{"id":8813,"date":"2026-11-02T08:29:49","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceinhealth.com\/?p=8813"},"modified":"2026-11-02T08:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:30:21","slug":"why-slowing-down-increases-morning-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceinhealth.com\/sv\/2026\/11\/02\/why-slowing-down-increases-morning-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"Breathwork Facilitator: Why Trying to “Slow Down” Added More Stress to My Mornings – And the 30-Minute Routine That Helps Me"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Little About Me<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I’m a breathwork facilitator and embodiment teacher based in Berlin, originally from New Zealand. I founded SOULBODY BREATH\u00ae at the end of 2023, and my work since has focused on helping people regulate their nervous systems, slow down, and reconnect with their bodies.<\/span><\/p>

My mind switches on the moment I wake up. Not gradually. Instantly. For years, the advice I gave myself, and the advice I give clients, was the same: slow down, sit still, let the calm arrive. It never once worked that way for me.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

I assumed the fix for my own fast-starting mornings was simply more of what I already teach. Stillness. Quiet. A slower start to the day.<\/span><\/p>

So I tried it. Properly. Repeatedly, over years, not days.<\/b><\/p>

And it never worked the way I expected it to.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Promise Of Calm That Never Came\u00a0<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I even tried forcing slow morning routines, the kind you see everywhere online. Sitting in stillness at 6 am, waiting for the calm to arrive before the day properly started.<\/span><\/p>

It never felt nourishing. It felt like fighting my own nature.<\/b><\/p>

And that’s what I mean when I say trying to slow down was actually adding more stress to my mornings, not less.<\/b> The practices themselves weren’t the problem. The problem was that I was turning the first part of every morning into a negotiation with my own nervous system: slow down, sit still, stop thinking, calm down. Instead of removing pressure, I’d accidentally created one more thing I felt I needed to get right before the day had even started.<\/span><\/p>

My mind switches on the moment I wake up. That’s simply how my mornings have always tended to feel.<\/span><\/p>

I’m not the only person who runs into this. It’s one of the most common things I hear in my own work: someone sits down to meditate, and instead of settling, their mind speeds up. They fidget. They can’t get comfortable. The stillness that’s supposed to bring calm ends up feeling like the opposite, a spotlight on exactly how much is already moving underneath.<\/span><\/p>

The assumption is almost always the same: I need to slow down more. I need better discipline with my routine.<\/b><\/p>

In my case, and in a lot of the cases I see in my own practice, that’s not actually what’s missing, understanding why took me back to something much more basic than discipline.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why Mornings Can Feel So Intensely “On”<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Waking up isn’t actually a transition from sleep straight into calm.<\/span><\/p>

One normal part of waking is the <\/span>cortisol awakening response (CAR)<\/b>, a rise in cortisol that typically occurs during the first 30 to 45 minutes after waking and is thought to help prepare the body for the transition into daytime activity.\u00b9<\/span><\/p>

That doesn’t mean cortisol is the problem, or that waking up alert is unhealthy.<\/b> This response isn’t identical for everyone, and researchers are still working out exactly why some people show a stronger rise than others. The evidence here is still developing, and not every study agrees.\u00b2<\/span><\/p>

But it helped me stop treating my own fast mornings as something I needed to “fix.” The question became less: <\/span>how do I force myself to be calm?<\/span><\/i> And more: <\/span>how do I support regulation from the state I’m actually starting in?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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It’s Not Always Discipline. It’s How Your Nervous System Starts the Day.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Here’s something I took a long time to understand, even with my training.<\/span><\/p>

Stillness-based practices can be incredibly effective. I’ve seen that firsthand, and I teach some of them for a living.<\/b> But I’ve learned that the state you arrive in can change how accessible they feel.<\/span><\/p>

When my mind is already moving at full speed, sitting down and asking it to become quiet immediately can create friction before the practice has even had a chance to help.<\/span><\/p>

For me, it wasn’t a discipline problem. It was a mismatch between how activated I already felt and what I was asking myself to do. <\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why I Needed Support to Actually Get There<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I want to be genuinely clear about something first, because I teach these tools and I believe in them.<\/span><\/p>

The problem wasn’t that these practices had never helped me. I knew they could, and I teach some of them for a living.<\/b><\/p>

The problem was friction. Meditation asked me to create space and settle my attention first. Journaling asked for time and a quiet head. Movement-based practices meant carving out another window in an already full morning.<\/span><\/p>

And on the mornings I needed regulation most, adding another thing to do was often the last thing I wanted.<\/b><\/p>

I wasn’t looking for something to replace these practices.<\/b> I was looking for something that could make it easier to arrive at them, so that when I did sit down to breathe or meditate, I wasn’t spending the first ten minutes just trying to get there. It doesn’t replace the practices I teach. It’s what helps me actually get the full value out of them.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The System Underneath the Speed<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Den <\/span>autonomt nervsystem (ANS)<\/b> helps regulate processes that happen largely outside conscious control. The <\/span>sympatiskt nervsystem (SNS)<\/b> supports mobilization and alertness, while the <\/span>parasympatiskt nervsystem (PNS)<\/b> supports rest, digestion, and recovery.<\/span><\/p>

We need both. The goal isn’t to eliminate sympathetic activation, or to spend the entire day parasympathetic. What matters is flexibility, our ability to respond to demand and then move towards recovery once that demand passes.<\/span><\/p>

What I was looking for wasn’t a way to force myself into parasympathetic stillness before the day began. It was a way to support that flexibility, that shift, without requiring more effort from an already-activated system.<\/span><\/p>

The vagus nerve is an important pathway within the parasympathetic nervous system, carrying signals between the brainstem and organs including the heart, lungs and digestive tract. <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why I Was Skeptical<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I’m naturally quite skeptical person when it comes to wellness claims. I wasn’t looking for a quick fix, and I wasn’t going to trust a device simply because it promised to “reset my nervous system.” I hear that phrase used loosely, and it usually means very little.<\/span><\/p>

What actually got my attention was the research itself, not the marketing around it.<\/span><\/p>

There’s a substantial and growing body of peer-reviewed research behind <\/span>taVNS<\/b> (Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation), a non-invasive way of engaging the vagus nerve through the outer ear.<\/span><\/p>

The external ear is an established target for non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation because parts of it receive sensory innervation from the auricular branch of the vagus nerve. The exact mechanisms and optimal stimulation sites are still being studied.<\/span><\/p>

I came into trying this with curiosity, not expectation. My experience has taught me that the practices I use tend to become more useful through repetition and consistency, rather than overnight. I wasn’t expecting an overnight transformation. I was looking for something I could use consistently and assess over time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

What caught my attention was taVNS itself, before any specific device.<\/b> It immediately solved one of my biggest practical objections. It didn’t require me to stop my morning to use it. So I started looking at the devices that actually use this approach. One stood out because of the research behind it.<\/span><\/p>

That’s when I came across Nurosym.<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What I Found: Nurosym AVNT\u2122<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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