March 26, 2025

Regulating Your Nervous System with Leah Davidson [Ep. 140]

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What To Do When You Overeat–During Weight Loss!

Your nervous system controls more in your everyday life than you’ve probably ever thought about. When you hear things like “reduce your stress” really what that means is to regulate your nervous system.

Leah Davidson is my guest expert today to teach us exactly that. She is a life coach and a speech language pathologist, where her primary work was with traumatic brain injury. She learned so much from that population regarding nervous system regulation that she realized we are ALL dealing with dysregulated nervous systems.

You’ll learn some great questions to ask yourself when you feel your energy rising–a sure sign that your nervous system is becoming activated. All this will help with your choices in the kitchen with your nutrition and with your other health behaviors!

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More about Leah Davidson:

Leah Davidson is a Nervous System Resilience Coach and Speech Language Pathologist with over 26 years working in the area of traumatic brain injury. She hosts the Building Resilience Podcast, offers an Advanced Nervous System Resilience Training, a monthly membership called Connections with a focus on learning to befriend your personal nervous system, and a fun journaling and doodling community called the Nervous System Journaling Club. Leah is also the founder of Resilient Brilliance, a stationery brand focused on emotional wellbeing and nervous system care. She lives in Toronto with her husband and has a blended family of five grown kids. She loves to spend time with family and friends, travel, learn, read, walk, journal and doodle her nervous system.

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More from Well with Lisa:

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Transcript

WEBVTT

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This is the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.

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I'm Lisa Salisbury and this is episode 140.

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Regulating Your Nervous System with Leah Davidson.

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I.

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Your nervous system is the basis for how you feel and function every day.

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Leah Davidson is an expert on building resilience in the nervous system, and we talk all about what the nervous system is and why it's important for it to be regulated in order to make the choices we want to make with our health and nutrition.

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You will walk away from this episode knowing way more about stress and regulation and some great questions to ask yourself when you feel your energy rising.

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Welcome to eat well.

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Well, the podcast for busy women who want to lose weight without constantly counting, tracking, or stressing over every bite.

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I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certified health weight loss and life coach, and most importantly, a recovered chronic dieter here.

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You'll learn to listen to your body and uncover the reasons you're reaching for food.

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When you're not truly hungry, freeing you to focus on a healthier, more fulfilling approach to eating.

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Welcome back to the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast.

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I am super excited to be speaking with Leah Davidson today.

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She is a speech language pathologist and a certified life coach and we are going to be talking about her very awesome specialty, which is the nervous system.

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So welcome, Leah.

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If you could give us a little introduction to yourself in your work, um, maybe how you came to that, that would be great.

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And then we'll get into our conversation.

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Awesome.

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Well, thank you so much for having me on the podcast.

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So my name is Leah Davidson.

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I am from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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And I am, like you said, a life coach as well as a speech language pathologist.

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And to give that some context, I've been a speech path for over 26 years, working in the area primarily of traumatic brain injury.

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And that is kind of where I started learning about the brain and neuroplasticity and brain health and eventually the nervous system.

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Um, because I just saw that a lot of the work that I was doing with clients, most of them had suffered traumatic brain injuries through accidents, and I was helping them in the area of something called cognitive communication.

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And I started to have this realization that a lot of the challenges I was trying to help Um, Uh, So, I had to start backtracking and start doing some nervous system work, um, in order for us to move ahead with some of our other cognitive strategies.

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So eventually I just started working with people who didn't have brain injuries.

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And start to see, hey, we all have the same nervous system, the same brain, the same challenges.

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And then it just has become more and more niche.

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My passion is really the nervous system.

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I have an advanced training, I have a membership, and I just put out a guided journal, um, that helps people to learn all about their nervous system because I truly believe it is foundational to everything, everything that we do, not just that we do in coaching, but everything that we do, period.

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Well,

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I got it in preparation for having Leah on the podcast.

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So I'm really excited to dive into this topic, learn a little bit more and then continue on with that journal.

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And obviously I usually say this.

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Kind of thing at the end, but we'll put the link to that in the show notes.

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It is on Amazon and comes in three beautiful colors.

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So there you go.

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So let's, let's talk about, that's not, I mean, this is not just to be clear.

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This isn't a sales pitch for the journal.

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I, that was kind of a side note.

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I was like, Oh, let's have Leah on.

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And by the way, she also just finished publishing this.

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I think the reason I created the journal is because I do have this belief that it is foundational for us and most of us, um, most of us have heard of the nervous system.

