“Calm isn’t the absence of pressure — it’s the ability to stay physiologically balanced while under it.”
Darryl Blake
May 16, 2024
Your nervous system runs the show - whether you realise it or not
Executives often think of stress as purely mental — a mindset problem that can be solved by discipline, mindfulness, or another productivity hack. But your body tells a different story.
Beneath your polished composure lies a complex biological network that constantly scans for threat or safety — and it determines far more about your leadership performance than you might realise.
That network is your autonomic nervous system — and understanding how to regulate it could be the single biggest performance advantage available to modern leaders.
At any given moment, your brain and body are balancing two opposing forces:
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) — your fight-or-flight response.
The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) — your rest, recovery, and repair mode.
In short bursts, stress is adaptive. A difficult meeting or tight deadline activates the SNS, flooding your bloodstream with adrenaline and cortisol, sharpening focus and reaction time. That’s the good kind of stress — the kind that primes you for peak performance.
But when that system never shuts off, your physiology starts to malfunction. You don’t just feel tired — your heart rate variability drops, sleep fragments, and your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for reasoning and empathy) goes offline. You’re left running an organisation with a nervous system that’s constantly braced for impact.
The hidden cost of always being 'on'
Most executives mistake recovery for rest. They’ll step away from the desk, but their physiology never follows. Even at dinner, on weekends, or on vacation, the body remains subtly on alert — emails, notifications, and mental rehearsals keep the stress circuitry active.
Research from Stanford and Harvard shows that chronic sympathetic dominance — living primarily in fight-or-flight mode — impairs immune function, accelerates cellular ageing, and dulls the brain’s capacity for innovation.
What’s more, your state becomes contagious. Teams unconsciously attune to a leader’s physiological signals through a process known as limbic resonance — effectively, they “catch” your stress. You can say all the right things, but your body still broadcasts the opposite signal.
The science of switching off - without losing your drive
The goal isn’t to eliminate stress — it’s to train flexibility in your nervous system.
A healthy leader can activate focus and intensity when needed, then rapidly return to calm and recovery afterward. This flexibility is measured by vagal tone — a marker of how efficiently your body shifts between sympathetic and parasympathetic states.
Three evidence-based techniques reliably strengthen vagal tone:
Controlled exhalation breathing – Slow, extended exhales (for example, 4 seconds in, 6 seconds out) activate the vagus nerve, calming your heart and brain within minutes. Huberman’s lab calls this the fastest on-demand stress regulation tool available.
Interoceptive awareness – Simply noticing your internal state — heartbeat, breath, muscle tension — increases the prefrontal cortex’s regulation of the amygdala (your threat centre). This is why body-based mindfulness practices are more effective than purely cognitive ones.
Active recovery – True recovery isn’t Netflix and wine. It’s any activity that restores physiological balance: walking outdoors, breathwork, slow swimming, journaling, or unstructured play. Think of it as training your recovery response just as deliberately as you train performance.
Calm is contagious
When your nervous system is regulated, people feel it.
Your calm becomes a physiological cue of safety that enables others to think more clearly, take creative risks, and trust your leadership.
Leaders with strong vagal tone don’t need to command authority — they transmit it.
Their presence literally regulates the nervous systems of those around them, creating cultures that feel both high-performing and psychologically safe.
The take-away. Train the system that runs you
You can’t outthink a dysregulated nervous system.
Meditation, therapy, and leadership coaching. They are all exponentially more effective when your biology is balanced. The real competitive advantage isn’t just a sharper strategy or more stamina, it’s the ability to return to physiological calm quickly and consistently.
When you learn to control your body’s stress response, you don’t lose your edge.
You hone it — turning reactivity into responsiveness, chaos into clarity, and pressure into presence.
In short: mastering your nervous system isn’t self-care. It’s leadership at the cellular level.