Last week, I could feel the cortisol pumping through my body. My sleep was off, my muscles were tight, and I could feel that my blood pressure was elevated. Even my smartwatch backed me up – it was practically screaming at me with higher than normal stress readings. It was obvious to me what was happening: my nervous system was stuck in fight-flight-freeze mode, and I knew that if I didn’t do something about it soon, it could start to have a negative effect on my health.

As a psychologist, my first instinct is typically to go straight to the why. In this case, it didn’t take much for me to recognize the cause – all of the current uncertainty in the world was taking its toll. I’d been tracking every piece of breaking news, keeping up with all the geopolitical shifts, and letting my brain spin stories about what could happen next. That constant uncertainty was feeding my anxiety. And despite having a solid self-care routine consisting of gym, tennis, journaling, meditation, none of it was cutting through the static. I needed something more.

I knew that while most of my usual go-to strategies are primarily mental, what we call “top-down” approaches, my body was screaming for attention. I needed to flip the script and engage in more “bottom-up” approaches so that my body could signal to my mind that it was okay to settle down.

Understanding Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Stress

When we talk about managing stress, it’s helpful to understand that there are two main ways our bodies and minds process and respond to it: from the top down and from the bottom up.

Top-down approaches start with the brain – our thoughts, beliefs, and mental processes. This is the kind of stress management we often think of first: things like reframing a situation, practicing mindfulness, journaling, or using positive self-talk. Essentially, you’re using your thinking brain (the cortex) to influence how you feel emotionally and physically. It’s about changing your perspective so you can respond to stress in a more balanced way.

On the flip side, bottom-up approaches work through the body to calm the mind. These are the practices that directly engage the nervous system, through movement, breath, sensation, or touch, to send a signal up to the brain that it’s safe to relax. These techniques tap into your nervous system directly, often bypassing conscious thought altogether. The idea is that by calming your body, your mind naturally begins to follow.

Both approaches are valid and useful, so it’s not about choosing one over the other. Many times, a mental reframe might be all you need to shift your perspective and regulate your emotions. But, in moments when you’re too overwhelmed to think clearly, starting with a bottom-up method can help settle your system enough to enable the top-down strategies to become more effective. Learning to recognize what your body and mind need in the moment can help you find your own balance between these two approaches.

Bottom-Up Approaches to Try

Here are a few of the body-based practices I used to regulate my system. If you’re feeling stressed, scattered, physically tense, or off-kilter, I encourage you to try one or two and see how they calm your body.

1. Gentle Yoga and Foam Rolling

Given all the tightness I was feeling in my body, I started with a simple yoga practice. While there are all kinds of yoga practices you can try, when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I tend to prefer restorative practices – relaxing ones that aren’t particularly strenuous, but give me a nice opportunity to sit in stretches for longer periods of time so I can reconnect with my body. Without fail, whenever I do yoga, I always feel better afterwards. Every single time.

Another approach that isn’t necessarily pleasant, but it works, is foam rolling. Foam rolling is basically a way to give yourself a mini deep tissue massage using a cylindrical piece of foam. You roll different parts of your body over it, like your legs, back, or hips, to help release tight muscles and knots, also known as “trigger points.” It might feel a little (or a lot) uncomfortable at first (in a good way), but it helps improve blood flow, loosen up stiff areas, and tell your nervous system it’s okay to relax. If you’re holding a lot of tension in your body, foam rolling can be a very effective way to unwind and reset.

2. Somatic Shaking

This one is exactly what it sounds like – I literally shook my body from head to toe. This practice is inspired by observations of animals in the wild. After a stressful or traumatic event, animals will often instinctively shake – almost as if they’re physically releasing the tension and discharging the stress from their bodies (watch it here and here). You can do something similar for yourself by turning on some music and shaking intuitively or doing a somatic shaking video. Either way, you’ll likely find that it relaxes your body – and your mind.

3. Hot Showers

Hot showers are another simple bottom-up practice that I like to use. Like the other approaches, they are a great way of calming the nervous system and creating a sense of physical ease, which signals safety and relaxation to the brain. The warmth can help soothe tense muscles, slow your breathing, and even activate the parasympathetic nervous system—the part of the nervous system responsible for rest and recovery.

The key for getting the most benefit from a hot shower is to do it mindfully. Like anything, I can take a shower mindlessly in a rush, getting a cleaner body, but not getting the mental health benefit. But when I’m purposeful about being present, savoring the experience of the water on my skin, inhaling the steam in the air and the scent of my soap, and appreciating the whole experience, it always settles me down. You might also want to sing or hum while you’re showering – it stimulates the vagus nerve, which also calms the body. And, if you’re braver than I am, cold showers can also do the trick.

4. Good quality sleep

Sleep is generally considered a bottom-up approach, because when you sleep, your body goes into a deep state of repair – regulating hormones, calming inflammation, and restoring your nervous system. This restoration naturally helps to reduce tension and emotional reactivity, making it easy to handle stress when you’re awake. So, it’s a bottom-up approach, because your body is doing the work, and your mind reaps the benefits.

However, to get good quality sleep, you often have to employ top-down strategies – like giving yourself time to wind-down, dealing with racing thoughts, and engaging in good sleep hygiene. For me, that meant creating firmer boundaries around news and screen time before bed. No more doom-scrolling before sleep. Once I committed to that (and stuck to my practices), my sleep improved, and so did everything else.

5. Deep Breathing

This one is always a go-to for me – especially in moments when I feel my stress response activated, but can’t engage one of my other practices (I’m a little too self-conscious to start somatic shaking at the grocery store, for example). Whether I engage in belly breathing, box breathing (inhale, hold, exhale, hold – all for 4 counts), or longer exhales, these are simple ways to calm my nervous system.

6. The Butterfly Hug

Another simple yet powerful bottom-up technique is the butterfly hug. This practice involves crossing your arms over your chest—like giving yourself a hug—and gently tapping your hands on your upper arms in an alternating rhythm. Originally developed as part of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, the butterfly hug uses bilateral stimulation to help calm the nervous system and create a sense of safety in the body. It’s particularly effective during moments of anxiety, overwhelm, or emotional distress. By engaging the body through rhythmic movement, the butterfly hug helps signal to the brain that it’s safe to relax—making it a gentle and accessible tool for nervous system regulation.

Other Small Shifts that Helped

I also made a few intentional changes that supported my bottom-up efforts. I deleted social media apps from my phone. I didn’t just turn off notifications, I removed the temptation altogether. (It’s been shocking to discover how often I have had impulses to reach for the phone for a quick dopamine hit)! I also set boundaries around how much news I consume and reminded myself that I can stay informed without drowning in information. These small choices created space for calm.

The Results? A Noticeable Shift

The result? I feel a LOT better this week. My smartwatch stress readings are better than they were (not perfect – hey, I’m human), and the physical tension is gone. Most of all, I don’t have that same uneasy feeling all day – I have found peace in the midst of chaos.

Am I in denial? No. I’m not ignoring what’s happening in the world. I’m simply not letting my nervous system live there 24/7. And, by managing my stress response, I’m able to move through the world with more clarity, resilience, and groundedness.

Could You Use Support?

If your body is carrying stress and your usual strategies aren’t quite working, you’re not alone. And, you don’t have to figure it out by yourself. If you’re curious about how to create a more personalized, sustainable plan for managing stress that includes both top-down and bottom-up approaches, let’s talk.

In addition to providing executive coaching, I also offer webinars and coaching to help people to manage their stress, build resilience, and show up more fully in their lives. If that sounds like something you could use, reach out. I’d love to support you on your journey.