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I'll probably just dive into what your question was going to be of what is the nervous

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What is your, yeah, let's just start.

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What, what is the nervous system?

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What are we even talking about?

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well, that's it because most of us know like we've heard nervous system.

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We probably talked about it in biology class

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Mm hmm.

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But we don't really understand what it does and the role that it has in our everyday life so just to put it simply it's made up of like the you know, the brain and the spinal cord and all the connections between and So it's the main communication between the brain and the body and a large part of the nervous system is something called the The cranial nerve that's called the vagus nerve.

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So a lot of people have heard of that vagus nerve.

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It's all over It's very popular in social media and really essentially what that is is the collection of nerve fibers It starts kind of in the brain stem area the back and then it has branches that course to the face and innervates, you know, the, the larynx and comes down to the heart and then down to all the organs.

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And the interesting thing about this cranial nerve is it's primarily responsible for getting us to calm down, to get to what we call rest and digest.

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And it travels bi directionally, meaning signals are sent from the brain to the body, and signals are also sent from the body up to the brain, except there is a little bit of a, I call it in the journal, the 80 20 rule, 20 percent of the fibers go from the brain to the body and 80 percent come from the body to the

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Oh, that's way more than I thought.

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Yeah, it kind of speaks to the importance of how we can't be doing things in isolation.

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We need to be having both the brain and the body.

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So the role of the nervous system, communicate, it's responsible for our survival.

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And it is running everything that we do from behind the scenes So it is what is running your heartbeat and your breath and your digestive system and it does it automatically Thank goodness because you wouldn't want to have to be you know, worrying about controlling all those things And it is

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Sorry.

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Look, let me interrupt you there from, like, from thinking about biology class.

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Isn't there, like, two parts, like, one that's doing all of that without us knowing and the other part that's more cognitive?

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yes Well, so exactly so we have like what we're talking about is the autonomic nervous

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Yes.

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I couldn't think of the word.

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Yeah, this is running the show.

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The autonomic nervous system's running the show.

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And the main job is to scan for safety and danger because it's trying to keep us alive.

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And if it scans and how it sort of scans is it's looking around for clues of safety and danger.

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It's looking externally.

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So it's going to look at like all our senses.

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What's going on?

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What do you hear?

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What do you see?

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see what, what can you touch?

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It's taking in that information.

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It's also taking in what's going on internally for you.

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Is your heart rate changing?

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Is your stomach changing?

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Are you sweating a little bit?

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And then it's looking between you and I.

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So you and I, we don't know each other really well.

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Our nervous systems right now are checking each other out.

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We're sort of like, are you safe?

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Like, and, and we feed off of tone and facial expressions.

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Like right now you're nodding.

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So my nervous system is like, Oh yeah, Lisa is safe.

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Like, okay, and it gives that confirmation.

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So it gathers all these cues by something called neuroception, and it's almost like we have these spidey senses.

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It's all unconscious.

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And based on all these clues, my nervous system is going to decide whether I'm safe or dangerous.

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It kind of takes in these clues and it does a comparison to all my past life experience.

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And it's like a predictor.

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Okay, well, in the past, these kind of clues have been safe.

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So, she's safe, we're all good, and we just move ahead, and we have a conversation, and you know, we're very, um, you know, it's easy going, and it's confident, and we're patient with each other, and we're curious, and we have compassion.

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So that's if things are safe.

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But if we're scanning, constantly scanning, and there's some cues that are, uh, it's a little bit, something's off there, or something's unfamiliar, or something is I'm picking up from maybe my past that I don't even know is there, but is triggering.

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My nervous system is like, this is danger.

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And because it's responsibility is survival, my nervous system is going to get into a state of protection.

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It's like, okay, Leah's in danger, we've got to protect her.

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And the first line of protection is we're going to increase the energy in her body.

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We're going to get her more activated.

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So that's why we start to feel a rise.

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We start to feel a little bit more on edge.

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And this is where you've probably heard of fight or flight.

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This is where it comes in.

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We, our system goes into the system of protection and it is going to be flavored usually with energy.

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Sometimes it's with aggression, but it could be with anxiety.

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So it could be, you know, sort of anger, defensiveness.

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But it could also be like worry and anxiety and concern.

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The state that we're in flavors everything.

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It flavors our thoughts, it flavors our feelings, it flavors our emotions, and I'll give you an example in just a second.

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But the other thing that can happen is say I sense It's extreme danger or I've been activated for so long my nervous system is like, okay, we're going to crash here.

