What is Safe and Sound Protocol? Finding Your Way Back to Calm
You know that feeling when you’re doing well on paper but inside it’s a different story? Your body feels tight, your shoulders ache, and you either snap at the smallest thing or shut down. Maybe crowded places or loud noises leave you on edge, conversations feel draining, or you get thrown off for hours after something small. You might lie awake at 2 AM replaying moments in your head, or notice your stomach knot before a meeting. Sometimes you make it through the day only to crash emotionally afterward, then feel ashamed about how you handled things.
If this resonates, you're not alone. Many people describe exactly this experience of anxiety and overwhelm. You've probably tried everything: talk therapy, exercise, journaling. Some things may have helped temporarily, but that deeper sense of being stuck remains. It’s incredibly frustrating when strategies that used to work just aren’t cutting it anymore, especially when it comes to handling daily stress and emotional ups and downs.
That’s where working with both your mind and body together becomes powerful. The Safe and Sound Protocol helps your nervous system shift out of constant guard mode so you can feel calmer, more present, and better able to connect, even in the stressful moments that come with everyday life.
About My Approach to Nervous System Work
I'm Amy Hagerstrom, a licensed therapist specializing in somatic approaches that address how stress and trauma live in both your mind and body. My practice focuses on helping adults who feel stuck in patterns of overwhelm, anxiety, and emotional reactivity, even when they've tried many other approaches.
I’m a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, certified in the Safe and Sound Protocol, and I integrate other mind-body approaches into my work. I was first drawn to this field after experiencing the difference myself, seeing how much can shift when you work with the nervous system, not just thoughts and behaviors. Watching that same kind of real relief in my clients is what keeps me committed to this work.
I offer online sessions to clients throughout Florida, including Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach, as well as Illinois, including Chicago. My approach is warm and collaborative, never one-size-fits-all, because I believe every nervous system is unique and deserves individualized attention.
If you're someone who's tried traditional therapy, mindfulness, exercise, and other wellness approaches but still find yourself feeling stuck, my work might offer a different entry point. Rather than focusing only on changing thoughts or behaviors, we work with the physiological patterns that often drive those very thoughts and behaviors in the first place.
Understanding What Drives That Constant State of Alert
Before we dive into what is Safe and Sound Protocol, let's talk about why you might be feeling this way. Your autonomic nervous system is designed to keep you safe, constantly scanning for threats in a process called neuroception. When this system gets stuck in high alert mode, everyday situations can feel overwhelming or threatening, even when logically you know they're not.
This isn't a character flaw or something you're doing wrong. It's often the result of accumulated stress, trauma history, or simply living in our fast-paced world for too long. Your nervous system learned to be hypervigilant as a protection, but now that same protection is exhausting you and affecting your mental health.
The shame around emotional outbursts, shutting down, or freezing up in social situations can be the hardest part. But these reactions make complete sense when you understand what your nervous system has been managing. The Safe and Sound Protocol works at this foundational level, supporting your system in learning to better tell the difference between real threats and everyday stressors through gentle listening and nervous system regulation.
What Exactly is the Safe and Sound Protocol?
The Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) was developed by Dr. Stephen Porges after decades of research into how our nervous system responds to safety and threat. It’s a gentle, science-based listening approach designed to help your system shift out of guard mode, making it easier to connect with others, regulate emotions, and handle everyday stress.
Unlike traditional talk therapy that focuses on thinking and talking things through (top-down), SSP starts with the body (bottom-up). When your body registers more safety, your thoughts and emotions often shift on their own, without having to force them to change. The specially filtered music engages your nervous system’s pathways for safety, which can help reduce overwhelm and reactivity. It’s especially supportive if past trauma or difficult experiences have made it harder for your body to register safety.
The protocol uses specific sound frequencies similar to those in the human voice, which is one of the body’s natural safety cues. These sounds gently stimulate the vagus nerve, a key communication pathway between your brain and body that helps you feel safe. As your nervous system becomes more regulated through this process, it can get easier to stay present under stress, feel more connected to others, and recover more smoothly from difficult moments.
The Science Behind How It Works: Polyvagal Theory
Dr. Stephen Porges discovered that our autonomic nervous system is more complex than just “fight or flight” or “rest and digest.” His Polyvagal Theory describes three main states your nervous system can be in, and how we move between them:
Social Engagement: This is your optimal state, where you feel safe, connected, and able to think clearly. It’s easier to regulate emotions here and enjoy time with others.
Fight or Flight: Your body’s mobilized state, with a faster heart rate and tense muscles, ready to confront or get away from a perceived threat.
Shutdown or Collapse: A deeper protective state where the system slows way down to conserve energy. You might feel disconnected, numb, or emotionally unavailable, with little motivation to take action.
The goal of SSP isn’t to get rid of these protective states, but to help you avoid getting stuck in them. When your nervous system is more regulated, it can respond to what’s happening in the moment and shift between states as needed, rather than staying locked in survival mode.
