97. Is Your Nervous System Dysregulated?

Welcome to the Holistic Inner Balance podcast with Dr. Nicole Cain and Happy Healthy Hadley.

Your go to resource for natural mental health and wellness strategies so that you can become the expert of your own emotional and physical well being.

Merging modern science with ancient wisdom. Hello and welcome to Holistic Inner Balance. I am Hadley of Happy Healthy with hadley.

And I'm Dr. Nicole and we are.

Here to talk to you today about an awesome topic. I am really, really excited for this one. We got together this morning and we were like, what should we talk about today? As we usually do, and we always come up with something magical for you. So today is going to be a really good one.

It's all about the nervous system, right?

Yes. I'm so excited to talk about this. Like, like, nervous system regulation has become a little bit of a trendy topic recently. And so let's bring it a little bit deeper. I think there's a lot of like. I mean, I'm really happy that it's super trendy and I think there's some nuance. Of course, obviously we're all about nuance here. I think there's some nuance that might be missing from the conversation and I think there's some other really cool stuff that we're going to talk about that not everyone is talking about when they're talking about, but nervous system.

Yeah. So we're going to explore a lot of stuff and just to kind of introduce you to the components of the conversation is, number one is, what is the nervous system? You're going to learn that today. And number two is how does it get dysregulated? And number three, do you have a dysregulated nervous system? Is this conversation for you? And number four is, have you tried all of the things and they're not working? Like, is meditation not working? Are you using positive thinking and it's not working. Are you doing all of the habits and they're not working? We're going to dive into that. And then number five is, why is this stuff not working? And we're going to teach you about how to regulate your nervous system, do emotional processing so that you can actually heal from. From the bottom up. Healing from the body instead of staying in the domain of the mind, which is what we have been doing in the mental health field for decades. So we're going to be changing that paradigm right here in this podcast conversation. We're so glad you're here.

Let's do it. Yes. I'm so excited. Should we start with who this is for first? So the Number three that you just talked about and then go into, like, all of the nervous system. System. Goodness, I love that.

Okay, who is this for?

Who is this for? Yeah, so, like, how do you know if your nervous system is dysregulated? Right. Like, I mean, this is like a kind of a trendy word nervous system. Like, oh, yeah, you know, I've heard about this. Right. But like, how do you know if. Obviously, other than, like, if you're really stressed or if you have anxiety, a lot of times we know that that's. That is related to the nervous system. But, like, there are other signs too, that your nervous system might be dysregulated. So let's talk about.

Yeah, so if you have any symptoms in your body or your mind, it could be due to dysregulated nervous system.

Yes. And the way to kind of know if it's nervous system dysregulation versus, like, other things is if you've tried a bunch of different things and they haven't worked, then sometimes it's going to be from nervous system dysregulation. So, like, if you experience, like, chronic pain, if you experience, obviously the anxiety, even depression as well, if you experience gut health issues, this is a really big one that a lot of people are like, oh, I just. I have all of these food intolerances and. Or I, you know, I just have, like, digestive health issues. And so, you know, I need to focus on my diet a lot of times. I mean, that is also very valid. I've been through gut health issues, which we can talk about in the future, and it. That is valid. And if you've tried a bunch of different things, it might also be really related to your nervous system as well. What other things. What other things might. Might be caused by nervous system dysregulation?

I mean, sincerely, just like, open Google and type the word symptoms that humans experience, and you'll get a list.

Oh, skin. Skin health. Oh, my gosh.

I love how you're being so sincerely zeroed in. And I'm just like, no, it's like everything. But it's true. It is true. So if you're listening to this podcast, if you have symptoms, gut, skin, pain, mood, hormones, immunity, all of the things are regulated by your nervous system. Nervous system is the director of the music. It's sort of like, I have an orchestra, and the sound that's coming out of the orchestra is the signs that something is off. And so we're like, okay, well, is it the clarinet, like your immune system or Is it the trombone, your gut, or is it the drums, your skin? Or if we look and we go to the root cause of that, it could be the conductor, and the conductor is the brain, the spinal cord, the nervous system that's regulating all of that.

Totally. I love that. That's such a great analogy. You're such a great analogy person.

