You snapped at someone you love over something tiny.
Then you sat in your car and wondered where that came from. Maybe you even asked yourself where that monster came from.
Here's what I want you to know, Girlfriend. Nothing is wrong with you. Your nervous system may simply be carrying more than it was ever designed to carry.
I see it in women, in kids, and yes, in my own life. Right now almost everyone is running in that fight, flight, freeze, or fawn state. Raw. Overloaded.
That's why I brought my longtime friend Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge onto The Girlfriend Doctor Show. She's a psychologist with three decades of experience helping people of every age with emotional and behavioral dysregulation, and the author of the new book The Dysregulated Kid. Don't let the title fool you. It has an action plan for adults, too.
Here's what she taught me, including a simple practice that doesn't cost a dime and takes three seconds.
In this article
What "dysregulated" means
Everyone's using the word. Dr. Roseann made it simple.
Your body has a built-in stress management system called the autonomic nervous system. It has two main gears. The parasympathetic state is your rest-and-calm gear. The sympathetic state is your stress gear, and at its highest levels it shows up as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
A healthy nervous system moves between the two. Stress happens, you respond, you come back to calm.
Dysregulation is getting stuck. Stress keeps pouring into your cup, it never empties, and you hover in overwhelm. Dr. Roseann sees it showing up physically, emotionally, behaviorally, even spiritually.
"The more your nervous system dysregulates, the more it's going to dysregulate," she told me. And the flip side is the good news. The more it regulates, the easier calm becomes.
5 signs of nervous system dysregulation in midlife
I asked Dr. Roseann to describe the woman I hear from every week. Fifties, sixties, doing all the things.
Here are the five signs she sees most.
Irritability. A short fuse, low frustration tolerance, and yelling more than you want to.
Trouble sleeping. Your body is tired, but your system won't power down.
Brain fog. Focus that slips and lapses in attention.
Zoning out. Drifting away mid-conversation or mid-task.
Agitation in your chest. A restless, running-hot feeling that just doesn't feel like you.
She felt it herself entering perimenopause. "I feel like an irritation, which isn't like me."
Here's the hormone piece. In your 40s, progesterone starts to drop. Progesterone is one of your calming, brain-protective hormones. It feeds into GABA, the brain chemical that tells your nervous system to settle down. Less of that soothing signal means a more excitable nervous system and a shorter fuse.
So that snap at the dinner table? It isn't a character flaw. It's biology asking for support.
Your calm is contagious. Co-regulation explained
Have you seen the movie Trolls? Watch it this weekend with this in mind.
The Bergens are gray and miserable, no joy, no color, and they try to eat the happy trolls to feel something. Then the happy trolls start losing their color too. To me, that's high cortisol, burnout, and exhaustion meeting oxytocin, the bonding and connection hormone.
Dr. Roseann calls this co-regulation. Your nervous system syncs to the loudest nervous system in the room. Spend time with someone calm, and you can borrow their calm. Spend time with dysregulated people, and you'll likely become dysregulated too.
That doesn't mean walking out of your house or your job. It means you can choose to be the most regulated person in the room.
For moms, this matters. Your child picks up your tone and body language far more than your words. And you don't have to be perfect. When you yell, go back and repair. "Man, I handled that wrong. I'm so sorry." That teaches your kids exactly what you want them to learn.
What the vagus nerve has to do with it
The vagus nerve is the long nerve connecting your brain and your gut, and messages travel both ways.
When you bring calm into your body, you improve what's called vagal tone, your body's ability to shift back into calm. In Dr. Roseann's experience, that calm supports gut health, brain health, and immune function, and she says she can't think of a system in the body that doesn't benefit.
Her advice on all the buzzwords, from HRV to vagal tone? "Don't choke on it." Knowledge is great. Doing is what changes things.
The 3-second love pause
If you do one thing from this conversation, make it this.
The love pause is a three-second pause to breathe, or to regulate in any way that works for you, before you respond. Loving yourself enough to give your nervous system that space.
Your response doesn't have to be words. It can be quiet. What changes is that you respond from calm instead of reacting from stress. And you train the people around you too, your kids, a difficult coworker, maybe even an annoying mother-in-law ;)
When my kids were little and fighting in the back of the carpool, my mantra was pause, breathe, smile, look into someone's eyes, and connect. That was my love pause before I had a name for it. And it's oxytocin, delivered right in the moment.
Micro practices that add up
Dr. Roseann used to spend 90 minutes at the gym, and it was jacking up her cortisol. So she switched to one-to-five-minute exercise snacks and Tai Chi throughout her day, and she lost a lot of weight. While her neck wrap heats up for five minutes, she gets in a hundred reps.
