And as Holly Richmond, Ph.D., associate director of the Institute for Contemporary Sexual Therapy and somatic psychotherapist, tells mindbodygreen, the first step to getting back to your body is figuring out where your nervous system is.

As she explains, you can use a simple scale to rate your current state, where 1 means severe depression and 10 means panic. “We’re aiming for that four-to-six range, that kind of flexibility and elasticity, so when we talk about regulation, are we increasing or decreasing?” she explains.

For example, if you’re feeling down and depressed, you’ll want to up-regulate. On the other hand, if you’re feeling anxious, you should down-regulate.