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We need to start conserving some energy and it will bring me down to another state of protection, which is where things are more shut down.

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It's more collapsed and this is a state of hypo arousal.

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It's still a protective state.

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It's trying to protect us, but it is more of.

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Yeah.

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Well, it's, it's like a shutdown.

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Now a combination of both of them is a free state.

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It's sort of like I'm wired, but I'm shut down and that is freeze.

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So those are protective modes for the nervous system.

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And it's, it's brilliantly doing that because it's taking care of us for our survival.

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The key thing about these states and understanding why is it so important that you understand these states and understand what happens to you when you go into one of these states.

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is because they're behind the scenes.

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Everything that you think, feel, and do is going to be flavored by the state that you're in.

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So, an example I like to use is if I am in a activated state, I call it team hyper.

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We go into a hyper aroused state.

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If I'm in this team hyper state and you say to me, Leah, where did you get your hair done?

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I might say to you, why, what's wrong with my hair?

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You don't like it?

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Like, why would you want to know where I get my hair done?

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Like, there's this flavor of defensiveness because I'm activated.

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Now, if I'm the opposite and I'm in more of a hypo state, I call it team hypo, then I may be like, Oh my gosh, I know my hair is so terrible.

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It's awful.

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I need to find a new hairdresser and really just everything will be down flavored that way.

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If I'm in a safe state, I'm in my home state, I feel good.

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I call it team resilient because I have the ability to go with the ups and downs.

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I may be like, Oh, I just got it down in the corner of Queen Street.

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Her name is Fiona.

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Would you like her number?

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So you see it taints all my interactions.

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It taints my perspectives.

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It taints like what I'm going to say to you, how I'm going to say it, my tone of voice.

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It even taints.

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It's my posture, my body language.

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And so we want to be aware of it because sometimes we think, why did I act that way?

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hmm.

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Mm

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it's because our nervous system is there.

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And because our nervous system is in a certain state, it is fueling the way we think, feel and act.

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Okay, whoo.

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That's like a lot of information.

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That's so good.

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So good.

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Put you into a state of dysregulation just listening to

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Yeah, totally.

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I'm like, there's so much to learn.

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Um, so there's more to ask on that.

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But before we get into more learning there, I want to, tie this into the theme of our podcast.

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My listeners are generally on a health and or weight loss trajectory.

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They're looking to improve their, their nutrition to, I mean, I had a guest on a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about improving our nutrition based on wanting to have our health span match our lifespan as far as warding off dementia, you know, so there's lots of reasons to be changing your diet, not just weight loss, but we do have a weight loss component here.

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So, um, What does the nervous system and all of that have to do with weight loss?

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And how can we access this information about the nervous system to help us in those efforts?

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So when you're assigned to a state based on your biological response to things that are happening, often we get dysregulated.

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So we will just naturally become in a hyper state or a hypo state.

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Have spent a lot of time in a hyper state like you think like if you're feeling chronically busy On edge all the time stressed out at the time chances are you spent a lot of time in a hyper state?

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Well our nervous system it actually wants to get to a regulated place It wants to return to homeostasis.

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So it tries to do things to regulate itself.

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So if I'm stressed out or feeling overwhelmed and anxious from a young age.

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What did we use?

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We used food.

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Like when you're a baby.

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Oh, you're crying.

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You're upset.

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What happened?

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Bottle in your mouth, you know, something happens and we start using food.

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So often what happens for people is they don't want to feel their emotions or they they've never experienced their emotions or there's discomfort or they're so dysregulated that eating We'll give this false sense of regulation because it kind of feels good, right?

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Like, you know, you're stressed out and everything, and I have that piece of cake.

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I feel good for a few seconds until I don't anymore.

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And then I drop into a different state of dysregulation.

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And

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is where I.

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This is where I always say, food works, that's why we do it, because food works.

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And so, when my clients attack themselves for like, being upset that they overate again or whatever, I'm like, because food works, it's okay, like let's move on and, and um, although I don't have the same nervous system training that you do, I am trying to help them get back to realizing that they did that because of their biological, um, Um, upbringing.

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And, yeah.

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I mean, I

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that.

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Essentially, it's because of the nervous system.

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Like what you're teaching them is like, no, you're doing it because it is regulating.

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This is, this is what we, so a lot of times people, the beauty of learning about your nervous system is you start to realize it's not a moral failing.

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It's not a weakness.

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You're not a bad person.

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Again, you literally have been dysregulated and you brilliantly.

