Week 5: Ritual + Environment Design

Welcome back. You might think that the course is ending, this week — but actually in some ways it’s just beginning — as the real test will be how much of this theory and protocols you have embodied in a year from now.

Let’s recap — you’ve learnt the theory and protocols for cultivating interoception — self regulation — and emotional fluidity — this week is about exploring our everyday lives.

This final week will include less theory, but will be focused more on practical opportunities to take an audit of your everyday rituals and environment — with the aim of redesigning these more intentionally — and to be conducive to nervous system flourishing.

And in case you’re wondering why this is only at the end of the course — it’s because making these habit and environment changes — without a deep understanding of interoception + self-regulation + emotional fluidity will be limited in their effectiveness — so you can think of this section as creating the final pieces of support scaffolding for a healthy nervous system.

1 // We’ll begin with the story of Lao Tzu’s Hollow Pot — and what I call an ‘Environment Design Audit’ — sharing principles for ensuring that your sensory environments are aligned with the state that you desire to cultivate in each space.

2 // We’ll then apply this theory by creating a plan to bring more intentionality to the design of one of our most important rooms for nervous system rejuvenation — your bedroom — and how to create your very own Sleep Sanctuary.

3 // Then I’ll share a template for three simple morning + evening rituals — that will create the conditions for your nervous system and circadian health.

4 // Finally, we’ll engage in the process of Reflecting Forwards — and I’ll provide you with some journal prompts to set you up for success in the months and years to come once this course ends.

The process of shifting the state of our nervous system is like Lao Tsu’s ‘hollow pot’:

Just as a potter’s hands are in conversation with the clay — guiding, shaping, listening. We too can use our minds to listen to, guide, and shape our nervous systems.

The problem that we run into in life is that we try to EFFORT our way to certain states ~ be it creativity or perhaps sleep.

However, the proper function of our mind is to create the internal and external conditions — for the spontaneous emergence of our desired state — be that flow, creativity or in this case, sleep.

So far we’ve mostly looked at our internal conditions, this week we’re going to explore how we’re shaped by our exteroception.

Another way of stating this is that:

From the perspective of our nervous system we are constantly ‘co-regulating’ with our environment — we are taking exteroceptive cues from all the sounds, the visuals, even the smells — all of these stimuli are tuning our internal state.

As a Lab Scientists will know, if you want to change a cell in a petri dish you just need to change the culture that it's in. The same is true of our human cells.

So the primary invitation for this week is to apply this exteroceptive lens and intention redesign some of your environments — working with creative constraints of shared spaces, budget etc. — such that these spaces are more conducive to your desired nervous system states.

A crucial first step is accepting radical responsibility for these conditions — even though we may not choose to say commute on a train or work in a busy open office environment — we almost always have greater autonomy than we realise.

So what types of ways are we shaped by our spaces? Well to give a concrete example:

And this is just one way of bringing greater awareness to how we are being often unconsciously shaped by our environments.

In the scientific literature, interceptive or internal awareness and exteroceptive or external awareness are studied in very distinct ways.

However, in my own experience — and I realise this is a sample size of n=1 — as I have cultivated greater interoceptive awareness — my experience has been that my exteroceptive capacity – or sensitivity to external stimuli ~ has also tended to increase.

I’ve found in my own life that the more I build embodied awareness, the more that I feel the impact of say intense bright lights late at night or noisy office space.

I remember walking into a Wholefoods supermarket after a 10-day silent meditation retreat and the busyness combined with the glaring overhead lights were so intense.

So this is just something to track in yourself, and whilst at times this heightened sensitivity can feel challenging — I believe it is a superpower because we’re more aware of the responses in our body that were happening anyway, just beneath conscious awareness.

But it’s important to state that these principles can be applied to any type of space… it could be a question of how might you design your living room for connection and spontaneity or play — or if you are someone who works from home, then you might easily apply this environment design lens to optimising for flow, focus and creative output.

First, what is your desired nervous system state in this space? Is it primarily about relaxation and rest or focus and stimulation?

Second, run through an inventory of your external senses — and ask what would be most conducive to this state. I’ll give some examples for the office space that I’m recording this in.

So based on your audit and reflections about your environment and exteroceptive audit — the next obvious question is what are some simple changes that could be implemented?

