Why some people feel draining… and others calm your nervous system

You can spend an hour with one person and feel exhausted, go home with a headache and tight shoulders.

Then spend 15 minutes with someone else… and feel completely reset, at ease and playful.

Can you think of someone who feels draining to you, or someone that makes you feel so good, you leave the interaction feeling replenished, inspired or calmer?

Even just when you're playing with your dog… and feel something in your chest soften at the cuteness of this adorable being.

It’s a totally different internal experience depending on who you’re with.

Your nervous system is always responding to others. When this creates a sense of connection and safety, it’s called co-regulation. 

Through tone of voice, facial expressions, body language, and presence, your nervous system is constantly scanning the people around you for cues of safety, danger or neutrality.

Much of this happens beneath conscious awareness, before we've had time to think about it or make sense of it.

It's your nervous system doing what it is designed for.

This is one of the ways our nervous system and relationships are constantly communicating.

Why does this happen?

From the day we’re born, we rely on others to help regulate our nervous system.

Babies aren't born knowing how to regulate themselves on their own. They rely on a caregiver’s voice, touch, and presence for their system to develop in a healthy way.

Over time, through repeated experiences with caregivers, the nervous system learns how to find its way back to balance - though for some, those early experiences made that harder.

That learning happens in relationships first, before it becomes something we can do on our own.

I find that one of the most powerful pieces of evidence for just how much we need relational connection comes from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project [King, L.S., Guyon-Harris, K.L., Valadez, E.A., et al. (2023)]. It is a landmark study that began over 20 years ago and followed children living in Romanian orphanages.

These children were physically cared for, but had very little access to warm and consistent caregiving.

What they found was that children who stayed in institutional care showed delays in brain development, cognitive growth, and emotional regulation. But children who were moved into nurturing foster families (especially before the age of 2) showed meaningful recovery across several areas, including their brain activity and stress response systems.

And that's hopeful.

Because after nearly 20 years of data, one thing is now very clear: it's not just physical nourishment that shapes a developing nervous system, it's relational nourishment that a growing brain-body system genuinely needs - the attunement, the presence, the felt sense of being held and responded to.

We are wired for connection from the very beginning.

Your nervous system never stops responding to others

And as adults, our nervous system keeps responding to who’s around us. It's embedded in us.

For example, think about the colleague or family member who walks into the room and the energy shifts, your body can feel it even before you’ve understood what's happening. Or the friend whose voice alone makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Research shows that our physiology can actually begin to sync with others - like heart rate, breathing, and emotional states.

In one study, couples were brought into a lab and simply sat near each other (no touching, no talking). Their breathing naturally began to synchronise just from being in the same space. Similar patterns have been found between mothers and babies, performers and their audiences, and people sharing a conversation.

Heart rate, breathing, brain activity... our bodies are quietly, constantly responding to the people around us.

And it's not just about what we feel emotionally. Research suggests that when people feel genuine connection, trust or compassion together, their bodies begin to physically synchronise: heart rhythms, breathing patterns, even brain activity starting to align.

HeartMath Institute research adds something even more interesting: the heart actually produces the largest electromagnetic field in the body (that extends several cm beyond our actual physical body). And their studies suggest that the signal from one person's heart may register in the brainwaves of someone nearby, even without any words or touch.

It's still emerging research. But it points to something I hope most of us have felt at some point: that sense of being truly in sync with someone. Turns out, your body may be doing that quite literally.

We affect each other emotionally and also physiologically.

We’re wired for connection and the people and environments around you are actively shaping your nervous system every single day.

It makes you wonder... who are we spending most of our time with, and how does our system feel around them?

Emotional contagion: we catch stress or calm

Did you know that we can “catch” calm, joy and playfulness… and we can also pick up stress?

This is called “emotional contagion” and it’s helpful to understand, especially if you tend to feel easily drained by some people.

We actually automatically mirror the facial expressions, tone of voice, posture and movements of the people around us, and in doing so, we start to feel what they feel. And not because we choose to, it just happens automatically (and quietly) before we've even realised it.

A 2023 Yale study watched people's brains during real face-to-face conversations and found that mimicking and emotion-catching are happening at the same time. Two completely automatic processes, both under the radar.

And a 2025 review describes emotional contagion as one of the most fundamental mechanisms of human connection. Something wired into us from the very beginning.