It's my jam. I live in images.

Yes. So good.

So this is for you. We promise.

This is.

This conversation is for you, it's for me, it's for Hadley. Like, it's for all of us. It's gonna be great.

Because we live in a world, too, that is pretty dysregulating for our nervous system. We know more information than we've ever known than our brains and our nervous system were ever really capable of knowing. Right. Is we have things on the news, we watch movies, we, you know, we consume social media. All of the things, like, way more than we ever have as a human species. You know, we communicate through the computer and through technology, and everything is a lot faster than it used to be. Like, you know, TikTok videos and all of these things are, like, fast. They're very fast. And so all of that can be dysregulating for the nervous system. And then also, if we try to do any sort of, like, numbing of our emotions or of the dysregulation, that can also exacerbate all of this, all these things. So, yeah.

All right, so let's talk about what the heck the nervous system is.

Yes. Okay, let's give a little definition.

Your nervous system is technically comprised of your brain and your spinal cord. And then the peripheral nervous system is everything outside of that. And so you have your central nervous system, brain, and spinal cord. It's central to your body. Peripheral nervous system is everything outside of that. And then as a part of the peripheral nervous system, you actually also have an enteric nervous system, which is the nervous system surrounding your gut. And that's why we call it the second brain, is it has its own dedicated nervous system. So your nervous system is constantly assessing information. It's pulling information out from the environment, up from the body. In fact, if you had to guess how many bits of information per second your nervous system is receiving, how much. How many bits of information?

Oh, my gosh. Oh, I'm so terrible at guessing things like it.

You make me guess all the time. I finally have one thing. Yes?

I've been waiting for this number, guessing. Oh, my gosh. All of those. All those things where you're like, how many jelly beans is in this jar? I'm like, I don't know, like a thousand. There's like 200 or something.

I'm like, oh, how many jelly beans of bits of information. Yeah, your nervous system get per second. Let me give you windows. Let me give you. Please, please. Let's say 0 to 100 of bits of information. Okay. Or let's say 1,000 to 100,000 bits of information. Let's say a million to a billion. Or in the upper billions.

I think it's number four.

I don't remember what I said.

A million to a billion.

A million to a billion. You're closer than some other people that I've asked. I've been running around asking this question.

I love it.

So the answer is 11 billion bits of information per second.

That's insane.

Yeah, we can only compute like 0.0004% of that per second. And so your nervous system is picking up on all of this information and smell and touch and sight and interoception. You know, what's happening in your organs and in your body and where are your joints positioned and your muscles, where are they in space? And what is the person next to you doing in their gesturing and the sounds that they're making? There's a bird flying overhead. The barometric pressure just changed. Right. So our nervous system is picking up on all of this information, and that information goes into a part of your brain called the thalamus. And the thalamus is like the relay center. It's the filter. Its job is to work with other parts of your brain. They're part of the salience network, and the thalamus and the other buddies in the salience network. Their job, every single second, as fast as can be, without your even thinking about it, they're filtering all of that information and deciding is, is this salient? Is this relevant? Is this important for Hadley to know? Right. If it decides that it's important, it will send that onto your amygdala. Your amygdala is the emotional part of the brain. Right. And so your emotional part of the brain will receive that signal, and it will use emotional referencing to decide how we're gonna react to that. And then what the amygdala does.

Wait, wait, what's emotional referencing?

It will reference what kind of emotion we should feel about that thing. So, oh, I'm gonna feel sad. I'm gonna feel excited. I'm gonna feel aroused. I'm gonna feel scared, primarily.

Is this because of past experiences?

Then you just Beat me to it. Exactly. So the amygdala will then recruit her buddy, the hippocampus.

Yes.

Hippos remember everything for the mnemonic device, the hippocampus. So the hippocampus is the memory part of the brain. And so amygdala, the big feeling part of the brain, is like, hey, hippocampus, can you remind us what's happened in the past that might be similar to this? Have we seen this before? Can you help me know how I should feel? And the hippocampus is like, babe, I got your back. We saw someone who looked just like this 40 years ago at the grocery store. And they were really nice to us. And you're like, okay, I like them. You don't even know this is happening.

Yes.

