Why You Can’t “Think” Your Way Out of Dysregulation
Mental health challenges are increasingly prevalent among women over 35, influenced by hormonal shifts, career demands, caregiving responsibilities, and societal expectations to “do it all.” Recent data shows that 25% of women aged 35 to 44 took time off work due to stress in 2024, up from 20% the previous year. Meanwhile, stress-related absences among older workers have declined. Women are also more likely than men to report high levels of stress and unpaid tasks, highlighting the disproportionate mental load they carry.
But here’s the truth no one likes to say out loud: you can’t “think” your way out of overwhelm, anxiety, or burnout.
You can read the books, make the to-do lists, recite affirmations — but if your nervous system is dysregulated, your thinking brain is operating under distortion. Until you address what’s happening in your body, your mind will keep spinning in the same exhausting loops.
Let’s break this down.
The Nervous System and Cognitive Distortion
Your nervous system is your body’s command center for survival. It constantly scans your environment for cues of safety or threat, a process called neuroception. Depending on what it perceives, it will shift you into one of four primary states: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These states are not “mental health disorders” — they are biological survival strategies.
The problem? When you live in a chronically dysregulated state, your cognitive function — your ability to think clearly, reason, and reflect — becomes hijacked. This leads to cognitive distortions: patterns of thinking that are biased, exaggerated, or outright false.
Examples include:
- Black-and-white thinking (“I’m either perfect or a failure.”)
- Catastrophizing (“If I make one mistake, everything will fall apart.”)
- Mind reading (“They must think I’m incompetent.”)
- Personalization (“It’s all my fault.”)
When the body is stuck in survival mode, the mind bends reality to fit that stress state. Understanding this connection is crucial to breaking free.
How Each Nervous System State Impacts the Mind
🔥 Fight Response
In the fight state, your system is mobilized for battle. You feel on edge, irritable, and defensive. Cognitively, this can look like:
- Hypercriticism of yourself or others
- Anger and resentment
- Perfectionism
- Obsessive problem-solving
Signs you’re stuck here:
- Constant frustration or rage
- Snapping at loved ones
- Grinding teeth, tight jaw
- Feeling like you have to “push through” everything
Mental health impact: Over time, this can lead to chronic anxiety, relational conflict, and a deep sense of loneliness. You may alienate people or burn bridges you later regret.
💨 Flight Response
Flight is about escape. You may look functional on the outside — overachieving, over-scheduling, multitasking — but inside, you’re running from overwhelm.
Cognitive impacts:
- Racing thoughts
- Difficulty concentrating
- Indecisiveness
- Overplanning or micromanaging
Signs you’re stuck here:
- Anxiety or panic attacks
- Busy-ness addiction
- Fear of slowing down
- Insomnia, restlessness
Mental health impact: Flight fuels chronic anxiety and burnout. Many women in this state eventually hit a wall where their body forces rest through illness or collapse.
❄️ Freeze Response
Freeze is the body’s version of playing dead. You feel stuck, shut down, or numb. It’s often mistaken for laziness or depression, but it’s actually a survival mechanism.
Cognitive impacts:
- Brain fog
- Dissociation
- Helplessness
- Difficulty making decisions
Signs you’re stuck here:
- Feeling emotionally flat or “dead inside”
- Withdrawing from friends or responsibilities
- Avoiding tasks or conversations
- Sleeping excessively or zoning out for hours
Mental health impact: Freeze can spiral into depression, deep isolation, and feelings of meaninglessness.
🤝 Fawn Response
Fawn is the least discussed but incredibly common, especially among women. It’s the survival strategy of appeasement: people-pleasing to stay safe.
Cognitive impacts:
- Difficulty knowing your own needs
- Overattunement to others’ moods
- Low self-worth
- Fear of conflict
Signs you’re stuck here:
- Saying yes when you mean no
- Overgiving in relationships
- Walking on eggshells around others
- Feeling invisible or resentful
Mental health impact: Fawn erodes boundaries and identity, often leading to codependency, resentment, and profound exhaustion.
Why Thinking Isn’t Enough
If you’ve been stuck in one or more of these states, you’ve probably tried to think your way out: positive affirmations, mindset shifts, productivity hacks. While these tools have value, they don’t address the root.
Why?
Because the nervous system drives the mind, not the other way around.
When you’re dysregulated, your prefrontal cortex — the part of your brain responsible for rational thinking, empathy, and impulse control — goes offline. Your survival brain takes over. This is why you can’t logic your way through a panic attack, or talk yourself out of collapse.
To truly shift, you have to work with your body.
The Importance of Vagal Toning and Nervous System Resilience
The vagus nerve is the main highway between your brain and body. It helps regulate heart rate, digestion, and emotional regulation. Vagal tone — the strength and flexibility of this nerve — is a key predictor of resilience.
High vagal tone is linked to:
- Better emotional regulation
- Faster recovery from stress
- Improved immune function
- Greater connection and empathy
Low vagal tone, on the other hand, makes you more prone to anxiety, depression, inflammation, and disease.
Good news: You can train your vagus nerve. Practices like breathwork, gentle movement, cold exposure, humming, chanting, and social connection all help. Over time, these tools increase your capacity to handle stress without tipping into survival states.
What Does This Mean for Mental Health?
Mental health is not just a mindset problem — it’s a body-mind system problem.
For women over 35, this is especially relevant. As hormonal shifts impact brain chemistry, and as social and professional pressures mount, many women find themselves operating in chronic survival mode without even realizing it. They blame themselves for not coping better, not realizing their body is stuck in a protective loop.
By addressing nervous system health, you can:
✅ Reduce cognitive distortions
✅ Improve emotional resilience
✅ Reconnect with joy, creativity, and purpose
✅ Make clearer, more empowered decisions
Join Us: A Free Virtual Workshop to Reclaim Your Nervous System
If you’re ready to stop living in your head and start healing from the inside out, I invite you to join our upcoming FREE virtual workshop:
✨ Regulating Emotions: A Free Somatic Experience for Women Recovering from Burnout & Mental Overload ✨
🗓️ When: May 14th, 5:30–6:30 p.m. PST
💻 Where: Online
In this workshop, you’ll learn:
✅ Why burnout & anxiety feel so hard to shake
✅ How your nervous system controls stress & emotions
✅ Somatic practices to calm your system & restore energy
This experience is designed for the woman who’s done with trying to “outperform” her own biology — the woman who’s ready to reconnect with her body’s wisdom, build resilience, and come home to herself.
Final Thoughts: A Call to Action
The most forward-thinking approach to mental health today isn’t about more information — it’s about integration.
It’s about moving from your head into your body, from hyper-independence into supported interdependence, from survival into thriving.
Your nervous system isn’t your enemy. It’s your greatest ally — if you learn how to listen.
So let’s stop pathologizing our symptoms and start understanding them as signals. Let’s build a culture where regulation, resilience, and rest are seen as strengths, not weaknesses.
And let’s do it together — I hope to see you at the workshop.
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