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Learned that food is a great way to regulate, or whatever it is that you do.

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People do different things.

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We brilliantly learn how to adapt to this discomfort of dysregulation, trying to bring ourselves down into regulation.

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These are all adaptations.

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They're not weaknesses.

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They're not moral failings.

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It's not like you're broken.

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It literally is.

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Oh, my nervous system is doing this because it's trying to get me back to home.

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And then the understanding when you start to see this is what the nervous system is doing, this is when we can start making the transition to, okay, thank you system for taking care of me, but I'd like to come up with another way to regulate that is much more permanent, that is much healthier.

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We start moving towards finding those tools.

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Perfect.

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Okay, so what are some of the ways that we can do some self regulation?

00:16:56.866 --> 00:17:18.380
And in the, in the face of just kind of chronic stress, maybe you had, you know, conversation with your child or you spent time with your aging parent and you're kind of feeling on edge or, and you're wanting to you know, look to food, how can we regulate before that happens?

00:17:18.424 --> 00:17:18.805
Yeah.

00:17:19.234 --> 00:17:35.095
So I like to describe it to people like it's kind of like Once you learn about your nervous system, you're joining the nervous system sports league and you're signing up for a few things you're signing up one is okay, you're going to join this team.

00:17:35.404 --> 00:17:44.994
There's some fundamental life things that you want to be working on like your sleep and having proper nutrition and getting movement and connection and things like that.

00:17:45.664 --> 00:17:48.734
And then there's things like you're going to come to practice every day.

00:17:49.214 --> 00:17:51.244
And so there's things that we want to be doing.

00:17:51.619 --> 00:18:01.789
I'm going to do a daily basis, it doesn't have to be long, but things like, you know, your stress keeps building up every single day, you need an outlet for it every single day.

00:18:02.089 --> 00:18:04.980
And it doesn't have to be like, I'm going to do an hour run.

00:18:05.250 --> 00:18:18.394
It may be that you're going to do a 10 minute walk, or you are going to do something, um, um, drawing or you're going to do some journaling or you're going to hug somebody or you're going to have a good cry.

00:18:18.805 --> 00:18:28.795
Every day we need to be doing things that releases our stress and every day we need to be training our nervous system to tell it that it is safe.

00:18:28.805 --> 00:18:31.589
So a lot of these things activities that we do.

00:18:31.630 --> 00:18:33.730
They sort of work on, on two levels.

00:18:33.730 --> 00:18:44.410
They work on releasing stress and they work on sort of increasing our capacity to feel things, increasing our capacity to be healthy individuals.

00:18:44.940 --> 00:18:48.089
So that's great, like doing things on a daily basis.

00:18:48.089 --> 00:18:51.650
It doesn't have to be long things, just little drops along the way.

00:18:52.089 --> 00:18:53.549
But then you get to the game.

00:18:54.404 --> 00:19:01.984
And the game is you're sitting in the waiting room with your mother at the doctor's appointment feeling that energy rise.

00:19:02.315 --> 00:19:05.384
It would be great if you could just say, Oh, I'm feeling the energy rise.

00:19:05.384 --> 00:19:07.464
I'm going to go for a quick walk around the block.

00:19:07.474 --> 00:19:10.904
And if you can go do that, but normally that won't happen.

00:19:10.904 --> 00:19:13.994
Or you're having a conversation with your, your child face to face.

00:19:14.519 --> 00:19:17.779
And, you know, you can feel your energy rising.

00:19:18.089 --> 00:19:22.690
And again, you can't be like, I'm gonna go meditate and then I'll get back to this conversation.

00:19:22.980 --> 00:19:26.569
You need some tools to do real time in the moment.

00:19:27.019 --> 00:19:31.049
And what it is, is it's self regulation in the moment.

00:19:31.069 --> 00:19:34.960
And there's a couple of things that we need to do in order to regulate ourselves.

00:19:35.369 --> 00:19:36.829
And I call it the safety sequence.

00:19:36.829 --> 00:19:38.390
I actually go through it in the journal.

00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:41.410
But the first thing is, we know.

00:19:41.884 --> 00:19:45.305
that we're neurocepting all the time, safety and danger.

00:19:46.154 --> 00:19:53.335
So if you start to feel activated, you can get a sense that your nervous system is feeling some danger.

00:19:53.654 --> 00:19:57.144
So we've got to check in and say like, we're not in danger.

00:19:57.765 --> 00:20:02.954
Like you may be sitting here starting to feel activated, but go through, like look around you.

