That's not a metaphor. There's a field of neuroscience called interpersonal neurobiology, and according to physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté, it explains something you've probably felt but never had the language for: your relationships and environment don't just affect your mood. They shape your actual physiology.
⚗ When a Room Poisons You Slowly
Here's where the science gets uncomfortable. When you're surrounded by people or environments that belittle, dismiss, or diminish you, your brain doesn't file that away as "just words." It reads it as a threat, the same category of alarm your ancestors felt facing an actual predator.
🧬 Your brain signals your endocrine system, and cortisol and adrenaline flood your bloodstream.
🧬 Sustained cortisol suppresses your immune function and quietly stokes inflammation throughout your body.
🧬 That inflammation, left running long enough, shows up as chronic fatigue, depression, and physical illness.
🧬 Meanwhile, a nervous system stuck in survival mode burns enormous energy just staying braced, leaving nothing left over for your goals, your dreams, or your next ambitious move.
You're not imagining the exhaustion that comes from being around certain people. Your body is spending its fuel keeping you safe instead of letting you grow.
👭 We Were Never Meant to Regulate Ourselves Alone
In 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘺𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭, Dr. Maté draws on a field called psychoneuroimmunology, the study of how the mind, nervous system, immune system, and hormones function not as separate departments but as one continuous, conversing system. Your brain doesn't sit behind a locked door making private decisions. It's in constant dialogue with everything else happening in your body, and everything happening in your body is, in turn, listening closely to your relationships and your environment.
Dr. Maté puts it in terms that are almost startling in their simplicity: we are open-loop systems. Unlike a thermostat that regulates its own temperature from within, human physiology depends on other people to help it find steady ground. We were built to co-regulate, not to white-knuckle our way through life solo.
🧘♀️ This Was Never Just a Mindset Problem
Here's where this gets important, and honestly, a little liberating. A lot of us grew up soaking in the language of 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘤𝘪𝘳𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴, 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘪𝘯𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥. There's a grain of truth buried in there, we do have real agency, and it does matter. But held up against actual interpersonal neurobiology, that message starts to look less like wisdom and more like a very convenient way to hand every ounce of responsibility to the person already carrying the least amount of power in the room.
If your nervous system quite literally borrows its regulation from the people and environments around you, then staying stuck in a dysregulating relationship or workplace was never simply a matter of "just deciding to think differently." Your biology was responding accurately to a real, ongoing signal. That's not weakness, and it was never a failure of willpower or positivity. It's what human nervous systems are built to do.
This doesn't erase your agency. It relocates it. Instead of asking "what's wrong with me for not manifesting my way out of this," the more accurate and useful question becomes "what support, environment, or relationship does my nervous system actually need in order to change."
🌿 When a Room Becomes Medicine
Now flip it. Safe, empowering relationships do something measurable too: they act as a kind of external pacemaker, actually slowing your heart rate and calming your nervous system just by being present. Dr. Maté's field calls this interpersonal neurobiology, and it's the whole reason a genuinely good coach, mentor, or community can feel almost physically different to be around.
In that kind of space, your body releases oxytocin and dopamine instead of cortisol. You're not just "feeling supported." You are, quite literally, more energized, more regulated, and more capable of dreaming at the size your ambition actually deserves.
🧬 The Oldest Trade We Ever Learned to Make
Dr. Maté goes one layer deeper, back to childhood. Kids will abandon their authentic selves in a heartbeat if it means staying attached to the people who keep them alive. A child learns fast which parts of themselves get love and which parts get silence, and adjusts accordingly.
Most of us never stopped making that trade. We just moved it into adulthood, into jobs where we shrink our ideas to fit the room, relationships where we downsize our dreams so nobody feels threatened, friend groups where ambition has to be whispered instead of spoken. And the body, true to form, keeps the receipt. It shows up as burnout. As a flatness we can't quite name. As depression dressed up as just being "tired lately."
⚓ Knowing and Leaving Are Two Different Skills
Here's what nobody tells you: understanding all of this rarely makes leaving easier. Knowing a room is poisoning you and actually walking out of it are two completely different muscles. The first is intellectual. The second asks you to tolerate uncertainty, disappoint people, and survive a version of yourself that no longer has that familiar identity to hide behind.
That's precisely the part coaching exists for, not just naming the toxic dynamic, but building the capacity to actually exit it, one steady, supported step at a time, instead of white-knuckling your way through a transition alone the same way you white-knuckled your way through the relationship or environment itself.
❓Questions to Sit With
✨ What value or need were you originally seeking when you were first drawn to this relationship, community, or environment?
✨ What has quietly become unacceptable now that once felt tolerable, or even necessary?
✨ What do you imagine would actually happen if you left, and how much of that is fact versus a story your nervous system is still protecting you with?
✨ What belief or fear is currently outweighing your own urge to break free?
✨ If staying feels unsafe and leaving also feels unsafe, what would it look like to be supported through that in-between space, rather than facing it alone?
Your biology is listening to every room you walk into. The real question isn't whether your environment is shaping you, it already is. It's whether you're finally ready to choose one that shapes you well, and whether you're willing to let support carry part of that weight while you do.
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#interpersonalneurobiology #psychoneuroimmunology #gabormate #mythofnormal #nervoussystemregulation #toxicrelationships #coregulation #nervoussystemawarecoaching #TraumaAwareCoaching
#coaching #holisticcoaching