What We Can Learn From Animals About Nervous System Regulation
- rachel stokes
- Jul 4
- 5 min read
Children and animals are very much alike—it's no coincidence we naturally refer to them both as our babies. In both my self-exploration and my work as an animal caretaker, I keep returning to this truth: animals and children live in coherence with themselves. They don’t override their instincts. They don’t perform to earn worth. And that made me wonder—could I remember how to live like that, too?
“Could it be possible,” I asked myself, “to remember the safety I felt as a child? To remember the peace I observe in animals and all of nature?”
This curiosity sent me on a desperate rampage of remembrance. I never expected the answer would lead me to the nervous system.
Before I share with you three key steps to regulation—to being yourself and living the life you dream (but your cat is already living)—I want to say this: your mindset is not the foundation. Nervous system regulation is.
In a nutshell, nervous system regulation is the moment-to-moment practice of noticing safety so that your body can come out of fight/flight/freeze and into connection—allowing you to naturally express yourself without effort. Your nervous system is one of several communication systems in the body, working in constant partnership with your endocrine and immune systems to regulate internal balance and health.
When you're dysregulated, your mind gets stuck trying to figure out what’s wrong, when really, your body is just trying to feel safe again. Feelings aren't logical. They're intuitive messengers, expressed through sensation, imagery, and knowing.
If you're in a safe environment but your body still feels unsafe, it may be responding to old information that didn’t get fully processed at the time. That unresolved stress signal doesn't just stay in your nervous system — it gets passed along. For example, the perceived threat may trigger your immune system, which responds as if you're still in danger. Over time, this can contribute to chronic inflammation or even autoimmune responses — the body attacking itself in the absence of an actual threat.
The goal isn’t to fix the past, nor is it to solve something mentally that actually requires being with—it’s to let your body update to the present moment. And animals do this brilliantly.
Animals don’t get stuck in stories. They shake, stretch, cry, yawn, rest. They move energy through their bodies instead of bottling it up. They don’t have a front cortex that overanalyzes experience or attaches identity and story to every feeling. They simply respond, reset, and return to peace.
Here’s how we can do the same.
Step 1: Notice and Name
The name of the game is expanding your nervous system’s capacity. And the first step is to check in with your body. Can you feel what’s happening right now? Maybe it’s a tight stomach, a buzzing in your chest, or tension in your jaw. Try describing it like a weather system or texture: stormy, thick, tight, fuzzy.
Animals constantly read their internal states—what scientists call "interoception." A deer doesn’t ask, “Am I overreacting?” It freezes because its body says danger. A cat hides because it senses threat. You can do the same by noticing your body’s cues without judgment. Just observe.
Step 2: Ground and Soothe
Now orient to the present moment. Look around and name three things you see. Listen for three sounds. Feel three points of contact between you and the ground. Pause with each noticing. This brings your awareness out of looping thoughts and into the now, directly signaling safety to your body.
Animals do this instinctively. Watch a dog sniff the air after a loud noise, or a bird turn its head to listen. They’re checking: Is it safe now? You can too.
Then, offer your body comfort: chew gum, listen to music with emotional tone, sip something warm, or speak to yourself gently: “It’s okay to feel this. I’m here.”
Your nervous system speaks through sensation, not logic. Like animals grooming, purring, or curling up with others, your body understands soothing. Not force. Not control. Just presence.
Step 3: Let It Move
The nervous system doesn’t heal through thinking. It heals through felt experience. Emotions are energy in motion. You don’t have to figure anything out—just let it move.
Shake like a dog after a scare. Stretch like a cat waking from a nap. Hum, cry, stomp, roll your shoulders, sigh. Animals complete their stress cycles physically. You can too.
This is how you return to your naturalness. All those things you loved doing as a kid—the ones you were naturally good at? You didn’t achieve them through performance. You remembered them through embodiment.
Phenomenal healers like Barbara Brennan remind us: healing on all levels is the same thing as remembering who you are.
That’s what nervous system regulation does—it restores access to your gifts, brings your body into balance, and expands your capacity to hold the life you want. Your truest self doesn’t need to be invented or performed—it emerges from underneath the conditioning as a remembrance.
Natural ease and flow are the gifts of a regulated nervous system.
Optional Step: Reintegration
After moving energy, ask: What’s different now? Let your system register the shift. This helps your body learn that completing a cycle leads to safety and peace.
None of this is about figuring something out. Your body automatically grounds when it senses safety through felt experience. You don’t need to spend all day on YouTube hunting for the best technique. There’s nothing for your mind to solve. Your body already knows how to do this.
Healing is allowing your body to do what it already knows, and trusting in it's internal mechanism to ground energy. And this relationship—between you and your nervous system—can’t be forced. It moves at the pace that feels safe enough to release. And this means healing - physically, mentally and emotionally - moves at the rate of your felt safety.
Small, gentle movements over time. That’s the rhythm of healing.
Unless of course, you’re in the rainforests of Peru tripping on Ayahuasca. In that case, all bets are off.
Why weren’t we taught this growing up?
I could list a million reasons, but none of them benefit your healing. I'd rather stay with my energy. Animals don’t entertain those stories—they just regulate and move on. And without a prefrontal cortex to create narratives of identity and separation, they aren’t burdened by ego. They just are.
They shake it off. They rest. They ask for what they need. They know they are worthy.
Your animals are already living the life you dream of. Not because they have a perfect mindset, but because their bodies are in tune with nature. Yours can be too.
Trust that your body knows how to ground, because it does—just like it knows how to breathe and beat your heart without you thinking about it.
If you're sensitive like me, I’ve found body-based meditations to be deeply relaxing. One of my favorites is Yoga Nidra, a practice that lets your body rest deeply while your mind stays awake. It’s a peaceful place to reprogram your nervous system using affirmations and embodied presence.
Let yourself come home to the wild intelligence that’s always lived inside you.
It’s not gone. It’s just waiting to be remembered.
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