properly be digested, reduces nutrients absorbed, and causes inflammation, all leading to pain!

How to shift from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state

There are many things that can help us shift into a restful state. It depends on what you are willing to try and what you enjoy. What works for someone else may not work for you so I encourage you to try different things. The key is to be CONSISTENT regardless of what tools and techniques you use.

Stimulating the vagus nerve is the fastest way to feel a difference and shift from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember that consistency is key because we are actually rewiring the nerves in your body. Telling them that you are safe. When your nerves are constantly firing and telling your brain there is pain or danger because you are constantly in a flight-or-flight response will take time to unlearn. This is why you want to keep repeating what you do on a daily (or more than once a day) to rewire the brain and have longer-lasting results. Only then will you see that you are less likely to tense up and feel more pain in the body after something stressful. We are working a muscle and it takes time and patience to train it and make lasting changes. So while you may feel temporary relief with these vagus nerve activities, remember to do them even when you are feeling good. Build that resilience. Train your brain.

Breathwork is one of the easiest ways to stimulate the vagus nerve and it doesn’t take very long. You can feel a difference in only a minute. Pair this with meditation (if you want) and get better results. Learn how to do either or both here.

I created a guide that you can download for free right here with some more of my fave ways to relax and it has kept me out of pain for several years!