00:20:03.605 --> 00:20:05.535
I'm like sitting on a chair.

00:20:05.825 --> 00:20:08.964
I can, you know, my hands are touching, you know, my legs.

00:20:08.964 --> 00:20:11.055
I can look around and see things in the room.

00:20:11.454 --> 00:20:12.875
I am safe.

00:20:13.424 --> 00:20:22.075
And unless we're like in a war zone or we're like in this violent situation, 99 percent of the time we are safe and not.

00:20:22.369 --> 00:20:30.349
In the present moment, not like, well, I wasn't safe when I was doing this and potentially this could happen.

00:20:30.710 --> 00:20:33.640
No, we're looking at, are you safe in this moment?

00:20:34.039 --> 00:20:36.380
And 99 percent of the time, the answer is yes.

00:20:36.390 --> 00:20:39.599
So you're always asking yourself, you know, and I put my hand to my heart.

00:20:39.619 --> 00:20:40.460
Am I safe?

00:20:40.859 --> 00:20:42.000
Yes, Leah, you're safe.

00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:44.009
So that kind of sends a message to the brain.

00:20:44.424 --> 00:20:52.424
That you're safe, but the next piece is my body doesn't believe that because my body is like I know you're saying you're safe But I feel like crap right now.

00:20:52.444 --> 00:20:53.424
So what

00:20:53.470 --> 00:20:56.279
you're talking about physically safe, not emotionally safe.

00:20:56.279 --> 00:20:57.089
Is that correct?

00:20:57.839 --> 00:20:58.220
Okay.

00:20:58.269 --> 00:20:59.190
Physically safe.

00:20:59.190 --> 00:21:00.569
We're not physically in danger.

00:21:00.835 --> 00:21:14.480
yeah You're not physically in danger Your brain needs to know that because it is never going to relax if you are in physical danger And we don't want it to If you're in physical danger, you need to be activated so you can take action.

00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:26.240
The majority of the time, we're not being chased by a tiger, like we're not in physical, we may feel discomfort because somebody is being rude to us or I've got so many things on my list to do, but we establish the physical safety.

00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:33.859
The next piece is we go into our body and when you go into your body, that's when you start like, yeah, I don't feel safe though.

00:21:34.440 --> 00:21:42.940
Like, I don't feel, I feel heaviness in my chest, maybe my brain is spinning, maybe my gut is upset, maybe I'm sweating, I feel this energy rising.

00:21:43.160 --> 00:21:50.049
And we're just gonna drop into our body and allow ourselves to notice what is going on in our body.

00:21:50.380 --> 00:21:53.829
So I call it, asking yourself the question, do I feel safe?

00:21:54.299 --> 00:21:55.549
And often the answer is no.

00:21:56.390 --> 00:22:00.349
And those questions, am I safe, do I feel safe, they're kind of interchangeable.

00:22:00.349 --> 00:22:03.410
Sometimes we feel things first and then we want to confirm.

00:22:03.660 --> 00:22:07.930
Sometimes we can confirm things and then go into our body, so it's interchangeable.

00:22:08.509 --> 00:22:15.200
And then the third step is we want to acutely relax our body in some way.

00:22:15.630 --> 00:22:18.099
And I recommend just two simple ways.

00:22:18.109 --> 00:22:22.759
There's a whole bunch of ways, but the first way I recommend is what I call the rag doll.

00:22:23.089 --> 00:22:30.990
Where you literally just let your body drop, release the tension, it's almost like you tense it up a little bit and then just drop.

00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:36.960
And you can do like a full on ragdoll if you're like in the privacy of a room.

00:22:37.519 --> 00:22:49.329
If you're in the waiting room, it's likely you're not going to stand up and do a full on ragdoll, but what you can do is sort of slump down a little bit, relax your butt, relax your shoulders, relax every, let your hands.

00:22:49.384 --> 00:22:52.025
Hang down, no one will even know that you're doing it.

00:22:52.875 --> 00:22:57.964
Or you can do something like a slow and low exhale.

00:22:58.394 --> 00:23:02.984
So you're just gonna breathe and really start with that exhalation.

00:23:02.984 --> 00:23:08.265
'cause exhalation is what activates the vagus nerve, which activates our rest and digest system.

00:23:08.964 --> 00:23:10.674
Helps us completely relax.

00:23:11.484 --> 00:23:17.305
So when we do those three things, what happens is our, we're sending a message to our body.

00:23:17.394 --> 00:23:20.265
We're safe, we're relaxing our body.