For this episode — the invitation is to focus on redesigning possibly the most important room for nervous system health — and that is your bedroom.

My wife Kelly and I recently moved into a new home here in Boulder, and we did this with our bedroom which was previously an empty shell. Kelly is a former sleep coach so I will say that we had an advantage here… but nevertheless the principles we used I believe are highly transferrable to your situation.

We haven’t really talked about sleep yet. But it is absolutely critical to Nervous System Health. As anyone who isn’t sleeping well will tell you, it impacts everything ~ from your physical performance, mental clarity, digestion and mental health.

Sleep is a deep rabbit hole — many great books and research papers have been written — here is my attempt to curate and distill the 20% of the recommendations + changes that in my experience will give you 80% of the impact in terms of deeper sleep.

In your Week 5 Handbook, you’ll find the section 5.2 — with a grey box for you to choose one passive change and one active behaviour change.

Below this is a Sleep Santuary Cheatsheet with eight potential passive or environmental changes that you can make — which are just simple one time changes you can make to forever improve the quality and depth of your sleep.

Below this are eleven ‘active’ changes or behavioural modifications that you can experiment with to create the conditions for consistent and rejuvenating depth of sleep.

You may of course choose more than one — but do so with caution and knowing that it’s usually more long-term efficient to pick one or two at most in the beginning and commit for 21 days before adding more.

Despite the viral productivity gurus out there on social media — no one can tell you what the ideal morning or evening routine looks like.

We all have different bodies, preferences, family sizes and commitments.

What I would like to encourage however, is first — at least to reflect on how your default morning routines are supporting you ~ and then to bring a little more intentionality to experiment with other ways of designing the flow of your day — that is ideally in greater alignment with your biology and our circadian rhythms.

And in my opinion, it pays to work with our bodies’ natural cycles rather than against them. As Professor Andrew Huberman loves to say:

In this episode I’m going to invite you to include three things in your morning flow and three things before bed — that I believe will benefit everyone’s long-term nervous system health and also hopefully be accessible to almost everyone listening.

Okay, so let’s begin with mornings.

I share these knowing that everyone has their own unique set of creative constraints ~ be it young children, challenging work hours or constant travel.

That said, I recommend trying your utmost to stick to these recommendations 85% of the time ~ it will make a disproportionate difference to not only how you feel during the day but also the long-term health of your nervous system and body.

There are three things that no matter your circumstances you should be able to weave into your schedule — and knowing that this really really set the tone for your day.

Those three things are:

Let’s unpack each of these in a little more depth.

🚫 📱 Bonus: Don’t touch your phone or drink coffee for the first 90 minutes of the day ~ and take a few minutes journaling with ‘morning pages’.

Alright, let’s shift onto essential evening rituals — there are three categories here:

Let’s unpack each of these in a little more depth.

Congratulations. You’ve made it to the end of Nervous System Mastery!!!

Don’t forget to look back on your custom NSM handbook to integrate and reflect on the lessons and protocols that we’ve covered in the last 5 weeks.

I’ll leave you with four journal prompts designed to both elicit key take-aways and insights as well as set you up for success and lifelong learning for the months and years to come — you can find these in your handbook for this week.

1 // Reflecting Backwards — What are the top five things that you would wish to remind yourself of and ensure that you don’t forget in the months and years to come?

2 // Reflecting Forwards — I invite you to conduct a ‘post-mortem’ looking forward into the next 6 months, ask yourself what might get in the way of implementing the nervous system theory and practices that you’ve learned? What guise will you ‘Resistance’ take? What will be the greatest challenges or obstacles to anticipate ahead of time?

3 // I will commit to continuing my own learning & self-experimentation in the following three ways — which questions are most alive in you to explore? Which books might you like to read? Which coaches, therapists or practitioners might you explore working with? Which experiences feel like they would nourish you? Or daily habits that you feel good about committing to?

4 // What’s one specific way that I can pay it forward — could you share some of what you’ve learned with a friend or loved one — or perhaps something that you might be able to contribute to the NSM community?

Okay, thank you so much for your time and attention — it’s truly been a pleasure to share this work with you — and I wish you the very best of luck as you continue to walk this lifelong path of nervous system mastery