Stand

Rehabilitating an Overloaded Nervous System in the Third Period of Life

During the recent Winter Olympics, I found myself watching the cross-country skiing finish line with greater interest than the medal ceremony. The athletes did not glide triumphantly across the line. They collapsed. They were among the most disciplined endurance athletes in the world. Yet after Olympic-level exertion, many fell onto the snow. Some lay on their backs or sides. Some trembled. Many needed help to get back up. It was not weakness. It was physiology. At the end of an all-out race, skiers can deplete their energy reserves and push their neuromuscular and autonomic systems to the point that coordination and posture temporarily fail, before they recover.

We can perform at exceptional levels and push our system to exhaustion. Collapse, in this context, isn’t failure; it’s the body’s honest way of accounting for cost. Recently, my body has compelled me to learn something my mind had long overlooked: you can’t sprint through every season of life. At some point, your nervous system needs a different kind of responsible behavior. I used to view chronic nervous-system overload as a medical issue. Now I recognize it in leaders, parents, caregivers, and especially those entering what I call the third period of life. No diagnosis needed, just decades of living revved up, always “on,” rarely resting. Many of us arrive in the third period of life with a nervous system that has been running a marathon for years, and it shows.

Most of us don’t collapse dramatically at a finish line. We keep going. By the time we reach the third period of life, many of us have been cross-country skiing up and down hills for decades. We live in a culture of low-grade alarm: 24-hour news cycles, social media, financial uncertainty, and cultural polarization keep the brain on high alert, much like repeated alarms. Responsibilities pile up, career transitions occur, health issues arise, and planning for our own future can leave the prefrontal cortex constantly on alert.

Beneath the surface, the body continues to send signals we ignore: fatigue, shallow or broken sleep, tense muscles, indigestion, and irritability that can catch us off guard. We numb these signals with caffeine, alcohol, busy schedules, or sheer willpower. What starts as a subtle imbalance can gradually turn into a constant feeling of internal urgency. We may see our difficulty relaxing as a badge of honor or a flaw. Both might be true, but what if it’s something else altogether?

Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer has long challenged the artificial separation of mind and body, arguing that what we call “mental” and “physical” processes are deeply intertwined. Neuroscience confirms this integration: we are not a mind riding on top of a passive machine, but an integrated system in constant internal conversation. Within each of us, three interconnected neural networks are always communicating. The central nervous system processes threat cues, memory, anticipation, and regret. Chronic stress can alter attention, emotional reactions, and pain perception. The autonomic nervous system, comprising the sympathetic “fight or flight” branch and the parasympathetic “rest and repair” branch, activates us for action and helps us recover afterward. Many high-functioning adults live in a slightly elevated sympathetic state: never in crisis, but never fully relaxed. The enteric nervous system, often called the “second brain” in the gut, constantly communicates with the brain; stress and inflammation influence motility, sensation, and “gut feelings,” while gut discomfort can heighten stress in the brain. Mind, heart, and gut are always in dialogue. When the main concerns are danger, scarcity, or urgency, that dialogue can turn into an attack. Over time, vigilance may become the norm, not because we are fragile, but because we have been conditioned to stay on alert.

There is a specific kind of exhaustion that results from prolonged vigilance: walking alongside someone with a terminal illness, managing family dynamics that never fully settle, navigating a volatile workplace, or being the steady presence in every storm. The circumstances vary. The physical response does not. When stress builds up slowly, we often fail to notice its toll. We simply adapt. We push forward. We perform. And then, when irritability and tempers flare, or tears come unexpectedly, we assume something is wrong with us.

A few weeks ago, I started viewing my story differently. What I saw as an isolated struggle was actually a systemic adaptation. Signals from one area of my body had been echoing through the entire nervous system. What I often perceived as inadequacy or low capacity on my part was actually endurance under prolonged pressure. That insight did not erase responsibility, but it did restore some dignity for me. It also clarified the next step: if the system had adapted to a long-term threat, it could adapt to repeated signals of health over time.

Later life is both vulnerable and promising. We carry accumulated stress, health issues, role transitions, and losses. Health declines (both ours and others’) and mortality are no longer abstract ideas but realities we face more often. Meanwhile, research on aging and wisdom suggests that later life brings increased emotional regulation, a broader perspective, and a sense of generativity. We become better equipped to nurture mature forms of love. Purpose and stable relationships can reshape neural networks and support autonomic balance. The third period of life challenges us to redesign not only our schedules but also the underlying nervous system that has carried us here. This redesign emphasizes not just productivity, but also rehabilitation. Rehabilitation begins with small, repeated cues. Nervous systems change through patterned experiences; the same plasticity that strengthened pathways of vigilance can, over time, support pathways of steadiness.

1. Breathe: calm the body so the brain can think

Slow breathing with longer exhalations increases parasympathetic (vagal) activity, improves heart‑rate variability, and reduces perceived stress and pain. A simple pattern is often sufficient: inhale gently through the nose for about 4 seconds, exhale for 6 to 8 seconds, and repeat for a few minutes, especially during transitions between roles. Before you redesign your life, help your body believe it is not in immediate danger.