00:23:20.650 --> 00:23:27.420
And a relaxed body that is in a safe environment cannot house stress.

00:23:28.329 --> 00:23:32.710
And when I say that to people, I'm like, a relaxed body cannot house stress.

00:23:32.990 --> 00:23:38.000
I want you to think about when you're angry at somebody and you go to yell at them.

00:23:38.369 --> 00:23:39.880
Maybe it's like one of your kids.

00:23:40.529 --> 00:23:44.559
Try being in a complete ragdoll relaxed body.

00:23:45.190 --> 00:23:45.829
And yell.

00:23:47.349 --> 00:23:48.029
You can't do it.

00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:49.343
me laugh because I'm like, I don't know.

00:23:49.343 --> 00:23:51.130
I don't think that can happen.

00:23:51.690 --> 00:23:54.430
You can't do it because a relaxed body can't house stress.

00:23:54.970 --> 00:24:11.769
So what we're trying to do is as we go throughout our day, we are going to encounter hundreds of times a day where our body feels activated because we're feeling threats because the nervous system also doesn't know the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat.

00:24:12.170 --> 00:24:13.849
Everything is on the same basis.

00:24:14.269 --> 00:24:18.049
So, hundreds of times a day, we're like, I perceive threat, I perceive threat.

00:24:18.339 --> 00:24:22.150
We want to encounter it, remind it it's safe, and relax our body.

00:24:22.519 --> 00:24:38.750
And as we keep doing that, we start to get more comfortable in a relaxed body, and we can start Learning how to manage our emotions, how to process our emotions, how to use our mindset tools to reframe everything that we're doing.

00:24:39.049 --> 00:24:51.319
And then we're not going to be reacting, we're going to be living from a place of intentionality because we have our thinking skills, we're able to process our emotions, and we're in a relaxed body.

00:24:52.596 --> 00:25:09.287
Whenever I talk to someone about chronic stress or regulating your nervous system, I wonder how to tell the difference between what you just described, which is many, many times a day, you're going to become activated and like a chronic state of dysregulation.

00:25:09.596 --> 00:25:14.856
Because I just think there's gotta be a difference there between.

00:25:15.005 --> 00:25:23.865
Going through the cycle multiple times a day and how do you know, basically what I kind of want to know is how do I know if I'm healthy in my nervous system?

00:25:24.154 --> 00:25:32.565
Because so often, and everything from, you know, weight loss to perimenopause symptoms, it's always like reduce your stress.

00:25:32.914 --> 00:25:35.515
And I'm like, but it can't be zero.

00:25:35.595 --> 00:25:39.231
And so how do I know, if I'm regulating it?

00:25:39.521 --> 00:25:42.862
Or just because it feels like there's always work to do.

00:25:43.586 --> 00:25:43.876
Yeah.

00:25:44.186 --> 00:25:45.606
Well, and that's the thing.

00:25:45.606 --> 00:25:45.886
Yeah.

00:25:45.886 --> 00:25:49.126
So a couple of things is acute stress isn't necessarily bad.

00:25:49.136 --> 00:25:52.656
We need acute stress is what, what's keeps us going.

00:25:52.946 --> 00:26:01.527
The challenge is if we're, we're stuck in that chronic state where we have that constant stress and we know it because our body gives us some symptoms.

00:26:01.926 --> 00:26:12.086
Our body, if you're struggling with chronic pain or chronic symptoms and illness and anxiety and headaches and gut challenges, chances are you are chronically stressed.

00:26:12.436 --> 00:26:22.757
And when you're chronically stressed, then it's not like, yeah, you want to be regulating all these times throughout the day, but you've got to go back to your practice and go back to your foundations as well.

00:26:23.067 --> 00:26:27.987
And it ends up being like, it is a lifestyle that we want to start looking at.

00:26:28.356 --> 00:26:33.906
Um, We know when we're not stressed by how our body feels.

00:26:34.557 --> 00:26:50.527
If you are feeling like you're on edge, like most people, if they are in a state of dysregulation, they're either feeling like they're on edge, like they're feeling stressed out, busy, overwhelmed, anxious, or they're feeling completely numb and shut down.

00:26:51.497 --> 00:26:54.396
When you have those, that is a state of dysregulation.

00:26:54.997 --> 00:26:58.567
And it comes out, like the body.

00:26:58.836 --> 00:27:00.886
Will produce symptoms.

00:27:01.467 --> 00:27:02.856
You're not going to start sleeping.

