Dr. Joy Malik-Hasbrook, author of A Kids Book About Nervous System Regulation, talks about understanding different stress responses and practicing techniques to calm and regulate our nervous systems—all parts of being human!
Dr. Joy Malik-Hasbrook, author of A Kids Book About Nervous System Regulation, talks about understanding different stress responses and practicing techniques to calm and regulate our nervous systems—all parts of being human!
A Kids Book About Nervous System Regulation (view book)
Full Book Description:
The nervous system guides so much of what we do, from breathing, to feeling, thinking, and living! But, our nervous systems can get dysregulated, which makes us feel disconnected or overwhelmed. This book helps us understand different stress responses and practice techniques to calm and regulate our nervous systems—all parts of being human!
About the Author:
Dr. Joy Malik-Hasbrook, PsyD (she/her), is a licensed clinical psychologist dedicated to supporting children and families. Her work centers on caring relationships as the foundation of healing, nervous system regulation, and resiliency. Dr. Joy is biracial of South Asian Indian/white descent and is a mom of 2 children.
If grownups and/or parents want to learn more, Dr. Joy utilizes and recommends these two books:
1. Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory, by Deb Dana, LCSW
2. Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids, by Mona Delahooke, PhD
*If you want to be on a future episode of A Kids Book About: The Podcast or if you have a question you’d like us to consider, have a grownup email us at listen@akidsco.com and we’ll send you the details.
A Kids Book About: The Podcast
Joy Talks About Nervous System Regulation
[INTRODUCTION]
Matthew: What is nervous system regulation?
Jonah: Well, nervous system regulation has the word “regulation” in it, which makes it seem like your nervous system's going back to normal. So what I think the full meaning of it, or part meaning of it is that it's your nervous system lowering back down to its normal point from a high or lower point that it wasn't doing so well or it was doing too well.
Joy: The foundation of nervous system regulation is to know that, as humans, we are wired for connection. So what that means is our nervous system feels safe when we feel connected and then that's when we can regulate.
Matthew: Welcome to A Kids Book About: The Podcast! I’m Matthew. I’m a teacher, a librarian, and I’m your host.
The voices you heard just a moment ago were from Jonah and Joy.
Each week we talk about the big things going on in your world with a different author from our A Kids Book About series.
Joy: I'm Dr. Joy. Dr. Joy, Maik-Hasbrook. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist. I do assessments of neurodiversity, parenting support, and training.
I identify as a highly sensitive, biracial woman. My dad immigrated from India, so I'm south Asian Indian and my mom is white. And I really integrate those two cultures into my work.
I am married to a very grounded husband and have two amazing kids that really keep me growing and learning and bringing so much love.
And I am the author of A Kids Book About Nervous System Regulation.
[TOPIC FOUNDATION]
Matthew: “Nervous System Regulation”. Now that is a phrase that is new to me. If I break it apart, I can understand the words. Your nervous system controls your feelings and senses. And regulation means to help keep things in balance.
And yet the practice of nervous system regulation is something that I learned only recently.
Joy: It's such a complex idea, but whenever I talk about nervous system regulation. I always start with a really brief breathing moment, so I'm wondering if we could do that?
So, what we can do is we can put one hand on our heart, one hand on our belly. We'll just take a few slow deep breaths.
Maybe you can feel the air going in your nose. Maybe you can feel the air in your lungs or your belly. And then picture someone you love or someone who loves you and just feel all that beautiful, calm, ease, energy.
Let's take one more breath. Okay, thank you.
So the foundation of nervous system regulation is to know that as humans, we are wired for connection. So what that means is our nervous system feels safe when we feel connected and then that's when we can regulate.
So a regulated nervous system, that really is the key for when we can handle stress.
Like if something's hard, we can keep going. We can learn. We can grow. We can feel that calmness.
So then we wanna understand, well, what happens to our brain and body when we don't feel connected? When we feel overwhelmed, our nervous system has these automatic responses, and we call them our protective stress responses. This is when our nervous system gets dysregulated. And why it's so important to understand that is that when we can work with our nervous system, we can build our regulation.
And also this is our shared human experience. We can create more connection and compassion.
Matthew: I mentioned a moment ago that the nervous system controls our feelings and senses. Let’s unpack that a little more.
Joy: So the nervous system is pretty amazing. It does a lot.
So first, it's our brain, our body and our spine. And the first nervous system originated over 500 million years ago. And its job from then and to now is to keep us alive. So breathing, managing, feelings, reacting, digesting. And what we're focusing on is how it protects us.
