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Why Some Neurodivergent Nervous Systems Experience the World More Intensely
- Angie Lamb
- Apr 18
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 23
Understanding predictive regulation, baseline activation, and how yoga therapy may support steadiness
I started doing yoga in university because I felt better afterwards. That was the full extent of my understanding at the time.
I was doing hot yoga and vinyasa — fast, physical, high-intensity. In retrospect, it matched my energy. I thought yoga was fitness. What I didn't notice, or didn't have the language for yet, was that I was also deeply uncomfortable every single time I walked into a class — the small talk before it started, the feeling of being looked at, the chaos of other people's bodies in close proximity. (And the sweating on my mat. I really hated that.)
It took me a long time to try slower practices. Longer still to try meditation. I had no real relationship to my nervous system then — I just knew something shifted when I moved.
I know a lot more now. And one of the things I know is that what I was experiencing in those doorways — that pre-class dread, that hypervigilance before anything had even happened — wasn't anxiety exactly. It was my nervous system doing exactly what nervous systems do.
Nervous systems don't just react — they predict
Our nervous systems aren't only responding to what's happening right now. They're constantly anticipating what might happen next.
Researchers sometimes describe this as predictive processing. The brain uses past experiences, patterns, and environmental signals to prepare the body for what it expects is coming. This is a protective system — efficient, intelligent, and largely unconscious.
I see this all the time in my work, and I live it myself. Even now, something as simple as arriving somewhere new can trigger a whole cascade of preparation — scanning, bracing, rehearsing. Not because anything is wrong. Because the nervous system has learned that novelty sometimes requires it.
For many neurodivergent people, that baseline of preparation is already higher than average. It often reflects the sheer amount of processing required to move through environments that weren't designed with your nervous system in mind: the sensory input, the social demands, the masking, the constant context-reading, the effort of making yourself legible to a world calibrated for someone else.
But in environments that feel uncertain, fast-moving, or high in stimulation, the nervous system can move into a more watchful state — scanning more, preparing more, holding more. For many people, especially those whose nervous systems have learned over years that the world requires close attention, that shift can happen quickly and be hard to come back from.
The modern environment amplifies what's already there
On top of this, we're living in an information environment structured to keep attention engaged — and that engagement is frequently driven by urgency, conflict, and intensity.
I noticed this acutely over the past year, watching the news. I wanted to stay informed — to be able to form views, to stay engaged with what was happening in the world. But I kept finding myself teetering into overwhelm. Taking in more than I could metabolise. Feeling it for hours or days afterwards.
It's worth naming directly: staying informed and staying flooded are not the same thing.
Stepping back from input is sometimes framed as avoidance. But regulation isn't avoidance — it's what makes continued engagement possible. When the nervous system has space to settle, we regain access to clearer thinking, emotional flexibility, the ability to respond rather than react. Without that space, it becomes much harder to act in ways that align with what we actually care about.
The underrated goal: access to neutral
Here's something that gets less attention than it deserves — and something that Nyck Walsh explores in depth in their recent book Neurodivergent Somatics in Therapy.
For many neurodivergent people, the nervous system spends a lot of time in states of activation, vigilance, or effort. Because of this, neutral experiences — moments that simply feel okay, unremarkable, safe enough — can feel unfamiliar. Sometimes even uncomfortable. The system has learned to prioritize threat detection over ease, and ease starts to feel like a gap in the data.
This isn't a lack of capacity. It's often a reflection of what the nervous system has been trained to prioritize.
Part of the work, then, isn't only about reducing distress. It's about gently increasing access to neutral and pleasant states — noticing moments that feel okay, not just good; building tolerance for ease without needing to leave it; allowing small experiences of curiosity, connection, or enjoyment. Recognizing that pleasure doesn't have to be intense to count.
These states give the nervous system new reference points. Not just for safety, but for living.
And here's where the predictive piece comes back: every time the nervous system receives new information — this moment is safe enough, not everything requires immediate action, there is room to pause — it begins to update its predictions. Slowly, over time, the baseline can shift.
Where yoga fits — and what it actually looks like for neurodivergent nervous systems
My relationship to yoga has changed completely since those hot yoga days. I came to slower practices and eventually to yoga therapy not because I went looking for them, but because I kept following what actually helped.
What I teach now looks nothing like fitness.
I think about this when people tell me, sometimes shyly, weeks or months into working together: I almost didn't come today. It usually comes out during the debrief, once there's enough trust for honesty. And I understand it completely — because I felt that too, standing outside studios in my early twenties, dreading the small talk, dreading being looked at, not yet knowing that the discomfort I felt at the door was the nervous system's predictive machinery working overtime.
Many people who find me have had experiences with yoga that didn't suit them. The format, the environment, the unspoken expectations, the way it asks you to be present in your body when being present in your body hasn't always felt safe. That resistance before class — the loud internal thoughts, the fatigue, the almost-didn't-comes — isn't weakness or avoidance. It's information.
What I try to offer is something different. If someone arrives activated and we're still building a relationship, I might start by asking what they're into — their hobbies, what's been interesting to them lately. Not as small talk, but because that kind of conversation does something real in the nervous system. It builds a sense of connection, of being met, which is its own form of regulation. I don't call it a "safe space" — that's for the client to determine, not me to promise. What I can offer is a space we build together.
One moment has stayed with me. I was working with a client in their sixties, guiding a lateral stretch and cueing them to notice sensation from the hip all the way to the fingertips — where do you feel it, if anywhere? They said they had never felt anything like that before. Never tracked sensation across their own body in that way.
What struck me wasn't that they lacked the capacity. It was that over sixty-plus years of navigating a world not built for them, they may have in part learned to stop listening inward in order to manage what was happening outside. The body had been placed on hold — indefinitely, in service of survival (among possible other factors that can shape interoceptive awareness in neurodivergent people, including sensory processing differences and nervous system patterning).
That's what a lot of this work is, slow and gentle, exploration.
A 1:1 yoga therapy session with me isn't a formatted class. There's no fixed sequence waiting for you. We co-create it — working toward what actually matters to you, whether that's learning to access a quieter state more easily, building strength, working with hypermobility or pain, or simply getting curious about what's happening in your body. Everything is optional. We explore, adapt, and modify. We practice self-compassion not as an idea but as something lived in the small moments of the session itself.
Capacity, connection, and choice
Regulation isn't only about reducing stress. It's about building range — enough that you can stay engaged without becoming overwhelmed, respond rather than react, and show up in ways that align with what matters to you.
You can care deeply about what's happening in the world and care for your nervous system at the same time. In fact, caring for your nervous system may be what allows you to stay engaged — with more clarity, steadiness, and intention.
If this resonates, you're welcome to explore working together. No pressure to commit — just an open door.
REFERENCES
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181–204.
Walsh, N., & Giwa Onaiwu, M. (2026). Neurodivergent somatics in therapy: An anti-oppressive model for whole person care. W. W. Norton & Company.
About Angie
Angie Lamb is a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) offering trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming yoga therapy online across Canada. Her work is built around safety, choice, and co-created practices — shaped by her own experience as a neurodivergent person and by years of working with late-identifying autistic and ADHD adults navigating a world not built for their nervous systems.
Want to explore this work?
Monthly community class A by-donation online class for late-identifying autistics and/or those with ADHD. Held monthly, low-pressure, and shaped around this community's needs.
1:1 yoga therapy Co-created sessions, available online across Canada. No fixed sequence — we work toward what actually matters to you.
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