How to Calm the Nervous System: 6 Ways to Quiet the Temple of the Holy Spirit
- Bobby Jakucs, Psy.D.
- 17 hours ago
- 8 min read
"Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit." - St. Francis de Sales
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Imagine being hooked up to the most sensitive and sophisticated alarm system in the world. Perfectly calibrated to detect even the slightest threat to your well-being. That system is your nervous system.
It is a remarkable gift. Like a smoke alarm, it exists to protect us. You want one in your home to tell you when there is a fire. But imagine if it went off every time a loud car rumbled past outside. It would be hard to think, work, pray, or live peacefully in such an environment. And yet, many of us try to “think” our way out of anxiety while our internal alarm system is still blaring.
God created us as embodied beings. The body is not separate from the spiritual life but very much part of it. As St. John Paul II wrote in his Theology of the Body, “The body, in fact, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine.” St. Paul similarly reminds us that “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Stress affects both body and soul. Learning how to calm and regulate the nervous system can help us cooperate more fully with grace - and care for the gift God has given us.
Understanding Anxiety and the Nervous System
The nervous system is an incredible gift. Its job is to alert us to threats and keep us safe. The problem is not that we have one. The problem is that it can become overactive.
At the center of this system is the amygdala, often called the brain’s “fear center.” It mobilizes the body’s emotional response to threat. The difficulty is that it often treats all threats similarly. In other words, the nervous system can respond to an upcoming presentation, a stressful email, or your child not answering a text message in much the same way it responds to genuine danger.
When stress becomes chronic, the body can remain locked in fight, flight, or freeze mode. Research on chronic stress has consistently shown that prolonged activation of the stress response system impacts mood, sleep, emotional regulation, and physical health. It is a bit like driving a car with one foot on the gas pedal and the other on the brake.
Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline rise. In the short term this is helpful because it mobilizes the body to respond quickly. But over time chronic stress wears us down. Sleep worsens. Emotional regulation becomes harder. Anxiety grows louder. We may begin withdrawing from loved ones or numbing ourselves with endless distraction. Stress can even impact digestion and physical health.
The good news is that there are small daily habits that can help quiet the nervous system and create conditions more favorable for peace, prayer, and real connection to God and others.
1. Prayer, Stillness, and Calming the Nervous System
So much of what the spiritual masters teach us centers on the importance of prayer for peace of mind and the life of the soul.
Our modern culture often confuses productivity with busyness. But busyness frequently leads not to meaning, but to distraction and burnout. A quote commonly attributed to St. Francis de Sales states: “Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy — then we need an hour.” Whether or not the quote can be perfectly sourced, St. Francis exemplified it. He was an outwardly “busy” person – a bishop, spiritual director, evangelist and missionary – yet maintained a deep and abiding interior peace through regular prayer.
Prayer is not simply “positive thinking” or a life-hack. It is relationship with God. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, prayer is “the raising of one’s mind and heart to God.”
Like Elijah, we often expect God to appear in noise, urgency, and activity. Instead, God speaks in stillness.
Prayer is also deeply embodied. The Catechism reminds us, “Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays.” Breathing slowly, cultivating silence, kneeling, walking prayerfully, and learning to tolerate stillness can all help calm the body and quiet the mind.
While prayer is first and foremost about relationship to God, our minds and bodies feel the effects. A growing body of research suggests that engagement in religious and spiritual practices like prayer improve health markers and increase physiological and psychological well-being.
Mindfulness can also be helpful when properly understood. In modern psychology, mindfulness is primarily a psychological skill: learning to intentionally return attention to the present moment rather than being endlessly pulled around by worries, distractions, or emotional reactions. In that sense, it is less a spirituality in itself and more a form of attention training.
This is important because Christian prayer differs substantially from many Eastern meditation traditions. The goal of Christian contemplation is not the dissolution or emptying of the self for its own sake, but deeper communion with God. Still, the practical skill of learning to notice distractions and gently return attention can greatly support recollection, prayer, and the spiritual life. In many ways, mindfulness simply helps train our attention so that we can become more present: to God, to others, and to the moment before us.
This distinction between psychological mindfulness and spiritual traditions is an important one, and one I hope to explore in greater depth in a future post.
Some practical ways to cultivate stillness:
Attend Eucharistic adoration and sit quietly with Our Lord.
Practice silent prayer for even a few minutes each day.
Use breathing prayers such as: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…” on the inhale and “…have mercy on me, a sinner” on the exhale.
Take a Rosary walk.
Create small moments of silence throughout the day by turning off your phone or stepping away from constant noise.
Also, if it’s helpful, I previously wrote about a simple practice called “Anchored in Him” (ABIDE), which combines grounding techniques drawn from what we know about the nervous system with intentionally inviting God into moments of stress and overwhelm.
