Rewiring Aftershock: Training Safety into the Body

Why breath, movement, and attention change the body’s messages

Our nervous system is like the body’s built-in alarm and recovery system. It fires us up when we’re under threat and steadies us when the danger has passed. The trouble is, sometimes it gets stuck on high alert. That’s what I’ve started to call and that’s what the aftershock feels like: the body doesn’t know it’s safe yet.

Hyper-vigilance makes sense in combat, or in any life-or-death emergency. But when it lingers into everyday life, the supermarket queue, the school run, the traffic jam, it can become exhausting. Not just for the person carrying it, but for everyone around them.

Here’s something most people don’t realise: around 70–80% of the vagus nerve fibres carry signals from the body up to the brain, not the other way around. Which means the brain isn’t just giving orders, it’s mostly listening. Your heartbeat, breath, gut, and muscles are constantly telling your brain how things are.

That’s why practices like breathwork, movement, and meditation aren’t “extras.” They literally shift the messages your body is sending. Instead of “danger, danger, danger,” the body can learn to whisper, “safe now, you can soften, you can come home.”

This image shows the nervous system spread through the body, though it’s actually a stripped-back version of what’s really there. In reality, the network of nerves is even denser, carrying signals to and from every organ, muscle, and cell. Most of those nerves don’t carry instructions from the brain down, they carry messages up from the body.

That’s why what we do with our breath, movement, and attention matters. Each time we pause to notice, to breathe, to ground ourselves, we’re training the nervous system. Every practice is a chance to shift the message from aftershock to coming home.

Coming home doesn’t mean everything is fixed. It means training the nervous system to know safety again. It’s like going to the gym: not one big effort, but steady repetition. Each breath, each walk, each moment of noticing is like telling the body: you’re safe now, you can rest.

That’s why I use the language of aftershock and coming home. The aftershock is the echo of what’s been lived. Coming home is the practice of returning, again and again, to steadiness, to belonging in your own skin.

Additional notes

The nervous system is complex, but what matters is that the body constantly shapes how safe the mind feels. These practices don’t replace the need for safe environments and supportive relationships, they simply give the body a chance to remember safety when it’s available. Also, not every practice works for everyone. For some, breath is the entry point; for others, movement, rhythm, or connection with another person feels safer. Research in trauma recovery shows that small, repeated practices can gradually re-train the nervous system towards balance.

The message is simple: safety can be re-learned, gently, step by step.