00:27:02.886 --> 00:27:30.412
There's going to be weight gain There's going to be like strange relationships Now we have a balance because yeah There's going to be hormonal things and there's going to be things that we want to be taking care of You know through maybe there's some medication that some people will need to have for Um, but that daily stress, I always say to people, don't question whether you need that stress relief.

00:27:30.862 --> 00:27:31.872
every single day.

00:27:32.422 --> 00:27:33.132
You do.

00:27:33.791 --> 00:27:34.592
Like, you just

00:27:34.741 --> 00:27:35.241
a good point.

00:27:35.422 --> 00:27:35.801
Yeah.

00:27:36.432 --> 00:27:36.531
Yeah.

00:27:36.531 --> 00:27:37.811
Yeah.

00:27:38.751 --> 00:27:44.971
So how do we start to kind of get to know our own unique systems and our own cues?

00:27:45.382 --> 00:27:55.352
What, what do you notice is like unique about different people and the way they react or feel or anything that kind of is unique with people?

00:27:55.781 --> 00:27:56.152
Yeah.

00:27:56.701 --> 00:27:59.912
I always say to people, like, you're special, but you're not that special.

00:28:00.531 --> 00:28:08.731
That there are some common, like, even though there's some uniqueness, there are some commonalities that we have.

00:28:09.082 --> 00:28:12.382
So, if you, like, in my journal, I have you map out.

00:28:12.446 --> 00:28:22.247
So, by asking certain questions, like what are some of the thoughts that you, when you describe yourself, because most people get an idea of what it's like when I'm stressed out.

00:28:22.656 --> 00:28:26.297
Okay, what do your thoughts sound like when you're stressed out?

00:28:26.307 --> 00:28:31.807
And you're often going to hear, well, they're worry thoughts and they're anxious thoughts and they're overthinking and they're ruminating.

00:28:32.457 --> 00:28:32.787
Okay.

00:28:32.787 --> 00:28:35.386
So that gives you an indication of what that looks like.

00:28:35.386 --> 00:28:39.096
What are some of the feelings that you have or what are some of the behaviors?

00:28:39.106 --> 00:28:42.227
Well, I notice I'm, I'm much more sarcastic.

00:28:42.567 --> 00:28:44.537
I have an edge to my voice.

00:28:44.537 --> 00:28:45.626
I'm snippy.

00:28:45.676 --> 00:28:52.477
I'm so you, you start to play around with observing and building that awareness.

00:28:52.477 --> 00:28:54.547
I always say we're not doing it with any judgment.

00:28:54.567 --> 00:28:59.027
Like it's with so much love and compassion because we're all the same on the level that we.

00:28:59.231 --> 00:29:01.422
all are going to get dysregulated.

00:29:01.932 --> 00:29:04.511
The nervous system needs to go up and down.

00:29:04.511 --> 00:29:09.382
You need to get dysregulated, but you want to be able to come back home.

00:29:09.442 --> 00:29:13.321
So, a healthy nervous system is one that moves up and down flexibly.

00:29:13.622 --> 00:29:22.882
So, you just start building awareness, like, okay, oh, isn't that interesting that when I'm with this person, I start to feel a little bit activated.

00:29:22.892 --> 00:29:24.211
Well, what's going on there?

00:29:24.251 --> 00:29:28.432
Oh, I'm, tend to be more defensive.

00:29:29.106 --> 00:29:40.826
When I am feeling more activated or I tend to really just I, I worry incessantly or I'm not able to sleep or I feel like I'm clenching my jaw.

00:29:40.836 --> 00:29:45.307
Like there's all these things that we want to start building that awareness of.

00:29:45.307 --> 00:29:54.406
What does it look like when I am in a state of hyper arousal, a state of hypo arousal and what does it look like when I'm feeling good?

00:29:55.132 --> 00:30:09.582
Like, when I'm feeling, and, and, I think we inherently know, like when I'm feeling good, like I feel confident, and I'm like so much more patient with people and I'm kind and you know, I'm, I'm open to people's opinions.

00:30:09.991 --> 00:30:15.182
When I'm tired and fed up, I react very differently.

00:30:15.362 --> 00:30:18.471
And so you can start mapping it out is the best way to do it.

00:30:19.656 --> 00:30:20.467
Okay, good.

00:30:21.896 --> 00:30:43.721
All right, anything else with regards just bringing it back to like Making choices in the kitchen kind of thing, like, um, how we can kind of use the knowledge that we're gaining here today about our nervous system to help us in making our food choices or, you know, in weight loss, that kind of thing.

