Coherence: When Your Biology Stops Fighting Itself (and Your Healing Finally Has Somewhere to Land)
- Jan 16
- 5 min read
Coherence is a word I keep using because it names something people feel long before they can explain it.
Not a vibe.
Not a belief system.
Not a moral badge.
Coherence is what happens when the parts of a system coordinate instead of compete.
In plain language: your body stops arguing with itself.
Your signals become clearer. Your responses become more efficient. Your energy stops leaking into internal friction.
And that matters—because so many people aren’t “broken.” They’re incoherent.Not as a personality flaw. As a biological state shaped by stress, trauma, inflammation, poor sleep, overwork, under-recovery, grief, and years of running a nervous system like it’s a smoke alarm that never stops chirping.
Coherence is a biological principle, not a slogan
In physics, coherence describes waves that stay in relationship—phase-aligned, coordinated, organized. That organization produces power and clarity. When the waves are scrambled, you get noise, cancellation, interference.
Your body is also a signal ecosystem:
hormones are signals
nerves are signals
immune activity is signals
pain is a signal
emotions are signals
thoughts are also signals (and they steer attention, which steers physiology)
So when we talk about coherence in the body, we’re really talking about signal-to-noise ratio.When the noise is high, the body struggles to coordinate. When signals synchronize, the system becomes efficient.
Coherence is what efficiency feels like from the inside.
The hidden reason “nothing works” for some people
Here’s a pattern I see constantly:
Someone is doing “all the right things”—
stretching
chiropractic care
supplements
sauna
red light
clean food
hydration
meditation attempts that feel like wrestling a badger
…and they still don’t feel better in a stable way. They get temporary relief, then the system collapses back into the old baseline.
That’s not failure. That’s not laziness. That’s not “noncompliance.”
Often, it’s this:
Their system can’t hold the change because the nervous system is still running an incoherent operating system.
When your autonomic nervous system is stuck in threat physiology, the body prioritizes survival over repair. Even good inputs can get “spent” instead of integrated.
It’s like pouring clean water into a cup with a hole in the bottom.Coherence is what seals the hole.
Coherence is what regulation looks like
Regulation isn’t constant calm. Calm is one state.
Regulation is the ability to shift states and return.
Coherence supports that return. It’s the “reorganization” phase where your body stops wasting energy on internal contradictions like:
rest vs hypervigilance
digest vs brace
heal vs scan for danger
connect vs protect
truth vs performance
When coherence increases, people often notice:
deeper sleep or fewer nighttime wake-ups
less reactivity (to noise, people, screens, stressors)
steadier digestion
reduced tension holding patterns
less “wired and tired”
more accurate hunger/fullness cues
improved recovery after workouts or long days
clearer thinking without forcing it
Not because life became easy—because the system stopped burning fuel on internal civil war.
The heart and breath are the easiest doorway in
The heart is not just a pump; it’s an information hub inside the autonomic nervous system. Breathing is one of the only levers you can pull on purpose that directly influences autonomic tone in real time.
When breath becomes rhythmic and unforced, the nervous system gets a simple message:“We are safe enough to coordinate.”
That coordination often shows up as smoother rhythm patterns and improved variability in timing between heartbeats (HRV). Wearables try to capture pieces of this, but you don’t need a device to know it’s happening.
You can usually feel it as:
a longer exhale without strain
a softening in the face and shoulders
a quieter internal dialogue
a clearer sense of “here”
That’s coherence beginning.
Coherence doesn’t mean “no pain”
Pain is not just a tissue issue. Pain is an output—created by the brain based on incoming information: tissue state, inflammation, past experiences, perceived threat, fatigue, context, meaning.
So coherence work isn’t about pretending pain isn’t real.
It’s about changing the conditions under which pain is interpreted.
A coherent system has:
better circulation of information
less threat bias
more accurate sensory processing
improved tissue recovery capacity
This is one reason why some people don’t “hold” bodywork, adjustments, or mobility gains: the system keeps reasserting the protective pattern because the underlying threat physiology never truly downshifts.
Coherence is the downshift.
What the work at Solstace is designed to do
Solstace of Natural Wayz is a space used to create the conditions where healing becomes more likely, rather than chasing symptoms.
Think of Solstace of Natural Wayz as a frequency healing chamber in the most practical sense:
light is frequency
sound is frequency
pulsed electromagnetic fields are frequency
heat is energy transfer
breath is rhythm
rhythm is regulation
regulation is coherence
When you stack coherent inputs—heat + light + sound + stillness + guided nervous system cues—you create an environment where the body can stop scanning and start integrating.
That’s why people often leave a session feeling:
quieter in their head
lighter in their chest
less compressed in their body
more emotionally settled
more “back inside themselves”
Not because the session “fixed” them.
Because the session helped the body reorganize.
Coherence also has an emotional signature: integrity
Here’s the part people don’t expect:
Coherence isn’t just physiological. It’s also behavioral.
When your life is out of alignment—when you’re constantly overriding your own boundaries, working against your needs, living in contradiction—your nervous system notices. Your biology keeps score.
Incoherence shows up when:
you say yes when you mean no
you perform wellness while living in depletion
you ignore what you know because it inconveniences others
you live in a story that doesn’t match your lived experience
Coherence is when your choices begin to match your truth more often than not.
And that—quietly—reduces stress physiology.
A simple coherence practice (2 minutes)
No gadgets. No special belief system. Just biology.
inhale through the nose for ~4 seconds
exhale slowly for ~6 seconds
let your jaw unclench
keep attention on the exhale like it’s the steering wheel
Do that for 2 minutes and notice:
do your shoulders drop?
does the chest soften?
does your mind quiet even 5%?
That 5% matters. That’s the system learning a new rhythm.Coherence is trainable.
The point: coherence creates capacity
You don’t heal well when you’re constantly bracing.
Coherence builds capacity—capacity for:
recovery
digestion
emotional processing
better movement
deeper sleep
clearer decisions
cleaner intuition
and yes… more resilient physiology in a chaotic world
