Why Your Nervous System Blocks Money (And How Neuroscience Explains the 'Abundance Block')

Have you ever tried to visualize abundance—really sit with the feeling of financial freedom—and noticed your chest tighten, your breath shallow, your entire body tense up like you're bracing for impact?

That's not resistance to manifesting.

That's not your subconscious "blocking your blessings."

That's your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect you from what it perceives as danger.

And here's what most manifestation teachers won't tell you: You can't receive abundance while your body is in threat mode. Not because you're broken or don't believe hard enough—but because of basic neuroscience.

Let me show you what the research actually says.

The Vagus Nerve: Your Body's Threat Detection System

Your vagus nerve is like a fiber-optic cable running from your brainstem to your gut, constantly scanning your environment for safety or danger. Dr. Stephen Porges, who developed Polyvagal Theory, describes it as the body's "brake system" for threat responses.¹

Here's how it works:

Ventral Vagal State (Safety): When your nervous system feels safe, you're in "social engagement mode"—calm, connected, open to possibility. This is the state where you can think clearly, make aligned decisions, and actually receive good things.

Sympathetic State (Threat): When danger is detected, you shift into fight-or-flight. Heart rate up, thinking narrowed to survival, body mobilized for action.

Dorsal Vagal State (Shutdown): If the threat feels overwhelming, you freeze. Numb out. Disconnect. This is why you avoid looking at your bank account.

Here's the money connection: If your nervous system learned that money = danger (from childhood poverty, parental panic, your own financial trauma), your vagus nerve trips the alarm every time money comes up—even when you're trying to visualize abundance.

Your body literally won't let you receive what it perceives as a threat.

Your Brain on Scarcity: The Neural Rewiring of Financial Stress

A 2019 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used fMRI brain scans to see what happens when people operate from a scarcity mindset.²

The findings were stunning:

• Increased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC): This is your brain's survival center, hypervigilant to immediate threats and rewards
• Decreased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC): This is where long-term planning, goal-directed thinking, and strategic decision-making happen

In other words: Scarcity mindset physically changes how your brain functions. It's not that you're "bad with money"—it's that your brain is prioritizing immediate survival over long-term thriving.

You're not broken. Your brain is doing exactly what evolution designed it to do when resources feel scarce.

Cortisol: The Stress Hormone That Hijacks Your Financial Future

Financial stress doesn't just feel bad—it rewires your brain.

Studies on traders during market volatility showed cortisol levels spiking by 68%.³ Chronic cortisol elevation does this:

• Reduces hippocampal volume (memory and learning center)
• Causes amygdala dendritic growth (anxiety center gets bigger and more active)
• Creates "selective attention to negative precedents"—your brain starts finding threat where none exists⁴
• Shifts you toward risk aversion even when opportunities appear

This is why you can know intellectually that you should invest, ask for the raise, or start the business—but your body screams "DANGER" and you freeze.

Your nervous system isn't sabotaging you. It's protecting you based on the threat assessment it's already made.

The Cognitive Cost of Financial Scarcity

Here's one of the most powerful studies I've ever read: Researchers worked with sugarcane farmers in India who get paid once a year after harvest.⁵

Before harvest (financially stressed): Farmers performed significantly worse on cognitive tests—equivalent to a 10 IQ point drop.

After harvest (financially secure): The exact same farmers performed dramatically better.

The difference wasn't intelligence. It was mental bandwidth—how much cognitive space was being consumed by financial worry.

Financial scarcity doesn't make you less capable. It hijacks the mental resources you need to make good financial decisions, creating a brutal cycle:

Financial stress → Reduced cognitive function → Poor decisions → More financial stress → More cognitive impairment

You're not failing at money because you're not smart enough. You're fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

Why Manifestation Requires a Calm Nervous System (The Science)

Dr. James Doty, a Stanford neurosurgeon, just published groundbreaking research on the neuroscience of manifestation.⁶ Here's what he found:

Manifestation works through neuroplasticity: When you set intentions from a calm, compassionate state, you create new neural pathways that prime your brain to notice opportunities aligned with those intentions.

But here's the catch: You can only do this from a parasympathetic nervous system state (rest-and-digest, ventral vagal safety mode).

When you're in sympathetic activation (threat/stress), your brain is in survival mode—scanning for danger, not possibility. You literally cannot embed new patterns or notice opportunities because your nervous system has shut that capacity down.

This is why affirmations feel hollow when you're anxious. Why vision boards don't work when your body is in panic. Why "just think positive" fails when your nervous system is screaming danger.

You can't manifest from a threat state. Not because manifestation is fake—but because your brain isn't wired to receive new information when it's in survival mode.

The Both/And Truth: Why This Matters

Here's where this gets important: This research validates BOTH realities.

YES: Poverty, financial trauma, and scarcity create real cognitive impairments and nervous system dysregulation. This isn't a moral failing or lack of discipline—it's biology.

AND: Nervous system regulation can restore cognitive function and open the door to change even while external circumstances are still challenging.

You're not crazy for struggling with money while making decent income.

You're not weak for feeling paralyzed when you know what you "should" do.

You're carrying stress in your nervous system that was never about money in the first place—it's about safety, survival, and whether the world is a place where you're allowed to thrive.

So What Do You Do About It?

If your nervous system is running a threat program around money, here's what actually helps:

1. Regulate first, manifest second. You can't skip nervous system safety and go straight to abundance work. Your body won't let you.

2. Stop treating it like a mindset problem. This isn't about "positive thinking"—it's about shifting your nervous system state from threat to safety.

3. Work with the body, not just the mind. Somatic practices, vagal toning, co-regulation—these actually change your nervous system's baseline.

4. Get support that understands nervous system work. Traditional financial advice fails trauma survivors because it ignores this entire layer.

That's why I exist.

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Have you ever worried about money?

If yes, you're probably carrying stress that isn't even yours—and we get it.

Chat with Sophia at mymoneycoach.ai

Get relief from the money anxiety weighing you down.

So you can finally think clearly about money and feel free.

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References

Footnotes

1. Porges, S.W. (2022). "Polyvagal Theory: A Science of Safety." Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 16, 871227. ↩

2. Huijsmans, I., Ma, I., Micheli, L., Civai, C., Stallen, M., & Sanfey, A.G. (2019). "A scarcity mindset alters neural processing underlying consumer decision making." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(24), 11699-11704. ↩

3. Coates, J.M. & Herbert, J. (2008). "Endogenous steroids and financial risk taking on a London trading floor." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(16), 6167-6172. ↩

4. Kandasamy, N., Hardy, B., Page, L., Schaffner, M., Graggaber, J., Powlson, A.S., Fletcher, P.C., Gurnell, M., & Coates, J. (2014). "Cortisol shifts financial risk preferences." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(9), 3608-3613. ↩

5. Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). "Poverty impedes cognitive function." Science, 341(6149), 976-980. ↩

6. Doty, J.R. (2024). Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything. New York: Avery. ↩