Or, oh, I saw a person with blonde hair 12 years ago and she was a bully. And so we're scared. So you get these billions of bits of information. They come into your nervous system. Your nervous system has the thalamus and other salient network parts. They interpret that as relevant or not or salient or not. If it is relevant or salient, they send it to your amygdala who collaborates with her buddy, the hippocampus. They decide something is irrelevant. Then you go into default mode network, which is sort of like you're just chilling out, zoning out. You don't, you're just, you're like in flow, right? Or they decide, ooh, this is kind of scary. This is kind of dangerous. We're going to pass this signal on and then it's going to evoke a response, a stress response. So it's going to go to your hypothalamus, which is going to tell your adrenal glands, like, it's time to make some stress hormone. And then we have this reaction. So I'm giving us this science lesson because this will help us understand when things go wrong and why top down interventions don't work. And I'll define top down in a moment. But what happens when we have gone through a lot of trauma and adversity? That filtration network isn't as good at filtering. It becomes leaky, if you will. And so if you're listening to this and you feel like I'm easily overstimulated when I get stressed in the car, I have to turn the radio off because more noise will make me feel more stressed. Or having too many tasks can create anxiety. Or if you find that when you try to clean your house, you get distracted because of all the things that you have to do. You can't just focus on. On one thing and do it to completion. So you find that it just gets more and more chaotic and overwhelming and you have finished projects. So classic adhd, right? So.

Or you don't start anything at all because you're like, well, I have to do all of it. Like, if I'm gonna start something, I have to finish it all, and so then we won't start anything.

You're paralyzed.

Totally.

That's a really good point, because sometimes go into, like, paralysis.

Yes.

Yes. Yeah, I totally resonate with that. Yeah. So do you get hyperactive and, like, fight flight? Do you get agitated and angry and you want to fight everyone, or do you go into paralysis like this?

And those are related to the doshas too, just, like, the different types of ways that we respond to nervous system dysregulation. So I think a lot of times people are like, well, you know, I'm not really that anxious, and so I must not have nervous system dysregulation. And really, a lot of times when we're in that collapsed nervous system state where we're like, oh, I'm just not motivated. I'm just. Or, like, you know, quote unquote lazy or whatever, that's actually a lot of times stemming from nervous system dysregulation. But we just don't identify it as that because we're not, like, going all over the place. So I want to really just, like, hammer that point home to everyone.

You can't see me because this is an audio recording, obviously, but I'm doing it. I'm doing a little jig. I love that. I love that point so much. So such a really good point, because nervous system dysregulation does not always mean fight, flight, freeze. There's also flop, which is just, like, horizontal on the couch. I can't do anything. Giving up. There's fawn. And fawning is just like, trying to manipulate those around you to love you and care for you. I tend to have a fawn response when I feel like there's someone in an authority position. Position that has control over my livelihood.

Ah, that's like your superpower too, though. I love. You're so good at finding the good in everyone and communicating that.

Thanks, friend.

So also, just. Just to be clear, like, some of these things are your superpower as well as your, you know, the things that aren't as helpful for you too. So, like, all these things aren't necessarily bad. But, yeah, I just want to point that out too.

I just paid Hadley to say that. Perfect. Volley up because actually I didn't. I should give you an ice cream cone.

Can't wait.

Low fodmap1. No, that's actually really good because that is the message that we have here at Holistic Inner Balance is that your nervous system is in whatever state that it's in because it's adapting to whatever you have gone through and are going through. Your symptoms are your body's messengers about what needs healing and how. And so if you have nervous system dysregulation, whether it's feeling overstimulated and feeling distracted and anxious or angry, or if you have nervous system dysregulation where it's really coming out somatically with physical symptoms and you're experiencing digestive upsets or pain, then we want to reverse engineer to why that's happening. How has your nervous system adapted and what has it been adapting to? To be in a state that's protecting you in this way that may no longer be adaptive.

Totally. Yes. Oh, I love it. Can you guys tell that we get really excited about this topic?

Can I give a concrete example? Yes. I feel like sometimes I get a little bit like too upper brain esoteric. So let's use the example of I have a dog and her name is Shiva. And so when she was little she was exposed to. I have an app on my phone and it makes lots of scary sounds like helicopters and lawnmowers and thunderstorms. So I play this app and then play with her. And so she's hearing these scary sounds, but it's being being paired with a joyful, fun experience.

