Most approaches to nervous system dysregulation focus on managing symptoms. We focus on what often appears to be generating them — a nervous system stuck in a survival state — and work from the body up to release it.
Whether the original trigger was a viral illness, a traumatic event, accumulated stress, or something that's never had a clear label — for many people, the nervous system becomes locked in a prolonged survival response. It's as if the body detected a serious threat and never got the signal that the threat had passed. The result is a system running on emergency settings: fatigue, brain fog, pain, hypersensitivity, crashes.
This is the knot. And like a real knot, pulling harder — through pushing through exhaustion, intense exercise, or cognitive effort — often tightens it. The three-phase approach is about learning to release it, gently and systematically.
Dr. Stephen Porges' work explains how the vagus nerve governs our capacity for safety, connection, and mobilisation. When the system becomes stuck in defensive states — as appears to happen in many chronic illness presentations — the physiology of this is measurable, not imaginary.
The body's stress-response system (HPA axis) becomes dysregulated after sustained activation — whether from viral illness, chronic stress, or trauma. Research increasingly suggests this underlies the fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and immune irregularities seen across a range of chronic conditions.
The body holds stress and trauma not only in the mind but in the muscles, fascia, and nervous system pathways. Somatic approaches work directly at this level — something talk therapy alone cannot reach.
The nervous system can reorganise. With the right input — done at the right pace — it appears possible to shift out of chronic defensive states. This is established neuroscience, and we see it reflected in the outcomes our members report.
Thomas Hanna developed this approach after noticing that chronic illness and stress create specific patterns of muscular contraction — what he called "sensory motor amnesia." The muscles forget how to release because the nervous system has held them in protective tension so long it's become their default.
Hanna Somatics uses pandiculation — a slow, conscious contraction and release — to retrain the motor cortex to release muscles it has been holding. It's gentle, safe for people with energy limitations, and produces profound shifts in how the body feels.
Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing (SE) is based on the insight that animals in the wild rarely develop chronic trauma responses because they complete their survival cycles. Humans, by contrast, often suppress these completions.
SE works with physical sensations in the body — titrating exposure to difficult physiological states to slowly expand the nervous system's capacity to return to calm. It's one of the most evidence-backed approaches to trauma and chronic stress in existence.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based therapy originally developed for PTSD. Our practitioners use a somatic variant — working directly with where stress is held in the body, not just the mind.
For many people with chronic illness, the illness itself can become a source of ongoing physiological threat — creating a feedback loop where the body's response to symptoms amplifies them. Somatic EMDR also addresses the prior experiences and encoded stress that may have primed the nervous system long before symptoms appeared.
We track progress weekly using validated measures. The data below is real — including the dips — because we believe honest data is more useful than promises.
The programme provides a safe container and structure in which recovery takes place. I have experienced slow and steady progress in my energy levels — I would recommend On the Mend to anyone who resonates with its approach.
Understanding what doesn't work — and why — is part of understanding why this approach does.
Book a free 30-minute assessment. We'll talk through your situation, explain how the programme would work for you specifically, and be honest if we don't think it's the right fit.
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