12/23/2025
Sometimes washing your face is more than skin care.
It’s your nervous system exhaling.
Small routines help your body get out of survival mode.
Small routines = safety.
When stress stays high, your nervous system stays in fight-or-flight or shutdown. That’s when your body prioritizes protection over healing, clarity, and connection.
Simple, predictable routines tell your body: nothing urgent is happening right now.
Think of routines as training or reminders for your nervous system.
Each time you pause to breathe, ground, or move gently, you’re strengthening the pathways that help your body calm down faster, recover from stress more easily, and stay regulated longer.
These all count as regulation:
• Washing your face slowly
• Making coffee or tea without multitasking
• Sitting down to eat instead of standing
• Taking three deep breaths before the next task
Small routines create predictability.
Predictability creates safety.
You don’t always need a dark, quiet room and extra time. Sometimes grounding and breathing looks like feeling your feet on the floor, letting your exhale be longer than your inhale, looking around the room and orienting to where you are, or holding something cold or textured.
Your nervous system regulates through rhythm and connection too. A quick walk, stretching between tasks, gentle repetitive movement, or a hug or calm conversation all send cues your body understands.
You don’t calm your body by thinking harder.
You calm it by giving it cues it understands.
You don’t need to eliminate stress.
You don’t need a perfect routine.
You just need consistent ways to come back to calm.
That’s how regulation becomes your baseline.
Small routines, big impact.
Follow along for more ways to work regulating your nervous system into your busy, everyday life.
Comment “grounding” for my 6 favorite grounding techniques.
We all deserve regulation.