Stress is contagious. Calm is contagious. So is joy (you can fill in the rest 😏).

And here's what I find really compelling: research has found that when some people in a group learn to regulate their own emotional state, the people around them become calmer too. Without any training, without any conversation about it. Just from being in the presence of someone who has found their own coherence.

Working on your own nervous system regulation isn't something you just do for yourself. It ripples out to the people around you.

As we evolve, change and learn to honour ourselves more (looking at you, people pleasing, peace keeping, fawn state...), we often become more aware of who feels aligned with us, and more able to hold boundaries with those who don't.

And animals also count!

A pet can be one of the most consistent sources of felt safety and a great co-regulator. A 2024 study found that dogs and their owners' hearts actually begin to find a shared rhythm during stroking, playing and simply being together. This only happened between dogs and their own humans, not between dogs and strangers.

The bond is what creates the synchrony. That's co-regulation, and it's very real.

Your nervous system is trying to protect you

So, if you've ever wondered why others affect you, or why you can't just 'let it go'… this is likely why. It’s your nervous system doing its job and giving you useful information.

If your early experiences didn't include much needed co-regulation — or if you've been through chronic stress or trauma — your system may have learned to stay on guard and see danger or threats, even around safe people. Your body learned to protect you.

That protection made sense then. It may be running a little louder than you need it to now.

Why familiar can feel like safe, even when it isn't

And sometimes the opposite happens: a dynamic that isn't good for us can feel strangely familiar, even comfortable, because it mirrors what our nervous system learned early. That pull is a pattern (not a character flaw).

And it can be really helpful to get curious about it, to start noticing what works for your system, and how to manage what doesn't.

Who helps you soften?

Who makes you brace?

Where do you need clearer boundaries?

Where does connection feel nourishing?

Your nervous system doesn't just scan for 'safe', it scans for familiar. And if you grew up in an environment that was unpredictable, emotionally unavailable, or chaotic, your system learned to read that as normal.

So later in life, when you meet someone who carries a similar energy (the hot and cold, the push and pull, the criticism and more), something in your body can recognise it. And not because it's good for you, because it's known.

And known can feel like safe, even when it isn't.

This could look like:

• Feeling inexplicably drawn to people who keep you guessing

• Finding genuinely calm, consistent people a little boring at first (yep, really)

• Feeling oddly at ease in relationships that are actually quite stressful

If any of that resonates, it means your nervous system is running a very old (and very loyal) programme. One that made sense when it was learned.

And it can change. Slowly, with the right experiences and support, your system can learn to find safety in what is actually safe, and to recognise nourishing connection.

And this extends beyond our everyday interactions too.

Why support matters during times of stress

Another important factor is who is with us during moments of high stress.

Feeling supported or not being alone in those moments, can make a real difference to how our system processes what is happening and how it recovers afterwards.

In one well-known fMRI study, women were exposed to the threat of mild electric shock while either alone, holding a stranger’s hand, or holding their husband’s hand.

The researchers found that hand-holding reduced threat-related brain activation, and the effect was strongest when the women were holding the hand of a supportive spouse.

Other research has found that social support before a stressful task can reduce cortisol and anxiety responses, suggesting that feeling supported can soften the body’s physiological stress response.

A more recent review by Calhoun et al., 2022 also states that social support has protective effects and can buffer risk for negative psychological outcomes, including PTSD-related outcomes after stress or trauma exposure.

Heart Art from Mr Brainwash Art Museum in LA (2024)

Your nervous system can learn and change

Our brain and nervous system aren’t fixed (hello neuroplasticity 😊).

With the right kind of experiences, support and practice, they can change over time, learning to feel steadier, safer, clearer with boundaries, and more available for meaningful connections.

And while insight can be helpful, deeper change happens through experience. It needs to be felt, practised, and embodied over time.

At Inner Coherence in Sydney, I support clients with EFT tapping, Heart Coherence and somatic modalities to gently build nervous system regulation, emotional resilience and a deeper sense of inner safety.

If this resonates, I’d love to connect. You’re welcome to book a free 15-minute connection call here to explore what's possible for your nervous system.

With Heart,

Claudia 🤍

Holistic Practitioner for Emotional & Nervous System Health

Certified & Accredited EFT Practitioner · Heart Coherence · Somatic EMDR · Trauma-informed