What is a regulated nervous system?

Somewhere along the way we’ve adopted this notion of regulating our nervous system. But the implied meaning is to regulate is to be calm, to be grounded, to be calm. But that's only part of the story.

Regulation is to have access to all parts of the nervous system

That means you have access to yes the calm the grounding the connection, and you have access to the energy, the anger the fight, the flight. Both the parasympathetic charge and sympathetic charge

It would be a sign of an unhealthy and unregulated nervous system if you reported feeling calm and grounded all the time - it may suggest you are actually living in more of a freeze state - which can happen without us really realizing it.

A healthy nervous system has appropriate responses in life scenarios - when it's a situation that should cause anger and outrage you feel that, when you have time to be quiet and rest, that your nervous system also moves there. Through life and traumas these responses can become skewed. We may have a hard time resting when we have time for it so we just keep ourselves busy never really slowing down, we can feel a lack of response or even a larger response in situations where maybe should cause anger - we can not respond at all or have a larger response than seems appropriate - but all of this gives us information about your nervous system and its patterns and where you are existing.

Of course it's all nuanced and individual - but a healthy regulated nervous system has access to all parts - its whole and fluid - it's not just calm, or grounded.