Wellness therapies

RETHINKING regulation

Nervous system regulation has become one of wellness’s biggest talking points. Ellen Cummings investigates how treatments can create the conditions for regulation and why professionals should be careful what they promise

“Regulate your nervous system.” “Activate your vagus nerve.” “Switch from fight or flight to rest and digest.” Scroll through wellness content for long enough and some version of these promises is almost inevitable.

Now, the conversation is increasingly entering professional treatment spaces too. Massage and reflexology are being reconsidered through a nervous-system-informed lens, while spas are investing in experiences incorporating sound, vibration, heat and reduced sensory stimulation. Behind the trend is a familiar client need: to switch off.

“I think many people are simply overstimulated,” says Diane Wright, advanced reflexologist, spa educator and founder of the Regulation Reset methodology. “We live with phones, notifications, deadlines and very little genuine pause. People can stop physically without ever really feeling they’ve switched off.”

That is reflected in the treatment room. “Clients don’t say, ‘My nervous system needs regulating.’ They say, ‘I can’t switch my brain off,’ or ‘I need an hour where nobody needs anything from me,’” she adds.

Award-winning therapist Hayley Snishko, owner of mobile massage business Home Sanctuary, founder of the Massage4MentalHealth campaign and Mind Body Touch training, has noticed a similar shift. “Clients are increasingly understanding the link between their mental state and how this impacts their physical body,” she says. “I’ve noticed clients looking for more than physical relief. They want to feel a relief in their mental state as well; they want to feel calmer and more connected to themselves.”

What does regulation actually mean?

For therapists, however, understanding the terminology matters. Nervous system regulation shouldn’t simply become a fashionable synonym for relaxation.

The autonomic nervous system controls involuntary bodily processes and encompasses sympathetic and parasympathetic activity – commonly simplified into “fight or flight” and “rest and digest”. Crucially, the aim isn’t to eliminate the former.

“A healthy nervous system needs flexibility to give us the ability to respond appropriately to what is happening around us,” explains Snishko. “We need to be able to move between different states as day-to-day situations demand.”

Wright agrees. “Our autonomic nervous system needs activation as well as rest, so the goal isn’t to keep somebody permanently in ‘rest and digest’. It’s about flexibility – being able to respond when necessary and then settle again once that demand has passed.”

This distinction is particularly important as treatments begin to be marketed using the language of regulation. As Snishko puts it: “Otherwise, ‘regulation’ will just become another wellness word for relaxation.”

The power of touch

So, where do hands-on therapies fit in? “Touch is sensory information,” explains Snishko. “Our nervous systems are always processing information from the body and environment; massage and therapeutic touch can be part of an experience that communicates comfort, predictability and safety directly to the client’s body.”

However, both experts caution against suggesting that a therapist can simply perform a particular movement or press a certain point to “regulate” a client.

“I wouldn’t say there is one universally ‘regulating’ type of touch,” says Snishko. “Ultimately the skill is noticing how the individual client responds and adapting the treatment accordingly.”

This means a nervous-system-informed treatment might look less like an entirely new modality and more like a change in how existing skills are applied.

“The main difference is intention, observation and adaptability,” explains Wright. “A conventional relaxation treatment may follow a lovely predetermined sequence. A nervous-system-informed approach asks the therapist to pay closer attention to what’s happening with the person in front of them.”

That could mean adjusting pressure and pace, reducing the number of transitions or simply communicating more clearly. Importantly, slower and lighter isn't necessarily better. “Some people feel far more secure with firmer, sustained contact,” Wright adds.

Snishko similarly reduces unnecessary sensory demand when somebody appears particularly stressed or overstimulated, perhaps using “a slower pace, fewer changes of technique, predictable touch on the body and clear communication”.

But, she adds, “I don’t assume what will help someone and do what has worked before; I listen, observe the client and adapt the treatment to the client in front of me.”

It’s not all about the vagus nerve

The vagus nerve has become particularly prominent in wellness marketing. As a major component of the parasympathetic nervous system, its role is significant – but that doesn't mean therapists can directly manipulate it.