2. Move the Body God Gave You: Exercise and Anxiety
Our bodies were made to move. The nervous system primes us for action, and movement helps release stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
The key is not perfection but consistency. Walking counts. Stretching counts. Gardening counts. Playing with your children counts.
I have often found that when my mind becomes stuck on a problem, clarity comes after a walk or workout. And even when solutions do not appear immediately, I feel more prepared to face the challenge ahead.
Research consistently shows that moderate exercise improves emotional regulation, mood, and anxiety. Exercise also supports brain health and improves sleep quality.
Movement outdoors has added benefits. Sunlight helps regulate circadian rhythm, which is essential for restful sleep and healthy energy levels. Spending time outside also reconnects us to creation itself.
A few practical ideas:
Take short walking or stretch breaks throughout the day.
Walk after meals when possible.
Build movement naturally into family life.
Engage in hobbies like gardening, hiking, or recreational sports.
Motion, in many ways, becomes medicine.
3. The Gut-Brain Connection and Mental Health
Thomas Aquinas famously wrote that “grace perfects nature.” Sometimes caring for the soul includes eating an actual breakfast.
Research increasingly demonstrates a profound connection between gut health and brain health. In fact, a large amount of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut. The food we consume impacts mood, energy, inflammation, and sleep.
Highly processed diets may worsen inflammation and contribute to emotional instability. Blood sugar swings can intensify irritability and anxiety, acting almost like a biological magnifying glass for stress.
There is no perfect diet for every person. But generally speaking:
more whole foods,
adequate protein and fiber,
hydration,
and limiting ultra-processed foods
can go a surprisingly long way.
The goal is not obsession or dietary perfectionism. Small sustainable changes matter.
4. Sleep, Anxiety, and the Nervous System
I do not know anyone who has spent an entire night worrying and arrived at a brilliant conclusion by morning. More often, sleep deprivation simply hands a loudspeaker to anxiety.
Poor sleep makes emotional regulation harder. It becomes more difficult to think clearly, solve problems, and respond from a place of virtue rather than reactivity. Quite simply, an exhausted nervous system interprets the world differently than a rested one.
As someone trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), I have written elsewhere in greater depth about improving sleep. But there are several practical steps almost anyone can begin tonight:
Maintain a consistent wake-up time.
Reduce stimulation and doomscrolling before bed.
Limit phone and screen exposure late at night.
If unable to sleep, get out of bed briefly and do something calming like reading, prayer, or light stretching.
Do not try to “force” sleep. Sleep is not a performance but a gift.
Ironically, trying to force sleep often activates the nervous system further. A poor night of sleep is frustrating, but it is not catastrophic. Sometimes the healthiest response is simply accepting the night as it is and trusting that rest will eventually come.
5. Creativity, Hobbies, and Mental Health
Anxiety has a way of trapping us inside our own heads. Working with our hands reconnects us to the present moment.
From the beginning, humanity was invited to participate in creation. In Genesis, God places man in the garden “to cultivate it and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15) Human beings were not made merely to consume the world, but to co-create with God in it.
It is not surprising then that research shows creative and hands-on activities can improve mood and reduce anxiety.
Fortunately, you do not need to consider yourself “artistic” to benefit from this. Deeply human activities include:
gardening,
cooking,
woodworking,
writing,
repairing things,
baking bread,
playing music,
volunteering,
or coaching youth sports.
These activities slow us down. They engage the senses. They draw us back into the present. And in small but meaningful ways, they help build up the Kingdom of God.
6. Community, Solitude, and Emotional Health
Anxiety often urges us toward isolation. Yet human beings are deeply relational creatures. Healthy relationships help regulate the nervous system and remind us that we are not alone.
In his book Tribe, Sebastian Junger explores how human beings have always depended upon community not only for survival, but for meaning, identity, and resilience.
At the same time, we also need silence and solitude. We need moments to step away from noise and recollect ourselves before God. St. Francis de Sales advised believers to “retire at various times into the solitude of your own heart.”
Life is often lived between two temptations: constant noise and lonely withdrawal. The goal is balance — community without chaos and solitude without isolation.
Practical ways to pursue both include:
regular church attendance,
family meals,
meaningful friendships,
parish involvement,
volunteering,
quiet walks,
confession,
adoration,
spiritual direction,
or therapy when needed.
Often, small intentional adjustments are enough to help us recalibrate.
Peace, Presence, and the Body as Gift
When we learn to befriend the nervous system rather than fight against it, we can more fully embrace the body as a gift from God. Caring for the body is not selfish. It helps us become more present to God, to others, and to the ordinary moments that make up most of our lives.
Like a garden, peace must be cultivated patiently. Small daily habits practiced faithfully over time can quiet the internal alarm system and help us respond with greater clarity, virtue, and trust.
God often quiets the storm not all at once, but through ordinary acts of prayer, stillness, movement, rest, presence, and love.