How To Calm Your Nervous System Before Communicating With Your Ex

Do attempts to communicate with your ex make you feel like you’re living in a soap opera? Are you exhausted by the prospect of co-parenting for years with someone who drives you into a blind rage? Do you want to chuck it all and permanently sequester yourself at a seaside resort with a pina colada IV?

Acknowledging that you feel overwhelmed by your divorce is actually a good thing because you’ve identified a problem and can work on a solution: regulating your nervous system BEFORE you communicate with your ex.

How divorce stress dysregulates your brain

Information is processed sequentially, from bottom to top, through the four parts of the brain. Think of these parts stacked one on top of the other.

• Brainstem: This is the most primitive part of your brain. Its job is to take in information.
• Diencephalon: This is the processing part of the brain that starts to sort through information and relay it to other parts of the nervous system.
• Limbic: This is the part involved in behavioral and emotional responses.
• Cortex: The highest part of the brain, the cortex enables you to reason.

In order to reason with another person, information needs to move from the lower parts of the brain to the cortex, the part that involves logic and reason. When you have a difficult divorce, you are constantly bombarded with new information and behavior from your ex which may feel unpredictable, overwhelming and scary. 

So information tends to get stuck in the lower parts of your brain, making it difficult for you to process events and regulate emotions, which you need to do in order to utilize logic. 

High-conflict divorce occurs when one or both people are stuck in “lizard-brain mode,” and communicate with each other when they are incapable of being reasonable. When your information-processing and emotion-regulation is out of whack, you interpret events in a distorted way and then try to communicate based on a faulty narrative. And when your emotions are running the show, you may be prone to outbursts, extreme behaviors and maladaptive communication strategies.

5 ways to regulate your nervous system before dealing with your ex

The key to improving communication with your ex is to calm down your nervous system (move up from the brainstem to the cortex) before you interact with them. Here are some suggestions:

• Take a time-out. Stop engaging in dialogue, either in person or written, and use this time-out to utilize coping skills. For instance, resist the urge to fire off a self-righteous email to your ex until you’ve had a chance to cool off.
• Practice diaphragmatic breathing. Belly-breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system which will allow you to calm down. Inhale through your nose for six counts, hold for four, and exhale for eight. Exhaling for longer than you inhale will allow you to self-soothe. Do this for 15 minutes everyday to strengthen your “calm-down muscle” and then utilize the technique just before you communicate with your ex.
• Listen to self-hypnosis apps. Mindfulness apps such as Calm, Insight Timer, and Aura have self-hypnosis podcasts that train your brain to manage anxiety, increase positive thinking, and sleep, among other functions.
• Move your body. Exercise is nature’s mood stabilizer! Dispel anger and frustration by taking a jog, doing some yoga, or jumping on a mini-trampoline. 
• Get enough sleep and eat well. Sleep deprivation and a sloppy diet will make it harder for your brain to function properly. Practicing good sleep hygiene and eating nutritious meals will help you stabilize your mood and think more clearly.

Finally, try not to indulge in “stinking thinking.” Ruminating about your ex’s bad behavior will not change them and will actually make it more difficult for you to get in the right headspace when it’s time to communicate. 

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