How Specially Filtered Music Retrains Your System
The music in the Safe and Sound Protocol is processed through an evidence-based algorithm that highlights specific sound frequencies found in the human voice. Your nervous system is naturally wired to perceive these mid-range frequencies as signals of safety, unlike full spectrum sound frequencies that can sometimes overwhelm a dysregulated system.
This sound protocol works by exercising your middle ear muscles during listening sessions, which help you focus on human speech and filter out background noise. When you're chronically dysregulated, these muscles may not function optimally, making you feel on edge or overwhelmed by environmental sounds.
During listening sessions, the filtered music gives these muscles a workout, which stimulates the vagus nerve and helps your auditory system better distinguish between threat and safety signals. This practical application of Polyvagal Theory helps your brain build new neural pathways for recognizing safety. Instead of staying hypervigilant and interpreting neutral cues as threats, your nervous system can become more balanced in noticing both safety and danger appropriately.
The changes from this sound protocol work are often gradual but meaningful. You might notice being less startled by sudden sounds, feeling more settled in your own skin, or having more capacity to stay present during emotional conversations instead of immediately going into defense mode.
Who Can Benefit and What It Addresses
I often work with high-functioning individuals who feel perpetually overwhelmed, even when life looks good from the outside. These are people seeking support who've tried multiple approaches but still find themselves reacting in ways that lead to guilt and shame. This trauma intervention addresses the root cause of many symptoms by calming an autonomic nervous system that's constantly scanning for threats.
The Safe and Sound Protocol can be particularly beneficial for those experiencing:
Anxiety that lives in your body: That constant tension, hypervigilance, or feeling like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Through listening sessions and nervous system regulation, many people experience relief from these persistent anxiety symptoms.
Trauma responses: Whether from a specific event or from the buildup of heightened stress over time, can leave lasting effects on the nervous system. The SSP supports your system in processing these experiences gently through nervous system regulation, which can make it easier to handle emotions, stress, and connection. It’s a gentle, non-invasive option for trauma recovery.
Burnout and chronic stress: Supporting your autonomic nervous system in shifting out of constant activation so you can have more capacity for rest, focus, and connection, and feel less worn down by daily demands.
Sensory overwhelm: Helping your nervous system handle sounds, lights, and busy environments so they feel less intense and draining.
Emotional regulation difficulties: Increasing your capacity to stay present with difficult emotions without being flooded or completely shutting down.
Social anxiety or overwhelm: When your nervous system struggles to register cues of safety, social situations can feel exhausting or tense. The Safe and Sound Protocol uses filtered music based on the human voice to help your system recognize safety more easily, making connection feel more natural.
Addressing the Shame Around Emotional Responses
Those moments when you snap at someone you love, feel your heart racing in a normal situation, or suddenly need to escape what should be a pleasant gathering are not character flaws. They're signs that your autonomic nervous system is working overtime to protect you based on difficult or overwhelming past experiences.
The emotional aftermath can be devastating. The guilt about lashing out, the embarrassment about big emotional responses, the shame about not being able to "just relax" like everyone else seems to. But here's what I want you to understand: these reactions make complete sense given what your nervous system has been managing.
This sound protocol works with both the physiological and emotional aspects of these responses. As your nervous system shifts toward regulation during listening sessions, you gain more capacity to process emotions and explore the core beliefs driving them. Along with easing symptoms, it creates space to work through the emotions and core beliefs driving them.
The SSP Process: What to Expect
Starting the Safe and Sound Protocol is a personalized process that requires patience and attunement to your individual responses. The goal is to gently help your nervous system access states of safety and regulation through careful listening, giving it time and a supportive environment to adapt.
As your SSP practitioner, I’m there with you through each step of the process. I help you prepare for listening, pay attention to how your system responds, and adjust the pace so it feels safe and supportive. We’ll also use “co-regulation,” meaning my presence and guidance can help your nervous system feel secure enough to experience something different.
The protocol involves five hours of specially filtered music, but pacing is everything. A slow, careful approach is far more effective than rushing through it. I closely monitor your progress and adjust the duration and frequency of listening based on how your system responds to the sound protocol.
During listening sessions, you'll wear over-the-ear headphones and choose a quiet, non-electronic activity such as drawing, gentle stretching, or sitting still wrapped in a blanket. The goal is to give your system space to process the auditory input without extra demands. I work with you to tune into what your body needs while listening, which can change from session to session. Some people notice physical sensations like trembling or emotional shifts during or after a session, which is a normal part of the nervous system reorganizing.
Your first listening session is always online with me; after that, we can continue virtually together, you can listen on your own if appropriate, or we can use a hybrid plan that fits your needs.
