Key Terms in Somatic Healing, Brain States & Nervous System Regulation
Introduction to our mind body glossary
Understanding how the mind and body work together can feel overwhelming at first, especially when you’re introduced to terms like nervous system regulation, vagal tone, or alpha brainwaves.
This mind body glossary is designed to make these concepts clear, practical, and grounded in real experience.
Rather than clinical definitions, you’ll find explanations that help you recognise what’s happening in your own body, including how stress shows up, how emotions are processed, and how healing can occur through awareness, movement, and nervous system support.
A
Alpha Brainwaves
Alpha brainwaves are associated with relaxed, calm, and focused states. They often occur during meditation, light rest, or moments of quiet awareness. This state supports learning, creativity, and nervous system recovery.
Read more: Alpha Brainwave Meditation
Autonomic Nervous System
The autonomic nervous system controls automatic bodily functions like breathing, heart rate, and digestion. It constantly shifts between activation (sympathetic) and recovery (parasympathetic), shaping how safe or stressed you feel.
B
Beta Brainwaves
Beta brainwaves are linked to active thinking, problem-solving, and focus. While necessary for daily functioning, spending too much time in high beta states can contribute to stress, tension, and mental fatigue.
Brain–Gut Axis
The brain–gut axis is the communication pathway between your brain and digestive system. It explains why stress can impact digestion and why gut health can influence mood and mental clarity.
Related: The Brain–Gut Axis – Why Your Gut is Known as the Second Brain
C
Co-regulation
Co-regulation is the process of regulating your nervous system through connection with another person. This can happen through tone of voice, presence, eye contact, or physical proximity. It’s how humans naturally learn safety – especially in early life – and remains a powerful tool for calming and stabilising the nervous system in adulthood.
E
Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation is the ability to feel and process emotions without becoming overwhelmed. It’s not about controlling or suppressing feelings, but being able to stay present while experiencing them.
F
Fascia
Fascia is a continuous web of connective tissue that surrounds and supports every muscle, bone, nerve, and organ in the body. It plays a key role in how the body holds tension, transmits force, and maintains structural integrity.
From a somatic perspective, fascia is important because it is highly responsive to stress, posture, and emotional experiences. When the nervous system is under chronic stress, fascia can become tight, restricted, or dehydrated, contributing to sensations of stiffness, pain, or “stuckness” in the body.
Gentle movement, breath awareness, and slow somatic practices can help support fascial mobility and overall regulation.
Read more: Fascia and Its Role in Somatic Practice
Fight, Flight, Freeze
These are automatic survival responses triggered by the nervous system when a threat is perceived.
- Fight: confront the threat
- Flight: escape the threat
- Freeze: shut down or immobilise
These responses are protective, but can become chronic when the body doesn’t return to safety.
Functional Freeze
Functional freeze is a state where the body is partially shut down but still able to function day-to-day. A person may appear calm or “fine” on the outside, but internally feel disconnected, numb, or low in energy. It’s a common response to prolonged stress or overwhelm.
Functional Somatics
Functional somatics refers to an applied approach to somatic healing that focuses on restoring the body’s natural capacity to regulate, adapt, and function effectively in everyday life.
Rather than treating symptoms in isolation, functional somatics looks at how the nervous system, movement patterns, breath, and lived experience interact as a whole system.
It is “functional” because the goal is not only awareness or insight, but practical change in how the body responds to stress, recovers from activation, and returns to balance.
In practice, this can include slow movement, sensory awareness, breath regulation, and nervous system education — all aimed at improving resilience, emotional stability, and physical ease.
Related: Rewiring Calm: How Functional Somatics Reset the Nervous System
I
Interoception
Interoception is the ability to sense internal signals from the body, such as heartbeat, hunger, breath, or emotional sensations. It plays a key role in self-awareness and emotional regulation, helping you recognise what your body needs.
M
Mind–Body Connection
The mind–body connection describes how thoughts, emotions, and physical processes continuously influence one another. Stress, beliefs, and emotional patterns all have direct effects on the body.
Read more: What Is the Mind–Body Connection
Deep dive: The Science Behind the Mind–Body Connection
N
Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change and adapt over time. This means patterns of stress, anxiety, and behaviour are not fixed. Instead, they can be reshaped through consistent practice and experience.
Related: Neuroplasticity
Nervous System Regulation
Nervous system regulation refers to the ability to move between states of activation and calm in a flexible way. A regulated system can respond to stress and then return to balance.
Explore: Regulation vs Relaxation
Practical guide: Calm Nervous System at Night
P
Parasympathetic Nervous System
This is the “rest and repair” branch of the nervous system. It slows the heart rate, supports digestion, and allows the body to recover and heal.
Polyvagal Theory
Polyvagal theory explains how the nervous system responds to safety and threat through different pathways, including social connection, fight/flight, and shutdown states.
Read more: Polyvagal Theory in Everyday Life
Proprioception
Proprioception is your body’s sense of position and movement in space. It allows you to know where your body is without looking. This awareness supports coordination, balance, and a sense of physical grounding.
R
Regulation vs Relaxation
Relaxation is a temporary calm state. Regulation is the ability to move between states effectively. True wellbeing comes from flexibility, not constant calm.
S
Somatic Awareness
Somatic awareness is the conscious attention to sensations within the body. It includes noticing tension, movement, breath, and internal shifts. Developing this awareness is a key part of somatic healing and nervous system regulation.
Somatic Healing
Somatic healing focuses on the body as a pathway for processing stress and trauma. It includes awareness of physical sensations, movement, and nervous system responses.
Explore: Why Somatic Release Belongs in Every Practitioner’s Toolkit
Somatic Movement
Somatic movement involves slow, intentional movement that builds internal awareness of the body. It helps release tension and reconnect brain and body.
Read more: What Is Somatic Movement and How Does It Help?
Stress Response
The stress response is the body’s automatic reaction to perceived threat, involving hormones, muscle tension, and heightened alertness.
Related: How Stress Affects the Body
Sympathetic Nervous System
This is the activation branch of the nervous system, responsible for energy mobilisation and the fight-or-flight response.
T
Trauma (in the body)
Trauma is how the body holds onto overwhelming experiences. When stress isn’t processed, it can remain in the nervous system and affect behaviour, emotions, and physical health.
Read more: Trauma Healing & Nervous System Recovery
Trauma-Informed
A trauma-informed approach recognises that many behaviours and symptoms are rooted in past experiences. It prioritises safety, choice, and gradual change rather than force or overwhelm.
V
Vagal Tone
Vagal tone refers to how effectively the vagus nerve supports your ability to regulate stress and return to calm. Higher vagal tone is linked to resilience and emotional stability.
Explore: How to Increase Vagal Tone Naturally
W
Window of Tolerance
The window of tolerance is the range where you can function effectively — feeling present, calm, and able to respond. Outside this range, you may feel overwhelmed or shut down.
Bringing It All Together
These terms aren’t just concepts. They describe real, physical experiences happening in your body every day.
Learning them is a powerful first step. Practising them is where change happens.
If you’d like structured guidance in applying these principles through movement, awareness, and nervous system retraining, you can explore our somatic courses and training programs, which are designed to support lasting change.
