Field Notes from a Nervous System Professional
I Tried TikTok's Nervous System Reset for 30 Days
Cold water, breathwork, EFT tapping, cutting caffeine, and one supplement that actually held up. An honest field report on what worked and what was theater.
I was doom scrolling on TikTok in April and saw a post. A woman was holding her face in a bowl of ice water in what appeared to be a very expensive kitchen, and the caption promised this would reset her vagus nerve in ninety seconds.
I run a place that helps people whose nervous systems are stuck. You would think that would make me immune to that video.
I watched it four times.
So I spent the next stretch doing whatever the algorithm told me to do about my nervous system. The rules were simple: Val had veto power, nothing over fifty dollars, nothing that arrived on a subscription, and it had to be something a normal person in American Fork could pull off between clients.
Here's the honest field report.
Cold Water, and Its Lazy Cousin the Kitchen Sink
This is the one everybody starts with. The ice face bowl. The cold plunge. The ritual humiliation of filling your kitchen sink with cold water and ice, and then dunking your head into it, because a stranger on the internet told you it would help.
That's exactly what I did. Val walked in on me mid-dunk — head fully submerged in a sink full of ice water — and her exact words were: "What the hell are you doing?"
Which is fair.
Here's the annoying part: it does something. Cold water on the face triggers a real physiological reflex. Your heart rate drops. Your body shifts gears. You get a genuine state change in under a minute — no app required, no subscription, just you and the kitchen sink and a towel you'll forget to put back.
I stopped dreading it somewhere around the second week. I found that more unsettling than the dreading.
Breathwork: The Quiet Winner
Of everything I tried, this is the one with the most legitimate research behind it — and it's also the one nobody makes a viral video about, because there is nothing to sell you. You breathe out longer than you breathe in. That's the whole technology.
I use a 4-8-8 pattern: inhale for four counts, hold for eight, exhale for eight. I do it in the morning on the PEMF mat, combined with time on the infrared light mat. Which sounds like a lot of equipment for a morning routine, and it is — but the breathing part works whether you're on specialized equipment or sitting on your kitchen floor.
I'd been recommending breathwork to people for years. It was mildly humiliating to notice I had almost never done it consistently myself. Physician, heal thyself, etc.
EFT Tapping, Which I Do With the Door Closed
I want to be careful about this one. I know people this genuinely helps, and I have colleagues I respect who use it with their clients. It's not my place to tell anyone their tool is silly.
What I will say is that there is no dignified way to tap your own collarbone while talking out loud to yourself.
I do it on the PEMF mat — same morning routine as the breathwork. When Val first started catching me at it, she would raise an eyebrow and keep walking. Now she wants to join me. That's either a strong endorsement or evidence that we have both gone off the deep end together, and I choose to believe the former.
Does it help? Honestly, yes — but it's not a one-and-done tool. It needs to be repeated. The effect doesn't accumulate the way I'd like. It's more like a daily maintenance item than a fix, which is either a feature or a bug depending on your temperament.
Cutting Caffeine: An Experiment in Becoming Temporarily Unbearable
Everyone online frames caffeine reduction as a gentle recalibration. A soft reset. A mindful choice.
They leave out the part where, for approximately one week, the expletives flow like a rushing waterfall. Not necessarily out loud — mostly just internally, as a constant background current — but they are there, a full white-water rapids of irritability running underneath every ordinary interaction.
"Once my system recalibrated, the rapids settled into something more like a tame stream. Still there. Much more manageable."
And my afternoons were genuinely different — not transformed, not quiet, but different in a way that held. I kept this one. The waterfall was worth it.
The Supplement That Was Not Gatorade
I want to be honest about why I tried this. There's a TikTok trend built around something called a "cortisol cocktail" — orange juice, coconut water, salt, magnesium — that promises to lower your stress hormones. It is, for all practical purposes, Gatorade. Expensive, artisanal, intention-set Gatorade.
I did not try that.
