When we talk about nervous system regulation, it’s easy to imagine it as an individual practice as something you do alone, with your breath or a grounding exercise. But regulation is never just personal.
Our nervous systems are social systems. They are designed to tune to the signals of those around us. This happens through neuroception, the body’s unconscious scanning for safety or danger. Coined by Dr. Stephen Porges, it constantly scans the environment and internal sensations to activate the autonomic nervous system (ANS), influencing responses like fight, flight, or freeze to ensure survival or promote social connection and thriving. (Read previous article on Adaptive Stress Responses)
This is why emotions are contagious. Why you can feel the tension in a room before anyone speaks. Why laughter spreads easily, and why calm can ripple outward just as quickly as stress.
What is co-regulation?
From birth, we rely on others to regulate. A baby cannot self-soothe; they depend on the presence of a caregiver. A soothing voice. A safe gaze. These early rhythms shape the way our nervous system learns to respond to the world.
As adults, the same principle holds true. Our nervous systems remain exquisitely tuned to the signals of others. We don’t grow out of this need for co-regulation; we carry it into every conversation, meeting, and relationship.
We pick up on subtle cues, a raised eyebrow, a shift in posture, the speed of someone’s speech, the warmth (or absence) in their gaze. These arrive in our bodies before our minds even register them. In a fraction of a second, our system is already adjusting by leaning toward connection or moving into protection.
How we respond is shaped not only by our present context but also by our attachment histories. If we grew up with caregivers who were reliably attuned, our nervous systems may more easily settle into connection as adults. If our early experiences were inconsistent or unsafe, we may be more prone to anxious activation, avoidance, or collapse in moments of relational stress.
These patterns don’t define us forever, but they do shape how quickly we can trust, how we read signs from others, and how we regulate in relationship. In practice, this means that our presence is always shaping the field around us. Sometimes our way of being brings calm to others. Other times, we’re the ones steadied by the groundedness of a colleague, a friend, or even the collective energy of a group that feels safe.
Why it matters at work
In teams and organisations, co-regulation is happening all the time — whether we acknowledge it or not.
A leader rushing from meeting to meeting carries urgency that everyone else absorbs.
A manager who can stay grounded in conflict helps the group remain creative and open.
A workplace culture that rewards constant output often leaves everyone’s nervous systems in survival mode.
Policies and values matter. But beneath them, it’s the felt sense of safety — the atmosphere created by nervous systems in relationship — that determines whether collaboration flourishes or breaks down.
This is why co-regulation isn’t a soft skill. It’s a biological process, and it shapes culture at every level.
Beyond the human nervous system
When we widen the lens, we can see co-regulation everywhere — in families, communities, organisations, and larger ecosystems.
Systems themselves — teams, organisms, and even societies — carry patterns of connection, adaptation, and protection much like a nervous system. The Gaia Hypothesis suggests Earth self-regulates through feedback loops. Theories of the “global brain” describe communication networks as a kind of planetary nervous system. Ecosystems mirror the web-like complexity of our own neural networks. I have always been struck how our nerves resemble rivers and how….
There’s a growing conversation about the idea that systems themselves have nervous systems. Just as individuals shift between protection and connection, organisations and cultures do too. If we zoom out even further, we might ask: what if Earth itself has a nervous system? What would it mean to sense, attune, and co-regulate with the living systems that hold us?
Spending time in nature, with the trees, stones, sky, insects and the winged ones — I notice the effect on my own nervous system. It’s a felt sense of co-regulating with the wider web of life.
It’s very important to say, that this isn’t new knowledge. Many Indigenous and ancestral traditions have long spoken about the relational intelligence of land, water, animals, and spirit. Polyvagal Theory offers a useful framework, but decolonising our lens means recognising that nervous system literacy is not only a Western scientific insight. It is a remembering of wisdom that has been carried in cultures across millennia.
That’s a topic we’ll return to in a future post.
Practising co-regulation
For now, it begins simply, with awareness.
Notice how your own state shifts in response to others.
Experiment with slowing your breath or softening your tone before you enter a conversation.
Pay attention to who helps you feel more grounded, and how you might offer that presence in return.
Even small shifts ripple outward. When we carry calm, we offer calm. When we’re in fear or urgency, others feel it too.
Reflection: Who Helps You Settle?
Take a quiet moment to reflect:
Who in your life helps you feel more regulated, simply by being near them?
When have you been soothed by someone’s rhythm or presence, even without them doing anything in particular?
What qualities in them made you feel more at ease?
Notice the imprint they leave in your body. That’s co-regulation in action.
Want to go deeper?
If this resonates and you’d like to explore further:
Read more about Nervous System Literacy. Join one of my Nervous System Literacy trainings and download The Autonomic Compass, a free tool to help you map your own nervous system patterns and find your way back to connection.
