modern life vs. your nervous system

You know that feeling when your mind won’t stop racing?

When you’re lying in bed at 3am, wide awake, running through every conversation from the day and every task for tomorrow? When you can’t focus on anything for more than five minutes? When everything feels overwhelming and you can’t quite explain why?

You’re not alone. And you’re not broken.

Your nervous system is just living in a world it wasn’t designed for.

Slightly different one today, but something that’s been very present for me in Sri Lanka.

One of the things I love most about traveling is hearing about different approaches to health and wellness. More integrated approaches. Systems that don’t just look at symptoms but at the whole person, the whole picture.

To be completely honest, 10 years ago I thought Ayurveda was something that only works when you believe in it. And my mind—which tends to question things, wants to make sense of everything—thought there was no point in exploring it further.

But it kept coming into my life. Through travels. Yoga trainings. Conversations. And slowly, it’s become a bigger and bigger part of my life. And it’s making a huge difference.

The reason I’m sharing this today is that it’s so relevant to what we talk about here. To nervous system regulation. To living at baseline. To understanding why you feel the way you feel.

Because Ayurveda has been talking about what we now call nervous system dysregulation for literally thousands of years. They just called it something different.

Understanding Vata: The Energy of Movement

In Ayurveda, there’s this concept called Vata.

It’s one of three doshas (basically, biological energies that run through your body and mind). Vata is made up of the elements air and space—the lightest, most mobile elements.

Vata is responsible for all movement in your body and mind. Your breath. Your circulation. Your thoughts. Your nerve impulses. Everything that moves.

When Vata is balanced, you’re creative, adaptable, enthusiastic, alive. You feel energized.

But when Vata goes out of balance—which happens really easily in modern life—everything starts to feel off.

And what got me was this: the description of Vata imbalance reads exactly like nervous system dysregulation.

The Signs Are Everywhere

Signs of Vata imbalance:

Anxiety and racing thoughts. Difficulty concentrating. Insomnia—especially waking up between 2-4am. Feeling scattered, overwhelmed, hypersensitive to noise and light. Chronic worry. Burnout.

Sound familiar?

From a Western neuroscience perspective, this is sympathetic nervous system overdrive. A stress response that won’t turn off.

From an Ayurvedic perspective, this is excess Vata. Too much air and space. Not enough ground.

Same thing. Different language.

And both are pointing to the same solution: you need to come back down. You need to ground. You need to get out of your head and back into your body.

Ancient Practices, Modern Validation

What’s fascinating is how Ayurveda has been treating this for thousands of years with practices that modern neuroscience is now confirming actually work.

Daily oil massage (Abhyanga)—warm oil on your skin before bathing. Ayurveda says this grounds excess Vata, nourishes dry tissues, calms the system.

Neuroscience says slow, intentional touch activates your parasympathetic nervous system. It literally helps you regulate.

Warm, cooked, nourishing foods instead of cold, raw, light foods. Ayurveda says this balances the cold, dry, light qualities of excess Vata.

Nervous system science says your gut and nervous system are intimately connected. What you eat affects how you feel. Warm, easily digestible food supports your system instead of taxing it.

Consistent daily rhythms—waking up at the same time, eating meals on schedule, going to bed early. Ayurveda calls this Dinacharya. Modern science calls it circadian rhythm regulation.

Same thing.

Slow, grounding movement instead of high-intensity exercise. Breathwork that emphasizes long, slow exhales. Time in nature, especially near water or in forests.

Ancient Ayurvedic wisdom. And also—evidence-based nervous system regulation.

Why Modern Life Creates Imbalance

The reason Vata imbalance is so relevant right now is because modern life is basically designed to create it.

Irregular schedules. Constant stimulation. Screen time. Stress. Cold, processed food eaten quickly at your desk. Not enough sleep. Too much movement without rest. Always in your head, never in your body.

From an Ayurvedic perspective, this is all increasing Vata. Adding more air and space to a system that’s already too much air and space.

From a nervous system perspective, this is chronic dysregulation. Living away from baseline.

The solution? The same in both frameworks.

Warmth. Rhythm. Nourishment. Slowness. Ground.

Where Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science

Your nervous system needs what Ayurveda calls Vata-balancing practices. It needs consistency, warmth, nourishment, ground, presence.

It needs you to get out of your head and back into your body. To slow down enough to actually feel. To establish rhythms that your system can rely on.

That’s what living at baseline is. That’s what regulation is.

If you’re realizing you’d like support in understanding your own patterns and learning to actually regulate instead of just managing symptoms—my 1:1 therapy waitlist for 2026 is open. I’d love to hear from you to chat about what working together could look like.

What We’re Building with Baseline

This is also what we’re building with Baseline.

A way to bring you back to ground. To help you notice when you’re getting too much in your head, too disconnected, too dysregulated—before you’re completely overwhelmed.

To help you feel your way back to that place where your nervous system can actually settle.

We’re not inventing something new. We’re translating ancient wisdom and modern science into something accessible. Something you can use in real-time.

Because whether you call it Vata balance or nervous system regulation—you deserve to feel grounded in your body. Present in your life. Not constantly buzzing with anxiety and overwhelm.

Something to Practice This Week

Do you recognize yourself in that Vata imbalance description? Racing thoughts, difficulty sleeping, feeling scattered and overwhelmed, living in your head?

What would it look like to bring in some of those opposite qualities? Warmth instead of cold. Rhythm instead of chaos. Slow instead of fast. Ground instead of constant movement.

What’s one thing you could do this week that brings more warmth, more rhythm, more ground into your life?

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Warm food instead of cold. Going to bed at the same time each night. Five minutes to just feel your body instead of immediately jumping into the next thing.

Small shifts. Felt in the body. That’s where regulation happens.