2. Recalibrate: reset patterns, not just thoughts

We often try to think our way out of overload, but nervous systems change through lived patterns, not insight alone. Micro‑breaks, short walks, posture resets, STOP‑style pauses (Stop, Take a Breath, Observe, and Proceed Mindfully), and small “closing rituals” between roles reduce fatigue, restore attention, and support emotional regulation amid chronic stress. Perhaps most importantly, pacing activity below the flare line rather than oscillating between overexertion and collapse teaches the system that effort and recovery can coexist. Instead of living one continuous, overloaded day, build in resets where you notice, step back, and choose again.

3. Connect: let love and meaning do their work

Your nervous system was not designed to regulate itself alone. Strong, secure relationships and a sense of purpose are consistently linked to healthier autonomic regulation, lower inflammation, and wiser reasoning. Love recruits neural networks involved in empathy, regulation, and long‑term thinking; it is not a sentimental excess but a biological regulation. Regular time with trusted people, rituals of appreciation, and creative contribution serve as regulators. In the third period of life, generativity may be one of the most powerful stabilizing forces available to us.

Watching those skiers, I realized something humbling. The body keeps honest accounts. If you have been skiing uphill for years, carrying responsibility, absorbing strain, sustaining performance, there may come a moment when the system insists on lying down. That moment may be proof of exertion rather than a sign of weakness.  Recently, I recognized that what had felt like failure to me in recent years is actually adaptation. The ongoing assault in one part of my body (the abdomen that comprises what is termed the “gut brain”) had been sending signals through the entire integrated body. My nervous system had been doing exactly what it was designed to do under sustained threat: protect, brace, prepare.  If it could learn vigilance, I wondered, could it relearn steadiness?

In the early months of a drug trial, when evidence is emerging that the unifying diagnosis and treatment might finally have been found, my nervous system is starting to send signals. There is something extraordinary about that. The body that tightens to protect you is the same body that can soften when no active threat is present. The nervous system that learns urgency can relearn calm. Redemption is not rewriting the past; it is allowing restoration. To stand again after falling from prolonged exertion is its own unique strength. And perhaps, if we are paying attention, it is a reason for humble wonder at the remarkable system that carried us farther than we knew.

Insight / Reflection

As you reflect on these ideas, observe where your life feels more like a long cross-country journey with many hills rather than just a race with a finish line. You might consider:

• Where have I been “skiing uphill” for years without acknowledging the cost?
• Which signals of fatigue, irritability, or unease have I been overriding?
• If my body is keeping honest accounts, what might it be trying to tell me now?
• What would it mean to see my exhaustion not as a deficiency, but as evidence of prolonged exertion?

Focus your mind on one area: health, work, finances, relationships, or community, where your nervous system feels on high alert. What would it look like to “stand down” for a little while?

Action / Practice

Choose one way this week to practice Breathe, Recalibrate, or Connect.

1. Breathe: once or twice a day, pause for 2–3 minutes. Inhale through your nose for a slow count of 4, exhale for 6–8. Let this serve as a message to your body: “Not everything is an emergency.”
2. Recalibrate: Find one moment when you typically push through. Instead, add a quick reset: stand up, stretch, go outside, or take a brief STOP-and-REGROUP pause before continuing.
3. Connect: Deliberately reach out to one person or focus on one purpose that calms you.
   A quick check-in call, a note of appreciation, a tangible act of service, or, perhaps most simply, being with others without any tasks or responsibilities. Something that reminds your nervous system it is not managing on its own.

You do not have to overhaul your life this week.   Simply provide your body with a few repeated cues that the race has changed, and in this third period of life, wiser leadership means letting yourself rest before you rise again and stand. Just as in the Olympics, at the end of a cross-country race, it may also mean letting a fellow racer help you stand again.  When you do rise and stand, remember that collapse isn’t always failure; it can be a physical reminder of what you have successfully endured and achieved.

Additional Reading

The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health

Ellen Langer

Ellen Langer’s The Mindful Body challenges the assumption that the mind is merely housed in the body, arguing instead that mind and body are one integrated system. Across decades of experiments, she shows that shifts in context, language, and expectations can produce measurable physiological changes from blood sugar and vision to pain and mobility. Her core claim is not that illness is “all in our head,” but that our bodies continuously take cues from how we frame experience, what we pay attention to, and the meanings we assign to it. Langer’s research provides empirical support for the idea that small, repeated shifts in attention and interpretation can support genuine rehabilitation in systems that have been running a long, uphill race

The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity

Norman Doidge

In The Brain’s Way of Healing, Norman Doidge shares clinical stories that bring neuroplasticity to life: people with chronic pain, movement disorders, traumatic brain injury, and other conditions who see significant improvement through carefully designed, repetitive practices. He explains how the brain and nervous system reorganize in response to experience, strengthening some pathways, pruning others, and sometimes rewiring around damage. Rather than offering miracle cures, the book highlights disciplined, often slow work: targeted movement, sound, light, attention training, and other methods that harness the brain’s capacity to change across the lifespan.  If the nervous system can wire itself into chronic vigilance through repeated exposure to threat, it can also wire itself toward steadiness through repeated cues of regulation, rhythm, and connection.