Day 1: Permission to exhale
The fastest, gentlest reset for your nervous system starts here.
Hello, my friend, and welcome to day 1 of the 7-Day Nervous System Reset. I'm so glad you're here!
Today is about safety. This is the key metric when it comes to your nervous system feeling calm, at ease, and soft, and your brain creative, connected, and stress-free.
If you want to go deeper into why all of this matters, Nervous System 101 is my most-read article ever — and for good reason. It’s a great companion to this reset.
Safety is basically the key to all of it.
And there are plenty of ways we can give ourselves that sense of safety (and a lot of them will be unique to you), but there’s one simple way we can incorporate signals of safety into every day:
Exhaling.
Not in a poetic way. Not in a light-a-£50-candle-and-pretend-you’re-not-stressed kinda way. But in a real, biological, change-your-day kind of way.
This one act — slowing your exhalation — signals to your nervous system that it can stop bracing and start softening. It can turn down the volume on fight-or-flight and give your body a moment of real ease (paying subscriber? Read more about the theory and why this matters below).
Try this today
Right now, as you’re reading these words, and then throughout your day whenever you remember you’re a human with a semi-functioning nervous system (we should start a club…), do this:
Inhale deeply into your belly and side-ribs (for a count of 3, say).
Then let your exhale (via mouth or nose, it’s all good) be super slow — double the length of your inhale (so for a count of 6).
Do that three times.
Notice how you feel.
Do not underestimate this. It’s a simple reset, but not a small one.
Try this before a challenging thing, when you’re in a place that makes you a little on-edge, in your morning routine, or just while waiting for the kettle the boil and notice what happens.
It might be subtle, but this can impact everything.
Unlock today’s video class — and your 7-Day Nervous System Reset
Curious why this works so well?
Want today’s video class to practice this with me?
Become a member of Joyful and you’ll get:
Today’s video class: a 20-minute slow-paced movement session designed to help you exhale, unwind, and reconnect with your body — perfect for morning grounding or anytime you feel stuck.
A deeper theory dive on why the exhale is key to nervous system regulation (this is more than “just breathe” advice).
A gentle prompt to deepen the shift.
And access to the full reset, including:
Daily nervous system missions,
Breathwork, theory, and movement for every day of the reset,
The brand-new EASE morning framework,
Plus a joyful toolkit of yoga, meditations, nidra, and cyclical resources for life beyond the reset.
Learn more about upgrading here.
And get set for Day 2. Tomorrow I’ll be guiding you through a nervous system orientation — designed for folks who know overwhelm really, really intimately.
This is day 1 of the 7-Day Nervous System Reset. Start at the beginning here, or continue to day 2 here.