Nervous System Regulation and Dysregulation: How Acupuncture Supports

By Clara Park, R.Ac 

Have you ever felt like your body is working against you? In my years of practicing acupuncture and navigating the complexities of living in my own body, I’ve seen this belief affect almost everyone who walks through my door.  Whether influenced by our culture, age, or specific life circumstances, most of us have been taught to internalize our physical and emotional struggles as personal shortcomings.

We often view our symptoms through a lens of judgment:

• Chronic pain feels like a personal failure.

• Anxiety feels like a character weakness.

• Digestive issues feel like our body is betraying us.

• Shutdown or burnout feels like we simply aren't "strong or good enough."

But what if these symptoms aren't "broken" parts of you?  When we look through the lens of the nervous system, a different picture emerges: your symptoms are actually intelligent patterns of survival.

Nervous System Regulation vs Dysregulation

Before we talk about regulation and dysregulation, it helps to understand what the nervous system is.  The nervous system is our body’s primary communication and regulation network.  It connects the brain, spinal cord, organs, muscles, and tissues, constantly sensing what is happening internally and externally.  It adjusts heart rate, breathing, digestion, muscle tone, immune activity, and stress responses often without our awareness.  Because it influences nearly every system in the body, how well our nervous system regulates directly shapes how we feel physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Our nervous system is designed to adapt.  It mobilizes us when something demands action (sympathetic system) and allows us to settle when it is safe to rest (parasympathetic system).  

Regulation is flexibility.

The nervous system can:

• Mobilize when action is needed

• Settle when it is safe to rest

Healthy regulation does not mean being calm all the time.  It means being able to shift.

Dysregulation happens when that flexibility gets stuck, often due to prolonged stress or trauma.

• Stuck in "On" (Activation): This is the high-alert state. You might experience racing thoughts, tight shoulders, or shallow breathing. Chronic pain often thrives here because the nervous system has become hyper-protective.

• Stuck in "Off" (Shutdown): You might feel heavy, disconnected, or "foggy." This is a survival strategy to conserve energy when the system feels overwhelmed. It isn't a lack of willpower; it’s a protective "freeze."

  
  

A Different Way to Understand Symptoms

When symptoms are viewed through the lens of nervous system regulation, they become less like problems to eliminate and more like patterns to understand.

In my sessions, I invite curiosity from both myself and the person in front of me.  Rather than rushing toward correction, we slow down enough to observe.  Together, we begin to notice the patterns that have formed: how the body braces, how it withdraws, how it stays alert, how it copes.  There is something powerful about approaching symptoms this way.  Curiosity softens judgment.  It allows us to learn from the body instead of fighting against it.

How Acupuncture Supports Regulation

Acupuncture isn't about overriding your body’s signals; it’s about improving the communication within.  

When needles are placed, they provide a gentle sensory input that travels from the peripheral nerves to the brain. Research shows this can help balance the autonomic nervous system by quietening "fight or flight" (sympathetic) activation and supporting "rest and digest" (parasympathetic) activity.  

Clinically, the shift is simple: when the system feels safe, it reorganizes. You might notice a deeper breath, a softening of the jaw, or a quiet sense of calm. Using a trauma-informed approach, we don't push the system out of its protective state; we allow it to find its own rhythm at its own pace.

Healing Through Experience

Real change doesn't happen through thinking; it happens through “experience”. By bringing gentle attention to breath, tension, and temperature, we help the nervous system notice safety in the present moment.  It is important to remember that this is a process of retraining.  

Just as it takes consistent, repetitive workouts to build physical muscle, it takes consistent and repetitive sessions to shift the nervous system out of long-held patterns of activation or shutdown especially in chronic cases.  

When we provide the body with regular, predictable signals of safety, the system utilizes “neuroplasticity” (the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections) to update its response to stress.  This isn't about "fixing" a one-time error; it’s about teaching the body a new way of being.  Over time, activation can rise and fall naturally, freeze can soften gradually, and the body remembers how to regulate itself.  

When regulation returns, symptoms often soften not because we forced them to disappear, but because the body no longer needs to hold them in the same way.  This is a more compassionate path to healing; one where your body is seen not as a mistake to be corrected, but as an intelligent system finally being understood.

References & Further Reading

1. Evaluation of Autonomic Nervous System Function Using Heart Rate Variability Analysis During Acupuncture - PMC (2020).

2. Neuroplasticity and the Nervous System - National Institutes of Health (NIH).

3. Polyvagal Theory: A Primer - Dr. Stephen Porges.