Why You Cannot Switch Off: What Your Nervous System Is Actually Telling You

I was watching a film with my family. A good one. The kind that deserved full attention. And there I was, half present on the sofa and half somewhere else entirely, mentally cycling through a conversation I needed to have the next day, a deadline I had moved twice, the lunches not yet planned for the week.

This is not unusual for me. My brain does not switch off easily. Not during films, not during conversations, not in the hour before sleep when the house is finally quiet. For years I assumed this was simply how I was built. Driven. Conscientious. A little relentless.

It took me a long time to understand that this was not a personality trait. It was a nervous system pattern.

The three states nobody told us about

Polyvagal theory, developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges and grounded in decades of autonomic nervous system research, describes three distinct physiological states that determine how we feel, think, and function at any given moment.

The first is ventral vagal: the state of safety and connection. In ventral vagal you can think clearly, engage with people, make decisions, and feel genuinely present. Rest in this state actually restores you.

The second is sympathetic activation: the state of mobilisation. This is what most people recognise as fight or flight. In sympathetic activation you are alert, scanning, running on urgency. The body is preparing to respond to a perceived threat. Concentration narrows. Patience shortens. Deep sleep becomes difficult. The body is not prioritising restoration. It is prioritising survival.

The third is dorsal vagal shutdown: the state of collapse. This is the nervous system's response when activation has continued too long with no real recovery. In dorsal vagal you feel flat, foggy, disconnected. You are going through the motions without fully being there.

Most of us were never taught that these states exist, let alone how to recognise which one we are in at any given moment.

What structural overload does over time

When you carry sustained load, the kind that comes from managing a career, a household, other people's emotional lives, and the invisible labour that holds it all together, your nervous system learns that the environment requires activation. It calibrates to that. Sympathetic becomes your default.

Over time, if activation has no genuine recovery period built in, the system begins to slide into dorsal. Not because you have given up, but because the body has run out of resources to sustain the high-alert state.

This is where I spent a significant part of the last decade: cycling between activation and shutdown without ever landing in safety long enough to actually recover. Wired at night. Flat in the afternoon. Unable to rest even when nothing needed doing.

The reason rest often does not work in this position is not a character flaw. It is a mismatch. The body needs a signal of safety before it can genuinely restore. Sitting still does not automatically provide that signal, particularly when the mind is still running the background process of everything that needs managing.

Why self-care advice keeps missing

What helps in sympathetic activation is different from what helps in dorsal shutdown. In activation the system needs to discharge mobilised energy: movement, breathwork, cold water, physical engagement. In shutdown it needs gentle warmth, slow rhythmic input, connection, things that signal safety rather than more stimulation.

Generic self-care advice does not account for state. It assumes everyone needs the same thing. The women I work with often report that the things recommended to them make no difference, or occasionally make things worse. This is usually not because they are doing it wrong. It is because the tool does not match the state.

Knowing which state you are in is the first step toward responding to yourself accurately.

Where to start

I built a FREE nervous system self-assessment grounded in polyvagal theory. It takes five minutes, requires no clinical background, and gives you a clear picture of which autonomic state you are currently operating from, along with what that means for how you approach rest, regulation, and daily structure.

If your brain does not switch off. If rest does not feel restful. If you feel simultaneously exhausted and unable to stop, this is the place to start.

Take the free nervous system assessment here.

If you want to go deeper into nervous system literacy, structural redesign, and the psychology of invisible labour, this newsletter is where that work lives. Subscribe below so you do not miss the next one.

With warmth,

Kaat

Subscribe to my newsletter

Reflections on identity and responsibility

From time to time I write essays about identity, motherhood, responsibility and reconnecting with yourself.

If these themes resonate with you, you are welcome to join the newsletter.