So that's our nervous system. And then just to define regulation, just so I could break that down a little bit, regulation, if you think about like emotional regulation, that might be a little more familiar. But like how do we manage feelings? Like, how do we take care of them? How do we respond with them? That's sort of the regulation. And the nervous system, it has three main tracks of how it manages feeling safe or stress or fear.
Matthew: When your body is not regulating, the word we use is “dysregulation”. They sound similar, right? Regulation and dysregulation.
Joy explains the relationship between regulation and dysregulation like this:
Joy: I'll just spend a few more moments just talking about regulation and what that feels like cause then I think that's a great comparison to when we're not feeling like that.
So we call it the green energy. So we're feeling safe. We're feeling connected. You know, we are feeling close with our friends. Our family is with us. We're really feeling like we got this. Our thinking and planning, brain and body, everything's working together, right?
When there isn't enough feeling of safety and connection, when something overwhelms our body, our brain, we go into that protective stress response. But in those moments, it's automatic. It's from our reacting, our survival brain. It actually happens without us realizing it.
Okay, so then that's sort of dysregulation within that are these two tracks, right? The first is the red. So, you know, when you feel like you're, you need to yell, you need to run away, you wanna criticize, you wanna maybe hit. Like, you have all this intense energy coming out and it's trying to protect you, that's our fight or flight response.
And that's just really great to know. Say if, you know, maybe someone is yelling, a grownup is yelling, that's because they're in the red. It actually doesn't have anything to do with you. That's their protective stress response coming. And so that's the red.
Then we have the blue. So you know when you feel lonely. You just wanna like get away. You wanna shut down. You're feeling tired, maybe sad. That's our blue energy where our protective response is preventing us from acting to keep us safe.
Like you can imagine when a lizard freezes, right? They're trying to protect themselves and um, some kids will say, red, it feels really hot and you're going fast energy. And then some kids have said blue, it's like you're frozen in ice and everything's moving very slow.
Matthew: Let’s take a quick break. And when we return, Joy talks about learning our triggers and working to repair when we are dysregulated.
Joy: That's why I wrote this book was so that we can all learn that and learn our triggers and learn what helps us so that we're not taking our stress out on each other. And it's gonna happen, but if kids can learn and not take it so personally, I feel like it really protects their heart.
Matthew: We’ll be back in just a moment.
[BREAK]
Matthew: Welcome back to A Kids Book About: The Podcast. On today’s episode we’re talking about nervous system regulation with A Kids Book About author Dr. Joy Malik-Hasbrook.
Before the break, Joy shared an idea that I want us to explore together. She said “If a grownup is yelling, that's because they're in the red. It actually doesn't have anything to do with you. That's their protective stress response coming.”
We are constantly navigating this world through how we respond to others as well as how we respond to others’ responses.
Joy: I'll just stay with this conversation for a second if that's okay, because it's just feeling like I got the chills, like it really is kind of hitting my heart about the book.
And that's like, you know, I think my favorite part of the book is talking about repair. And we are gonna get dysregulated. This is the human experience. We're gonna be overwhelmed. We're gonna react from that lower survival brain. And when we can repair, that, really, that's actually how we build trust is saying, “Hey, I had a, you know, mommy had a really hard day. I'm sorry I reacted with that loud voice. What, how, what can I do? I'm sorry. How can I help?”
So I'll just give these examples 'cause I really liked your question, “How do they help us survive?”, because sometimes we wanna be like, “Ugh! Why do we have these protective responses?” But we really need them.
So, say for grownups, you know, we're driving, a car is coming out of nowhere, our survival response protects us. It moves quickly more than our conscious brain can do, right? So we'll move the car or we'll put on the brakes.
And then say for a kid, you know, say someone is kind of bullying or teasing them. Having a response, like a flight response, could really protect that child. Or maybe they might go more to the blue and not respond, which would actually protect them because maybe if it escalated, there could be a lot more harm.
So that's when these protective responses are needed. But what we talk a lot with families is that sometimes we have these protective stress responses that don't fit the situation. That they're bigger than what's needed. And that's when we are kind of what we were talking about. That's why there can be some pain caused, is when the stress that's coming is being taken out on someone else.
And the way our nervous system works is we have repeated stressors and not enough green, not enough safety and connection. Our nervous system becomes more on guard. So it's gonna have a more easily triggered stress response, which can be very tiring and painful.
[PERSONAL CONNECTION TO TOPIC]
Matthew: This feels like a good moment to ask you how you are feeling as you’re processing this information. I’m confident that some of you listeners are already practicing nervous system regulation, whether at home or at school, through breathing exercises, mindfulness, brain breaks, and other strategies.
So I’ll ask, how does thinking about nervous system regulation make you feel?
