This post is based upon a talk I delivered to Stockport ME Group on Friday 11th June 2021. Nervous system (NS) dysregulation is a key component of pain and fatigue conditions. In this session I talked about how awareness and body-based practices can help improve the function of our nervous system. We can think of the nervous system as having 3 ‘branches’: 1) Parasympathetic/ventral vagal/social engagement/‘rest and digest’ mode 2) Sympathetic/‘fight or flight’ 3) Dorsal vagal – sometimes referred to as ‘collapse or shutdown’ Our nervous system (NS) acts as a protective mechanism which alerts us to ‘threats’ or ‘stressors’, so that we can take action. At a physiological level, our stress response is designed to be activated in short, sharp bursts e.g. we…