“The wellness industry has taken an interesting, complex area of physiology and simplified it into phrases like ‘activate your vagus nerve’,” says Wright. “Clinical vagus nerve stimulation is a genuine medical intervention – that’s very different from a spa therapist claiming that touching a particular point has directly stimulated it.”

Snishko takes a similarly holistic approach when working with the vagus nerve in mind. Rather than attempting to “stimulate” it directly, she may incorporate work focusing around the scalp, face and neck alongside slow, rhythmic touch.

“Again, it’s about creating the right conditions for that client’s nervous system to settle and respond,” she says.

This idea of creating conditions, rather than guaranteeing an outcome, runs throughout nervous-system-informed practice. As Wright puts it, “The therapist doesn’t ‘regulate’ another person’s nervous system. We create an environment in which their own system may find it easier to settle.”

Designing the whole experience

That environment extends well beyond the therapist’s hands. Lighting, music, scent, warmth, communication and even the way a therapist moves around the room all provide sensory information.

“The client isn’t experiencing our hands in isolation,” says Wright. “Lighting, temperature, music, scent, the speed at which we move, even how we speak, all form part of that sensory experience.”

Again, personalisation is key. Silence might be restorative for one client but uncomfortable for another, just as scent, music or very light touch won't suit everyone.

For operators, this broader understanding is influencing the spa environment and the technology within it.

Laura Freeman, group spa manager at Aqua Sana Forest Spa, says guests are increasingly intentional about their visits. “It’s not simply about being pampered; they’re looking for experiences that feel more like a retreat to help them feel genuinely restored.”

Aqua Sana has incorporated sound and vibration through touchless experiences, alongside its established use of thermal experiences, water, temperature, scent, nature and quiet spaces.

Technology, however, doesn’t signal the demise of hands-on therapy. Freeman says it instead expands the ways guests can experience wellbeing, while Snishko argues that human touch retains something technology cannot replicate.

“A skilled therapist is always noticing, interpreting and adapting to the client in front of them,” she says. “Technology can provide sensory input, but the therapeutic relationship brings human connection, communication and moment-to-moment responsiveness.”

Presence, permission and trust

In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of nervous-system-informed treatment may have little to do with new equipment or protocols.

“We can have beautiful techniques and environments, but if a client doesn’t feel listened to, respected or able to say ‘no’, their experience can be completely different,” says Snishko.

Consent, boundaries, communication and trust are, she argues, part of the treatment experience itself.

Wright similarly encourages therapists to “notice, communicate and adapt – rather than diagnose”. Signs such as repeated repositioning, muscle tension or changes in breathing might prompt a therapist to check in but shouldn't be interpreted as proof of a particular nervous system state.

Even therapist presence matters. “How we enter the room, our pace, the quality of attention behind our hands” can all influence the experience, Wright says. “The therapist’s presence is part of the treatment, not separate from it.”

This means therapists may already possess many of the skills required. Additional education can provide a greater understanding of why they matter – particularly when treatments are explicitly positioned around nervous system regulation – but it shouldn't encourage practitioners to stray beyond their scope.

“A short course doesn’t make somebody a psychologist or trauma therapist,” says Wright. “Good nervous-system education should make therapists more observant and thoughtful about their claims – not more clinical.”

Regulation without wellness washing

That becomes especially important in marketing. Claims to “reset” the nervous system, “release stored trauma” or treat anxiety and PTSD can move a spa treatment into territory that neither the evidence nor a therapist's qualifications necessarily support.

“We don’t need to medicalise a beautiful, valuable human experience to justify it,” says Wright.

Perhaps, then, nervous-system-informed wellness is simultaneously something new and something very old. Skilled therapists have long understood that warmth, rhythm, pressure, trust and environment can transform the experience of treatment. What is changing is the vocabulary – and, potentially, the level of intention behind those choices.

For Snishko, the opportunity is for nervous-system understanding to become an underpinning principle rather than another wellness “hack”. Wright likewise hopes it becomes integrated across spa experiences instead of simply appearing as another treatment name on the menu.

“The future isn’t about promising to ‘fix’ someone’s nervous system in 60 minutes,” she says. “It’s recognising that how someone experiences our treatment matters just as much as the techniques we perform – and designing spa treatments around that understanding.”