What I tried instead was a supplement called Ritual Stress Relief, after doing some actual research on the ingredients. It combines three things — ashwagandha, L-theanine, and saffron — each with a reasonable amount of research behind it.
Ashwagandha
An adaptogenic herb used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries. Research suggests it may support the body's ability to manage cortisol levels.
L-Theanine
An amino acid found naturally in green tea. Studies suggest it promotes relaxed alertness — the calm-but-not-drowsy effect tea drinkers have noticed for centuries.
Saffron
Most people think of it as a spice. A growing body of research on concentrated saffron extract (affron®) suggests it may support mood and reduce stress markers.
What made Ritual different from most supplements I'd encountered is a time-release delivery system — one wave hits quickly, another at four hours, a third at eight. The idea is all-day support rather than a single spike and crash.
I'm still taking it. That's the honest answer.
Note: Supplements are not a replacement for clinical care, and individual experiences vary. The ingredients above are worth researching further if you're curious. Ritual Stress Relief is available on Amazon — no affiliate relationship, just an honest mention of what I use.
The Part Nobody on TikTok Says
Here's what the month actually taught me — and it isn't a knock on any of it.
Almost everything on that list is a state tool. It changes how you feel for the next hour, or the next few hours. Cold water, long exhales, tapping, a supplement — these are real. They work the way a good night's sleep works. You do the thing, you feel better, and then Tuesday happens.
Almost none of them are pattern tools.
State Tools
Change how you feel for the next hour. Real, valuable, worth doing. Like opening a window when the smoke alarm goes off.
Pattern Tools
Address why the alarm is still going off after four years. A different kind of work entirely — and one most TikTok trends never mention.
If your smoke alarm is shrieking because you burned toast, opening a window is exactly right. Open the window.
If your smoke alarm has been shrieking for four years because something in the wiring got stuck, you can open every window in the house — and you should, and it will help for a minute — and the alarm will still be going off.
TikTok is very good at windows. It has almost nothing to say about the wiring.
Free Your Mind — A 7-Day Email Course
Curious about the wiring, not just the windows? The free course walks through what's actually going on when a nervous system gets stuck — and small ways to help it settle, one short email at a time.
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What I Actually Kept
Morning Breathwork
4-8-8 pattern on the PEMF mat. Still going, most mornings.
EFT Tapping
Most mornings. Val now joins me. The eyebrow has retired.
Caffeine — gone
The waterfall week was real. The calmer afternoons that followed were also real.
Ritual Stress Relief
Still taking it. The one supplement that made it past 30 days.
I also stopped feeling guilty about the things I dropped. That turned out to matter more than any of them. A lot of people are now carrying a nervous system regulation routine the way they used to carry a workout plan they felt bad about skipping — which is a genuinely funny way to give yourself one more thing to be stressed about.
If any of this sounds familiar and you're wondering what's actually going on underneath, our What Is IASIS MCN page explains the technology in plain language. And if anxiety is the main thing driving the search for solutions, the anxiety support page walks through how nervous system patterns play into it specifically.
Other pages that might be useful:
If the windows aren't enough
Still Running Hot After All the Right Habits?
Many of the people who come to see us have already tried most of what's on this list — faithfully, for months. They're not starting from zero. They just need something that addresses the wiring, not just the alarm.
Schedule a Free Consultation →No commitment. Just a conversation about where you are.
Individual experiences vary. The tools described in this post represent personal observations, not clinical recommendations. Supplement claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. Clear Mind Utah serves clients at 21 E. 100 N. Ste. 101, American Fork, UT 84003.
About the Author
Troy Gundersen
Troy is the co-founder and owner of Clear Mind Utah, a family-owned IASIS Microcurrent Neurofeedback center in American Fork, Utah. He and his wife Valerie opened the center after experiencing firsthand how a stuck nervous system can quietly take over — and how much is possible when it finally shifts. Troy works alongside Val and their daughter Sydni to help adults and families across Utah County find their way back to calm. Learn more about the team →
