- How to talk to your nervous system

When we experience back spasms, we often become rigid, take shallow breaths, and find our movement severely restricted. In some cases, the spasms can take over so much that we feel ‘stuck’ in one position. This happens because your nervous system doesn’t want your body to move. You moved it once and it hurt (maybe you damaged your body in some way), or you moved your body once and weakened it. Your body will have learned from this, and now your nervous system is expecting damage to occur and it is trying to stop that before it happens.

Your nervous system wants you to be healed and healthy. It doesn’t want you to experience injury and so in simple terms it is limiting the possibility of potential injury by limiting your movement.

Assessing back health in the Pomme Studio

Your body is always supporting you

Understanding that your body is trying to support you is essential. It hasn’t ‘let you down’ (even though it can feel that way). If your body feels unsafe, it will react to protect itself. Berating yourself or your body for this will only add more stress, releasing harmful stress hormones that can worsen the situation. Whether the stress comes from external sources or from negative self-talk, the effect on your body is the same.

Thinking in this way also takes your power away. When you believe that your body has failed you, you create a disconnect. This disrupts the communication between you and your body (heighten stress can equal a dysregulated nervous system), making it harder to influence how your body (and nervous system) behaves.

If you’re experiencing spasms, your body is already in a stressed state. Stress hormones may have triggered the spasm, and adding more stress will only make it worse. In contrast, reducing stress can bring almost immediate relief.

The science behind self compassion

Studies now show that having self compassion has such positive effects as:

Reduces stress (remember less stress equals less pain)
Reduces health risk behaviours
Increases the likelihood to regulate our health behaviours
Lowers blood pressure
Improves immunity
Lowers heart rate
Reduces inflammation

How to Start Moving Again During and After a Spasm

When you’re experiencing a back spasm, your body wants to be rigid and avoid movement. Large stretches or forceful actions won’t help in this situation. Instead, your goal is to gently encourage your body to release tension, which will relieve pain.

Your body’s ultimate goal is for you to move freely and live your life fully, but it needs some support first. Here’s how to calm your nervous system and ease back spasms:

Shaking or Rocking the Body:
Just as rocking soothes infants, it can also calm adults. Find some gentle momentum—rocking or swaying—and if you’re feeling particularly stuck, ask someone to gently help you by placing their hands on your hips and assisting in the rocking motion while you breathe deeply.
Breathing:
Slow, steady breaths are one of the most powerful ways to signal to your nervous system that you are safe and that tension isn’t needed.
Positive Self-Talk:
Calmly tell your body, “It’s going to be okay.” Believe it or not, this really works!

For the best results, combine all three techniques: rocking, slow breathing, and positive self-talk.

Watch this video to learn how to rock and shake spasms away

Breathwork to calm the nervous system and reduce spasms and pain

Slower, deeper breathing massages (and strengthens) the vagus nerve, which plays a key role in telling your brain whether your body is safe. In our busy, distracted lives, the vagus nerve can become overstimulated, weakening its ability to accurately read stress signals (a condition known as reduced vagal tone). By slowing and extending your breaths, you can massage the vagus nerve and send signals to the brain that your body is safe—this is why slow breathing helps reduce pain.

When you pair slow, deep breathing with gentle movement, you’re essentially telling your body, "Look, we are moving, and it is safe." At first, movement may feel uncomfortable, but this discomfort often comes from tension, not the movement itself. Slowly reintroducing movement helps to release tension and reduce the perception of pain

Remember breath itself is movement, every cell in your body moves when you breathe and this is the first step to start moving freely again.

Talk to your body as if it is someone else who feels unsafe

The nervous system is incredibly complex, but a simple technique can help: talk to your body as if it were another person who feels unsafe. By offering compassion in this way, you can instantly lower the stress response in your system and reduce the pain or discomfort you’re feeling.

When someone else feels unsafe, we reassure them with soothing words, gentle touch, or comfort. Be wise and offer this same reassurance to your body. If you’re too overwhelmed to do it for yourself, allow someone else to comfort you—don’t push support away.

Communication isn’t just about words; it’s also about the emotion behind them. Your tone, body language, and gestures convey much more than just words alone. In the same way, you can communicate with your body and nervous system.

I’ll leave you with two questions:

Who or what instantly calms you?
What de-stress tactics can you have up your sleeve if you ever have a back spasm or feel one coming on?

What to do if you have back spasms