Integrating Mind-Body Approaches
I often find that the Safe and Sound Protocol and Somatic Experiencing complement each other well. SSP can sometimes deepen or even guide the SE work, as responses during listening such as memories, emotions, or body sensations can reveal areas that need attention and healing. By working with what comes up in SSP, we can bring that into our somatic therapy sessions in a way that feels supportive and effective.
This is why I integrate the Safe and Sound Protocol with Somatic Experiencing in my practice. While SSP works on a physiological level to support your nervous system through listening sessions, Somatic Experiencing takes a different approach. It’s a highly individualized process where we track your nervous system responses in real time and respond to what you need in that moment. Two core parts of this work are titration, taking things in small, manageable pieces, and pendulation, gently shifting attention between what feels easier and what feels more challenging.
Unlike approaches you might try on your own, Somatic Experiencing is deeply relational work. It’s a process where I stay attuned to you moment by moment, noticing subtle changes in your breath, posture, and tone of voice. My role is to help your system feel safe enough to explore, using co-regulation and gentle guidance so you can notice these shifts for yourself and integrate them in ways that last.
In my work, I’ve found that completing listening sessions with the Safe and Sound Protocol can make Somatic Experiencing work feel more approachable. People often describe enjoying the music and noticing shifts in how their body responds. The nervous system support can create more space for the work we do together in SE, whether it’s staying with a sensation a little longer or feeling ready to explore something that previously felt too overwhelming.
What Changes Might You Notice?
The shifts from Safe and Sound Protocol listening sessions often start out subtle and gradually build. You might notice you don’t have a big reaction in situations that used to set you off, or that you actually feel more interested in being social. Certain sounds might not startle you as much, and sleep can feel more restful as your nervous system learns it’s safe to let its guard down.
Emotionally, people often describe a sense of relief as the listening work progresses. The constant undercurrent of anxiety or hypervigilance can start to settle, making it easier to enjoy simple pleasures, be present with loved ones, and even feel excited about things that used to feel overwhelming.
These changes aren’t only about having fewer big reactions or managing difficult emotions. They’re also about having more room for the good stuff - joy, curiosity, playfulness, and the kind of connection that feels easy and natural. As your nervous system gains more flexibility through this sound protocol, those experiences become easier to access and enjoy.
Working Together: A Collaborative Approach
Every person's nervous system is unique, shaped by their combination of past experiences, trauma history, genetics, and current life challenges. This is why I never use a one-size-fits-all approach with the Safe and Sound Protocol. We start with what we do know about your needs and current situation, then adjust as we see how your system responds.
During our initial consultation, we’ll talk about what you’re experiencing that brings you to SSP and what you’re hoping it will help shift. I’ll share how the protocol works, how we would approach it together, and answer any questions you have about the listening sessions and support along the way.
If we move forward with the Safe and Sound Protocol, I’m there to support you through the entire process. We’ll check in regularly to see how your system is responding, adjust the pacing if needed, and make sure what’s coming up fits with your overall goals for our work together.
Location and Accessibility
I offer the Safe and Sound Protocol through secure online listening sessions, so you can do the work from a space where you already feel comfortable and safe. We’ll always start with a session together, and from there you can continue on your own or in a mix of guided and independent sessions, depending on what’s best for your nervous system.
I'm licensed to work with clients in Florida, including Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach, as well as throughout Illinois, including Chicago. I offer SSP online only, with options for listening sessions with me, listening outside of sessions when it’s appropriate, or a hybrid approach also when it's appropriate. Your first listening session is always with me.
Taking the Next Step
If you’ve been dealing with anxiety, overwhelm, reactivity, or that stuck feeling even after trying different approaches, the Safe and Sound Protocol can offer another way forward. By working directly with your nervous system and integrating Somatic Experiencing, we focus on the patterns that keep you feeling on edge. This evidence-based sound protocol helps create space for more ease, connection, and the ability to be present in your life.
This work takes patience and commitment to the listening sessions, but over time it can bring meaningful shifts. You might find it easier to settle in your body, have more space for both challenging emotions and enjoyable moments, and respond to life’s stressors with more clarity instead of quick reactivity.
I’m here to help you determine whether this approach is the right fit. The first step is a consultation focused on what’s bringing you to explore the Safe and Sound Protocol and what changes you’re hoping it could support, whether that’s easing certain symptoms, improving daily functioning, or feeling more at ease in specific situations. From there, we can decide together if it feels like the right next step.
Your nervous system became hypervigilant for good reasons, shaped by your past experiences. With the right support and a careful approach through listening sessions and nervous system regulation, it can also learn to recognize safety and access the ease that’s been there beneath all that protection. You don’t have to live in constant alert mode. This sound protocol offers another way, and I’d be honored to help you explore it.
Ready to learn more about how the Safe and Sound Protocol might support your path toward greater ease and genuine connection? Reach out through my website to schedule your consultation. Your nervous system has been working so hard to protect you. It's time to help it remember how to feel safe and at peace.