Intentional Crash
By Rev. Katherine Sherrill M.A., LCMHC, MT-BC
We have all had that feeling….when the day is over and we get home, cook dinner, eat, sit down, and then it begins the mindless scroll on social media or quick fix repetitive tapping game. As a culture, we are all experiencing burnout and the allure of doom scrolling. I often have clients talk to me about wanting to change this behavior but feeling stuck in not knowing what to do or where even this feeling to disconnect comes from.
Our nervous system is a wonderfully complex system. It needs energy, connection, but also intentional time to reset. When we live in a certain amount of stress eventually our nervous system will need to reboot. Polyvagal theorists call this a dorsal response. Many of my clients feel shame and guilt around these dorsal episodes where they are unproductive and feel generally bad about themselves for needing rest or reset.
However, here comes the problem with doom scrolling….it doesn’t actually fill that reset requirement. Due to the nature of social media and faster paced games, it stimulates the nervous system keeping us within the sympathetic range. While people may feel like they are relaxing, their system isn’t shutting down and recharging. This is where I talk to my clients about the intentional crash.
Intentional crashing is exactly how it sounds….how are we going to plan our nervous system reboot time? If we don’t plan it our body will eventually demand it and, for many of my clients, it seems at the worst time. They made plans with friends but slept through several alarms or they had a big deadline at work but kept struggling to get started on anything. Intentional crashes help us regulate our nervous system to work on our time…this is the whole idea around polyvagal work…to help us learn our own system.
Intentional crashing can look different for everyone. For me, it is a great book with a cup of tea for 20 minutes or it is watching a long form video from one of my favorite creators. It is intentionally letting my brain shut down from the worries, deadlines, and what’s next feeling into a place of grounding.
If you want to learn more about polyvagal work or how you can learn to befriend your own nervous system responses. We would love to walk that path with you.