00:30:44.531 --> 00:30:44.951
Yeah.

00:30:45.352 --> 00:30:59.692
Well, as you're mapping out your system, I would be mapping out, are there certain foods that I go to when I'm feeling anxious, angry, uh, overwhelmed?

00:31:00.152 --> 00:31:04.112
Are there certain foods that I go to when I'm sad and lonely and bored?

00:31:04.531 --> 00:31:07.672
And you can just start building, do you have a pattern?

00:31:08.041 --> 00:31:09.692
Are there certain times of day?

00:31:09.981 --> 00:31:15.422
that you find yourself, you know, going towards certain foods or wanting certain things.

00:31:15.442 --> 00:31:18.251
Okay, what's going on at those times of day?

00:31:18.801 --> 00:31:22.471
And, is it related to a dysregulation?

00:31:23.352 --> 00:31:25.592
It's, it's not going to be perfect.

00:31:25.642 --> 00:31:27.971
Like, we're not trying to aim for perfection.

00:31:27.971 --> 00:31:38.876
We're trying to aim for for awareness, because once we have that awareness, we can relax, and then we can start using some of the mindset tools, which I'm sure that you, you know, share with,

00:31:39.271 --> 00:31:39.692
Yeah,

00:31:39.916 --> 00:31:40.727
yeah, like the model.

00:31:40.826 --> 00:31:42.477
Yeah, you can start reframing things.

00:31:42.676 --> 00:31:56.076
You can't really use the model to its full capacity if you're dysregulated, because when you're dysregulated, you're, I call it your CEO, but essentially it's your thinking skills, your executive function skills goes offline.

00:31:56.287 --> 00:31:57.277
And that's not a choice.

00:31:57.277 --> 00:31:57.307
Great.

00:31:57.787 --> 00:31:59.196
That's biological.

00:31:59.207 --> 00:32:00.686
That's how it's meant to be.

00:32:00.686 --> 00:32:03.926
When we are in survival mode, we're not in thinking mode.

00:32:04.386 --> 00:32:17.676
And so that's an important thing for people to notice that when you are dysregulated, it's going to be very hard to change your thoughts because your, your nervous system is like, Listen, we're in survival mode here.

00:32:17.676 --> 00:32:20.977
I don't really care what you're thinking and how curious and compassionate you are.

00:32:21.176 --> 00:32:26.007
Like, we need to survive, which is why you try to calm that system first.

00:32:26.267 --> 00:32:29.346
When you calm that system, your thinking skills come back.

00:32:29.396 --> 00:32:31.317
Now I can start making some better choices.

00:32:31.317 --> 00:32:32.616
Do I really want to eat this?

00:32:32.616 --> 00:32:33.876
Do I really want to have this?

00:32:34.166 --> 00:32:35.426
You know, what's it going to feel like?

00:32:35.426 --> 00:32:39.743
What's the discomfort going through and using all those, those thought tools?

00:32:39.743 --> 00:32:40.109
Yeah.

00:32:40.109 --> 00:32:40.474
Yeah.

00:32:40.612 --> 00:32:40.932
perfect.

00:32:40.981 --> 00:32:41.342
Yeah.

00:32:41.761 --> 00:32:52.632
I, um, not that this disqualifies you from working with me or anything, but I do notice that with clients that people that choose to work with me tend to be like ready.

00:32:53.051 --> 00:32:55.951
And I ask them like, why are you contacting me now?

00:32:55.981 --> 00:32:58.382
And they're like, I'm ready to make these changes.

00:32:58.412 --> 00:33:02.852
And I feel like that's kind of a sign of like, I'm, I'm pretty regulated.

00:33:02.852 --> 00:33:06.477
I, um, I know, and they're, and they're ready to start working on their thoughts.

00:33:06.497 --> 00:33:14.237
I have had clients where no amount of that work, no amount of, you know, being aware is making a difference.

00:33:14.586 --> 00:33:19.176
And I suspect that this is, um, part of the factors.

00:33:19.396 --> 00:33:29.846
Yeah, I mean, the nervous system, like for all of us, it doesn't matter how regulated you are, there is going to be more, like, we need to be regulating ourselves hundreds of times a day.

00:33:30.237 --> 00:33:38.686
But as we work on our nervous system, it's kind of like what happens is we build up our capacity for regulation.

00:33:38.977 --> 00:33:39.557
I call it

00:33:39.632 --> 00:33:43.932