Arousal, Brain Science, and Shen: What It Means for Your Nervous System (and Your Healing)
There’s a new neuroscience study getting a lot of buzz. It decoded how our brains register emotional intensity—what researchers call affective arousal. The study is brilliant. And it confirms something I’ve built my entire practice on:
Your nervous system isn’t a machine to fix. It’s a living, sensing field that wants to resonate.
As the creator of Neuroaffective Somatics (NAS), I’ve worked with hundreds of clients and practitioners who want more than just “regulation.” They want a way to feel whole in their bodies again. To move through trauma without being flattened by it. To rebuild trust in their own felt experience.
This study—and the deeper framework I teach through NAS—helps us understand why that kind of healing works.
Let me break it down.
What the Brain Study Found (And Why It Matters)
In early 2025, researchers led by Zhang et al. published a major paper in Nature Communications. They used fMRI and machine learning to create a “brain signature” for emotional intensity, called BAAS (Brain Affective Arousal Signature). Here’s the short version:
BAAS isn’t about emotion labels (like fear or joy). It measures how much you’re feeling, not what you’re feeling.
· It shows up across all kinds of experiences—good, bad, real, imagined.
· It’s not just about bodily arousal like heart rate or sweat. It reflects subjective intensity—the kind that keeps you awake at night or floods your body during conflict.
· It’s distributed across brain networks, not located in a single “emotion center.”
· It can help researchers (and therapists) better pinpoint what’s happening in the emotional brain, without being misled by general arousal.
In short: it’s real science backing what many of us already know in our bones. Emotions don’t live in one place. They move. They emerge. They ripple through the whole system.
How NAS Sees Arousal: Through the Lens of Shen
In Neuroaffective Somatics, we take these same truths and bring them down into lived experience. Not through talk therapy or biohacks—but through the body’s own logic of healing.
In Chinese medicine, Shen is often translated as “spirit” or “consciousness.” But in NAS, Shen isn’t a mystical add-on. It’s your body’s deep intelligence—the way your system senses, integrates, and reorganizes experience in real time.
Think of it this way:
· Arousal is the volume. Shen is the conductor.
· Most models teach regulation. NAS teaches resonance.
· Regulation flattens. Resonance attunes.
This is where the neuroscience and somatics meet. Both show that the nervous system isn’t a linear hierarchy—it’s a dynamic, relational field. The goal isn’t to suppress arousal. It’s to listen to it. To move with it. To make meaning from it.
Four Ways This Changes How You Heal
1. Whole-System Healing
That study showed that affective arousal isn’t localized. It’s everywhere. NAS works the same way. We don’t chase symptoms—we build capacity across the system.
2. You’re Not Broken
High arousal doesn’t mean you’re “too much.” It means you feel deeply. NAS teaches you how to hold that without being consumed by it.
3. Your Subjective Experience Matters
The neuroscience finally reflects what NAS has honored all along: what you feel is the data. Not just your heart rate or cortisol levels. Your felt sense matters.
4. Healing Isn’t About Control
Trying to force your body into calm is like trying to tame the ocean. NAS helps you shift from control to contact—from fixing to resonating.
So Why Does This Matter For You?
Because healing isn’t about managing symptoms. It’s about reclaiming relationship—with your body, your history, your environment, and your future.
And if you’re doing this work—personally or professionally—you need tools that respect both the science and the soul of the nervous system.
That’s what I teach in Neuroaffective Somatics.
That’s what I guide clients and practitioners through every day.
Want to go deeper?
I work with folks 1:1 and guide small groups. Hello@kayteezee.com or 617-543-9642
Let’s shift the way we understand emotion—from decoding arousal to cultivating resonance.
Because the nervous system isn’t just reactive. It’s wise.
And Shen is the bridge.