Peaceful. Tranquil. Settled. Calm. For some of us, experiencing a restful state is enjoyable and sought after. Some people can unplug from the crazy demands of work or technology. They find it easy to relax: reading a good book, spending time in nature, or connecting with a loved one.

True relaxation happens through the types of activities that help our nervous system settle and recharge – something vital to our mental and physical health.

Research tells us that people who can experience a calm state in their day-to-day life tend to be those who take reasonably good care of themselves. They have meaningful relationships and tend to be involved in purposeful social, academic, or vocational ventures. In addition, they usually possess a healthy repertoire of coping skills. They are also good at reaching out for support when they need to.

A calm state can be completely foreign or incredibly uncomfortable for some people.

It’s almost as if their nervous system doesn’t know how to settle into a restful state in healthy ways – their “gas pedal” always seems stuck on high with the engine revving. They don’t find it easy to relax. Some of my clients tell me that slowing down creates anxiety and that being genuinely relaxed makes them uneasy. They are more likely to find one more thing to do before taking a break. They live their lives in busy mode. Or they might be drawn to numbing out with substances or using technology in ways that are more like shutting down rather than finding proper rest.

How Our Brain and Body Get Wired for Relaxation

Let’s talk about how our brains and bodies function. Our autonomic nervous system is essentially our operating system. It runs without significant conscious awareness and regulates most of the activity in our brain and our physical bodies: heart rate, digestion, temperature, and brain activity. This operating system is involved in our ability to find rest and our responses to stress, anxiety, and threat.

Most of us are familiar with the changes in our bodies when we experience stress. For example, our heart rate increases, we have more physical tension, or we experience discomfort in our abdomen when under pressure. These uncomfortable sensations occur because the sympathetic branch of our autonomic nervous system is activated. The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is the branch responsible for responding to threats and turning our fight/flight response on.

Our body reacts to stress or threat in many ways: stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released, the heart rate increases, muscles get tense, and respiration rate increases. So it doesn’t matter if we are running out of a burning building or worrying about our finances – the same system in our body is responding: the sympathetic nervous system.

The sympathetic branch of our autonomic nervous system acts like the gas pedal that turns on when faced with stress, anxiety, or any other type of threat.

But our nervous system also requires the ability for the stress response to slow down or get de-activated when we’re not dealing with something stressful. We have another branch of our autonomic nervous system responsible for this.

The parasympathetic branch (PNS) acts as a brake pedal. It is responsible for calming processes like rest, digestion, growth, and healing. It is also the branch that enables us to have a calming and restorative connection with others.

Our “brake pedal” also needs to be activated enough to experience physical and mental health.

What Shapes Our Capacity to Relax?

What actually helps allow our nervous system to relax and slow down? What enables us to turn off the gas pedal and engage the brake? Neuroscience research (the study of our brain) and neurophysiology (the brain/body connection) provide us with some valuable insights. For example, we learn some essential things from understanding attachment theory and the impact of our early relationships with caregivers. There is also a new and exciting field of research: interpersonal neurobiology that looks at the effects of interpersonal relationships on the wiring of our brain and nervous system.

We have learned much about the impact early relational experiences have on our brain and nervous system's structure and function. Ideally, our caregivers make crucial contributions to our capacity to rest, relax, and regulate. But many people did not actually get enough of what was ideal in their childhood. Many grow up with caregivers impacted by stressors, relationship challenges, or traumatic experiences. If your parents were stressed or traumatized, they likely found it difficult to rest and relax. In turn, this may have affected your ability to rest and relax in significant ways.

Our earliest relationships helped shape how our brain functions – including our capacity to relax.

Let’s look at four different ways our early relationships shape the crucial need to relax:

1. Attachment

Human are wired for attachment and connection to others – it's one of our most basic needs. And this sense of connection is essential to almost every part of our development. For example, attachment theory helps us understand the early parent-child relationship's impact on a child's development. In addition, healthy attachment early in life helps promote emotional well-being, including the capacity to rest and relax.

Secure attachment develops when early caregivers provide enough care in ways that communicate love and safety. We also needed them to help protect us from the full impact of stressful situations by providing support and soothing that calmed us down when something felt stressful or threatening.  

Healthy attachment relationships form the basis for our capacity to develop strong and supportive relationships as an adult.

2. Attunement

Attunement is a concept closely related to attachment. It's about the sense of being seen and understood by our attachment figures. It is our experience of being known and having our needs responded met. Attunement includes being comforted when upset and celebrated when we succeed at something. Attunement allows us to feel deeply connected to and loved by another person. And it is this connection that gives us a sense of safety and comfort in being known.