Jonah: It makes me feel like super surprised that my body can do that, like my body. I do a lot and I am not realizing how much my body actually does the work and the nervous system seems like a really big part of the body. And the fact that it takes care of a bunch of things shocks me and I think it's really cool.
Joy: Yeah. For me, it really changed my whole perspective. I feel like understanding it was so empowering.
And, you know, being a highly sensitive child internalizing so much, it really freed me up, what we were talking about, that someone else's stress is not mine. And I want every child to understand that. Every human, right? Cause we're all in connection.
So yeah, I feel like I could study it for the rest of my life. We're gonna learn more and more about it. But you know, it feels empowering and connecting to talk about it.
Matthew: Are you listening to this episode with someone else? Or maybe lots of someones? If it’s just you and me, that’s okay, too.
But I ask because regulation is something that we can do together. And there are actually lots of benefits to doing regulation practices together. I want to call this “belonging”, but Joy shared a more accurate word.
Joy: I think the word that, from a nervous system regulation point of view, would be when we can co-regulate.
So this is what grownups really and kids do. This is how kids learn to regulate is through having a regulated grownup understanding them, seeing them, having empathy for them.
So the co-regulation, when you have that sense that someone gets you… That, like, when you're upset the grownup, your grownup, knows it's because you had a really hard day. Someone said something mean and that's why you're, you know, maybe yelling or upset. When someone really understands you, that, to me, is belonging and co-regulation.
Matthew: Our time’s almost up. I’m about to send you back out into the world. So let’s take a moment to consider how we can use this knowledge we gained together to help look out for the people with whom we share this world: our friends, our classmates, our family, our community.
How can we help support others through nervous system regulation?
Joy: I love that question. So what I tell parents and grownups first is that we always have to regulate ourselves before we can be there for someone who is in stress. And for kids and grownups, to start at a young age to know what triggers your stress responses, cause it's different for every nervous system. So what triggers it?
And then what brings more green to you? Breathing, taking a break, going on a walk, getting a hug, self-compassion. “Hey. This is a big feeling. It's part of being human. I'm okay.”
And then actually having empathy for someone can bring a lot of green energy.
So I would say I think what we're most responsible for as humans is knowing our nervous system. Try to have that awareness and then we can reach out with that green energy.
Matthew: Joy started us off today with a slow breathing exercise. We’ll close our time together with another exercise. This one requires some supplies that you probably have lying around your home or classroom.
Joy: Okay. So when I teach this to kids and families, we experience it. We do an exercise. And I wanna offer that to the kids listening.
So, you wanna have a piece of paper and then you can use the colors we use if you want, but you wanna have three different colors. You can do red, blue, and green. And what I want you to do is make a smaller circle and then around that, a medium-sized circle, and then, around that, a bigger circle. So you could fill up the page with three circles, concentric circles.
So that first smallest one, that's gonna be the blue 'cause that's our oldest. So you may not have time, or you can pause right now, but think about what does blue feel like in my body? What kind of thoughts do I have when I'm in the blue? What does the world and space around me feel like when I'm in the blue? What triggers the blue? And then finally, what brings more green when I'm in the blue. And then you can name it, too. You could give it its own name.
So you can take the time to do that. It's great to do it with the parent and child, or grown up and child together.
So we go to the next circle will be the red. So, same questions. What does red feel like when I'm in the red? What do I feel in my body? What's going on with my thoughts? How do I feel in space? How do I feel in my environment? And then what are things that triggers the red?
So for me, I know someone yelling triggers the red for me, and I have to go take a break. And I draw and I journal, and that brings green energy to me, right? So you can think, what triggers the red? And then when you're in that fight-flight, what helps bring more green? What helps bring more safety and connection for you?
And then the last one is our big green one, right? This is our newest of our nervous system. So what does it feel like when in your body, when you're in the green? What kind of thoughts are you having? How do you feel in your environment? What keeps the green building? And then you can name it.
And what you can think about when you're in the blue and the red, how can you green hug those states? How can you take care of them? We can turn towards them. We're gonna need to turn away. So that was, yeah. I wanted to share that exercise.
[CLOSING]
Matthew: Thank you to Dr. Joy Malik-Hasbrook, author of A Kids Book About Nervous System Regulation, for joining us today. And special thanks to Jonah for lending their voice to this episode.
Jonah: My name is Jonah. I'm 13 years old and I live in Maryland.
Matthew: A Kids Book About: The Podcast is written, edited, and produced by me, Matthew Winner. Our executive producer is Jelani Memory.
And this show was brought to you by A Kids Co.
Follow the show wherever podcasts are found and check out other podcasts made for kids just like you by visiting akidsco.com.
Join us next time for a conversation about pronouns with A Kids Book About authors Dr. Courtney Wells and Lee Wells.