Small, doable, and done often. That's the secret.
Her favorite calming breath is belly breathing. Breathe in through your nose for four, hold for seven, and exhale slowly for eight. You can adjust the counts as long as the hold and the exhale each run a little longer than the inhale.
Not a breathwork person? Try a heart hug, prayer, Tai Chi, or whatever you'll actually do.
And here's the key. Practice when you're calm. "If we try to learn in the dysregulation, it's like teaching somebody to swim when they're drowning," she said. Practice in calm, and when the hard moment comes, your body already knows what to do.
Her prescription is simple. Do your practice before you get out of bed, before you go to sleep, and set a timer for three more times during the day.
"Sweat in peace so you don't bleed in war."
The Marine saying I shared with Dr. Roseann, and why practicing calm now matters
Why your brain sees the negative first
Dr. Roseann shared two numbers that stopped me. She says about 70 percent of decisions are made out of fear, to avoid something bad happening. And the brain can register a negative in a quarter of a second, while it can take up to 20 seconds to register a positive.
That wiring kept early humans safe from bears and tigers. In modern life, everything starts to feel like the bear.
I'll tell you mine. Before my Vitality Experience event, I got so stressed. I started shedding hair again, and I got a cold sore for the first time in more than a decade. Then I had a full bridezilla moment, and it wasn't even a wedding.
So I stopped. I took my own love pause and shifted into gratitude, right in the moment. I decided to free fall into it and enjoy every minute.
And I did. I loved every minute of that event. But only because I'd been practicing calm for a long time before I needed it.
How long until you feel a difference?
Dr. Roseann says you'll notice a change in intensity, frequency, or duration of stress from day one. After seven days, maybe you're sleeping a little better. You didn't yell at your kid. Your kid didn't yell at you.
Around 30 days is where she saw lasting change show up on brain maps. Your brain likes to drift back to its old baseline, and consistency is what moves it.
Curious about brain mapping? A QEEG brain map measures your brain's electrical activity and compares it to large databases. Dr. Roseann recommends finding a certified provider through bcia.org, and choosing someone experienced with your specific concern.
If you're working through anxiety, trauma, or another clinical concern, regulation is a first step, not a replacement for care. Keep working with your therapist or doctor. And if you take medication, never change it without talking to your prescribing doctor.
Supporting your body while you build calm
Your nervous system doesn't work alone. When stress has been running the show, your hormones, sleep, and energy all feel it.
So alongside my love pauses, I take care of the foundation. My mornings start with Mighty Maca® Plus, the superfood drink I formulated with certified organic Peruvian maca and more than 30 ingredients to support steady energy and mental clarity.
Simple daily rituals. Little deposits of calm.
Frequently asked questions
What does it mean to have a dysregulated nervous system?
A dysregulated nervous system gets stuck in a stress state instead of moving fluidly from stress back to calm. According to psychologist Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge, it can show up physically, emotionally, and behaviorally as overwhelm, irritability, poor sleep, and trouble focusing.
Why am I so irritable in perimenopause?
Progesterone begins to decline in your 40s. Progesterone supports GABA, a calming brain chemical, so less of it can leave your nervous system more excitable. Ongoing stress adds to that load, which can lower your frustration tolerance.
What is the love pause?
The love pause is a practice from Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge. You take a three-second pause to breathe or regulate before responding, which trains your nervous system to respond from calm instead of reacting from stress.
What is co-regulation?
Co-regulation is how one nervous system influences another. Dr. Roseann explains that your nervous system tends to sync with the loudest nervous system in the room, so a calm adult can help bring a stressed child or partner toward calm.
How do you do 4-7-8 breathing?
Breathe into your belly through your nose for a count of four, hold for seven, and exhale slowly for eight. Practicing when you're already calm makes it easier to use in stressful moments.
How long does it take to regulate your nervous system?
Dr. Roseann says many people notice a shift on the first day of practice, more after seven days, and lasting change at around 30 days of small, consistent daily practices.
Listen to the full episode
There's so much more in the full conversation, including the Italian mom Dr. Roseann compares to Beth Dutton, the double breath habit that caused trouble when she recorded her audiobook, and why I'm taking back the word sensuality.
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
And remember, Girlfriend. The most amazing pharmacy in the world lives within you.
Resources Mentioned
The Dysregulated Kid by Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge (print, library, and Audible)
Connect with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge
Connect with Dr. Anna Cabeca
This content is for educational purposes only and is not medical or mental health advice. Please talk with your healthcare provider about your individual situation.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
