UNDERSTANDING
YOURSELF.
Your nervous system is running the show whether you know it or not. The work is teaching it new defaults.
56 free wiki pages on the system that runs underneath your decisions, your moods, and your ability to be present with the people you love. Breath protocols sourced from Stanford and JBI. Polyvagal Theory from Porges. The Fawn Response from Pete Walker. Plus the poker-grade decision protocols that work when emotions are loudest.
Every page is plain-language mechanism plus a five-step protocol you can run today. No motivational filler. Every claim cites the work it came from.
PICK ONE.
Start with whichever situation is closest to today. Each page is free and self-contained.
Fawn Response
The fourth trauma response. Five-stage protocol to stop running it.
Read → 01.02Cyclic Sighing OS
Five minutes a day. Strongest single-technique result in a 2023 head-to-head trial.
Read → 01.03Diving Reflex Protocol
Cold water on the face, about 30 seconds, slows the heart.
Read → 01.04Diaphragmatic Breathing OS
Eight breaths a minute for parasympathetic dominance. Hopper et al. 2019.
Read → 01.05Humming and OM Protocol
Lower stress index than sleep, in a Holter monitoring study.
Read → 01.064-7-8 Breathing OS
In for 4, hold 7, out for 8, four cycles. The pre-sleep breath.
Read → 01.07Box Breathing OS
Four in, four hold, four out, four hold. The on-demand calm-down breath.
Read → 01.08Resonance Breathing OS
About six breaths a minute. The rate that maximizes heart-rate variability.
Read → 01.09The Five Non-Negotiables
Minimum-viable nervous-system maintenance. None more than five minutes.
Read → 01.10State-Matched Decision Tree
The same technique can settle you in one state and backfire in another. Pick the right tool.
Read → 01.11Up-Regulation vs Down-Regulation
The same breath can settle one state and flatten another. Read your state first.
Read → 01.12The Window of Tolerance
The band where you can think and feel at once. Read the edges before you blow past them.
Read → 01.13The Seven Dimensions of Rest
Sleep covers one of seven kinds of rest. Find the deficit it can't reach.
Read → 01.14The HALT Check
Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. A ten-second scan for the unmet need behind a mood.
Read → 01.15Dopamine Isn't Pleasure
Dopamine is wanting, not liking. The pleasure-chemical myth, corrected. Known vs Viral #1.
Read → 01.16Co-Regulation: The Social Nervous System
You can't always self-regulate alone. Borrow a calm nervous system on purpose.
Read → 01.17Implementation Intentions
If-then plans. The strongest behavior-change lever. d=0.65 across 94 studies.
Read → 01.18Self-Compassion: Three Practices
Self-criticism keeps you in threat. Three validated practices to use mid-struggle.
Read → 01.19Burnout: The Final Protest
The nervous system's final protest, not tiredness. Catch the three dimensions early.
Read → 01.20The 30-Day Nervous System Reset
Four weeks, 5–10 min a day. Map, tools, boundaries, sustainable practice.
Read → 01.21Which Therapy for What?
DBT, ERP, EMDR, CBT. Match the condition; fit beats brand everywhere else.
Read → 01.22Autism Masking & Late Diagnosis
The exhausting, invisible work of passing as neurotypical, and why diagnosis comes late.
Read → 01.23HRV: Your Autonomic Dashboard
Your nervous system's flexibility, on your wrist. Track the trend, not the daily number.
Read → 01.24The Vagal Brake
Aim for flexibility rather than constant calm: activate, then come back down.
Read → 01.25Allostatic Load
Solving the problem doesn't finish the stress in your body. Complete the cycle.
Read → 01.26Practical Neuroplasticity
What exercise, meditation, and stress measurably do to the brain. Largely reversible.
Read → 01.27Cognitive Defusion
Don't argue with the guilt. Defuse it. Four ACT techniques to act on your values anyway.
Read → 01.28Boundaries: A Graduated Approach
'Just set boundaries' fails. Build an assertiveness ladder, starting with the smallest no.
Read → 01.29Habit Stacking
New habits fail because starting takes willpower. Attach them to a habit you already have.
Read → 01.30Mindfulness Without Meditation
Can't sit still? You don't have to. Mindful walking, eating, listening train the same skill.
Read → 01.31The Values Alignment Inventory
Most self-care aims at borrowed values. Find what matters when no one's watching.
Read → 01.32The Four Traps of Self-Care
Four traps that sink self-care plans: all-or-nothing, novelty, guilt, performance.
Read → 01.33Process vs Outcome
The right call can still lose. Judging decisions by results trains you to decide worse.
Read → 01.34Expected-Value Thinking
Weigh each outcome by likelihood and value. The best bet across all the ways it could go.
Read → 01.35Self-Care for Neurodivergent People
Standard self-care is built for neurotypical brains. What works when yours isn't.
Read → 01.36You Were Never Broken
Tried everything and still feel broken? You aren't. The advice was. The state-matched map instead.
Read → 01.37Self-Care for Helping Professionals
Compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, moral injury. Three hazards, three responses.
Read → 01.38The History of Mental-Health Stigma
Mental-illness stigma was manufactured and it's movable. Contact, not facts, breaks it.
Read → 01.39Psychedelic Therapy: The Evidence
Revolution or hype? The honest, date-stamped middle. Promising, specific, unproven.
Read → 01.405-Question Pre-Bet Audit
Five questions before any high-stakes choice. Thirty seconds, before you commit.
Read → 01.41Tendler 7-Tilt OS
Seven types of tilt, seven cognitive injections. Treat each separately.
Read → 01.42Mental Hand History OS
Five-step structured writing. Externalize the tilt. Compound the learning.
Read → 01.43The Decision-Making OS
Before, during, after. Five free tools, one system for deciding under pressure.
Read → 01.44Executive Function Scaffolding
Externalize what the brain can't internalize. Permanent accommodation, not training wheel.
Read → 01.45The Gut-Brain Axis, in Practice
Your gut and brain talk in both directions. Change the whole pattern of eating, not one ingredient.
Read → 01.46Sleep Architecture
Sleep is a structured sequence, not a number. The stages, what one short night costs, and five steps.
Read → 01.47The Good-Enough Principle
You do not need a perfect practice. You need one you actually do. Set a floor you cannot fail.
Read → 01.48Emotional Flashback Protocol
A flashback is the past arriving as a feeling. Seven steps to meet it.
Read → 01.49Risk of Ruin and Your Energy Budget
Plan for the stretch that could take you out, not the average one.
Read → 01.50What 'The Human Frequency' Actually Means
Established, emerging, contested, or sold to you. Five checks for any frequency claim.
Read → 01.51DBT STOP Skill
Four steps between a trigger and a reaction you would regret. The DBT pause, and what is and is not tested.
Read → 01.52DBT TIPP Skills
Cold water, hard exercise, slow breathing, muscle release. Four body-first DBT skills, with the cautions up front.
Read → 01.535-4-3-2-1 Grounding
A countdown through your five senses to pull attention back to the room. Where the sources differ.
Read → 01.54Thought Record
Catch the thought, rate it, weigh the evidence, rewrite it. The CBT worksheet, step by step.
Read → 01.55The ACT Hexaflex
Six skills behind ACT, a six-question check, and what the trials show.
Read → 01.56Circadian Light
Light sets the body clock and its timing decides the direction. A five-step routine.
Read →THE SELF-CARE YOU WERE NEVER TAUGHT
194-page evidence-based guide. Nervous system science, the Fawn Response, Polyvagal Theory, plus four other breathing protocols and the state-matching framework that decides which to use when. The longer treatment of what the wiki covers, by the same author to the same standard.