Being seen, known and loved allows us to regulate painful emotions like loneliness and shame.

3. Emotional Regulation

As infants, we are not born with emotional regulation systems – these develop as we mature. However, much of what we learn about emotions and their regulation is learned in our families. We become good at emotional regulation by being regulated by our caregivers. Healthy emotion regulation tools develop when attachment relationships are consistent and attuned to the infant's needs. Ideally, caregivers help regulate overwhelming emotions like distress or fear for their child. This type of attuned care helps form the basis for our own emotional regulation. We learn emotional regulation by being regulated.

What happens when children grow up in families where caregivers lack emotional regulation? What are the long-term impacts of having parents who struggled with stress, mental illness, trauma, or addiction? The child experiences a "double whammy". Not only were their caregivers less able to offer emotional regulation, but they were likely a significant source of stress to the child.

A healthy emotion regulation process helps the brain and coping mechanisms develop to their fullest capacity. It also helps us understand the impacts when the emotional regulation process was not well-supported in childhood.

4. Rupture and Repair Cycles

Every relationship that exists has moments when connection and attunement are ruptured – it occurs when there is a conflict or when our needs aren't adequately met. Even the discipline process is a source of rupture in the parent-child relationship. Our early experiences with this inevitable (and painful) part of life profoundly impacts our sense of self and connection with others. We've been in relationships with imperfect human beings since the moment we were born. Healthy relationships require the capacity to manage the impacts when ruptures occur. In other words, strong attachment relationships can find repair and reconnection when something has challenged the connection.

Something always ruptures the connection between people who love each other. Our relationships are healthiest when we can move past the rupture back into a genuine connection. This process requires the ability to repair through love, acknowledgement of wrongs, forgiveness, and desire for reconnection.

 Rupture and repair cycles help us tolerate painful experiences of conflict in our meaningful relationships. In addition, we learn there are ways to return to connection even after a painful rupture.

Safe Connections Are Vital

Safety and connection in our earliest relationships set us up to find these same qualities in our adult relationships. And when this happens, we experience a cascade of benefits: we feel alive and joyful, more connected to the world and the people in it. Healthy relationships also affect our bodily systems – safe connections help turn down the "gas pedal" responses allowing us to experience a greater sense of calm. Bessel van der Kolk, a leading trauma expert, says this:

“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”

The Impact of Early Trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences

Our relationships with parents and caregivers have shaped how we learned to manage emotional experiences. They also helped develop our capacity for connection. They were our role models for emotional regulation strategies, whether in healthy or unhealthy ways.

Many people, especially those with substance use and addiction disorders, have experienced trauma early in their lives. When supportive adults buffer scary experiences, the risk of these experiences creating long-term impacts is significantly reduced. It helps the child feel supported and connected to the adults caring for them – it helps their nervous system calm down after they experience something threatening.

When a Caregiver is a Source of Trauma

What happens when a caregiver is a source of threat or trauma? Sometimes parents or attachment figures have been extraordinarily inconsistent, frustrating, violent, or neglectful. Children in these families become distressed without having supportive relationships that help provide relief. Their ability to regulate their overwhelming emotions and cope with stressors tends to get diminished, so they remain overwhelmed, or they shut down. 

Most people who misuse substances or engage in mood-altering (and addictive) behaviours use them to cope with feeling overwhelmed.

These may be people who haven't had enough positive childhood experiences that helped them learn and experience emotional regulation. As a result, they often struggle to regulate their own strong emotions. They may also find it challenging to build relationships that can be supportive and calming. When these two crucial pieces are missing, that sense of peaceful calm may be difficult to find.

Suppose you or someone you love experiences an addiction disorder. In that case, it's essential to consider how childhood attachment relationships and adverse childhood experiences have impacted the ability to find that sense of true calm. I always say this: "The problem is the problem."

Early childhood experiences may have shaped your ability (or inability) to enjoy a flexible and regulated nervous system. Maybe a challenge in how your nervous system functions is the problem your substance use is trying to "fix".

Do you relate to having a nervous system that can’t seem to relax or enjoy peaceful moments without needing to shut down using substances or behaviours? There is definitely help for working through that. Support from a therapist trained in trauma and addiction can help you unravel the impacts of painful childhood experiences. They can help you develop coping and emotional regulation tools so that substance use doesn’t need to remain the only way to cope.