Oh my gosh. That's such a good idea.

Thanks.

So she's like really chill when there's like storms and fireworks and things.

She's like, oh, she's like the most chill dog. I am like such a fan.

She's been bottom up work with her for five years.

I love it.

So let's say that you have a dog. However, on the other hand, that was a puppy and you left that dog to at home to have a nice relaxing introvert evening at home. And you and your family go and you see the fireworks for fourth of July and the dog is alone in the house. There's these big scary sounds. The dog doesn't know what's going on. And so then what the nervous system in this dog does is very similar to what happens in humans is that it has the sensory input coming in the sounds that all of those 11 billion bits perhaps per second are coming in. It sends that to the. The amygdala. It's like, oh, this is new and different and weird. Should we be scared? And the amygdala is like, asking the hippocampus, have we ever seen anything like this before? And the hippocampus is like, no, this is new and weird and scary. And so then it produces this bodily response of fight, flight, free. So then dogs are at home, and they're barking and they're scared. And then that experience gets put back in the hippo or the. The hippocampus, and that gets memorized so that 10 years later, you're, like, in the car and there's a. A neighboring car back. The.

The.

The thing backfires and the dog freaks out totally. Or we see this with war veterans.

I was just thinking that. Yeah, same thing.

Vander Col study this quite a lot. You know, you have war veterans, and when you hear an explosion, that is a very bad, dangerous thing. And so the nervous system has memorized the state that then when they're back in civilian life and they hear similar sounds, it can provoke that same feeling that brings them back in time, right?

And I think that, like, that, like, PTSD response, we all kind of know, oh, yeah, ptsd. That's like war veterans have ptsd, right? But actually, you know, when we were talking about, like, the hippocampus and we were talking about, oh, like, this woman was really nice to me in the grocery store, so this person looks just like this person, and so they're safe, right? It doesn't have to necessarily be, like, this big trauma that's probably going to elicit a bigger response if it's a huge trauma. But we've got all of these things going on, like, at all times of the day. You can go back and be like, oh, yeah, my second grade teacher said that I wasn't a very good storyteller, writer or something like that. And then you just, like, have this belief or, you know, about, you know, someone who looks like her or about yourself or whatever. So it doesn't have to necessarily be this, like, big, huge event. So I. I want everyone to know that, like, we are all impacted by all sorts of things all the time. And the hippocampus is. Is remembering a lot of different things. Not everything, but a lot of these different things, even if they're not like, this huge thing that other people would see as, like, a big trauma.

In the trauma community, they call those big T traumas and little T traumas. And I'm Moving away from the language trauma, because a lot of people feel exactly the way you feel is, like, how can I say I have trauma when this person next to me witnessed this horrific tragedy? Like, how can we give it the same nomenclature?

Yeah. What do you call it? Because I feel like. I call it, like, the subconscious. Like, just subconscious triggering, subconscious activation. What do you call it?

Aversive events.

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Like adaptive experiences. Like something that you have to adapt to, something that you have to. Your nervous system has to make a change to. In order to make you best suited to survive.

Right.

Or thrive in that.

Yes. Oh, my gosh, that's so good. I love it.

Yeah.

Okay, so what's our next. What's our next topic?

We're laughing because we're recording this with Shiva in the room, and she really, really wants to get in my lap, but I keep, like, guiding her away, and she's not listening, and her little toes are, like.

Her little claws are, like, tapping on the ground. It's like a little tap dancer.

So you may hear our tap dancer in the background. So what. What is this? Top down, bottom up? Have you heard that language yet in your studies?

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a really good way. Way of thinking about it, because especially in, like, the wellness world, the personal development world, the health world, you know, we've sort of thought about our mind as being impacted by our mind, and we've really separated the mind and the body, and obviously this podcast is all about integrating those two things, and we've done a little bit better job in the past, like, 10 years, maybe 20 years of kind of bringing those things together. But we still have a long way to go. And I think a lot of times we hear, especially in the personal development world, like, just change your thoughts and then you'll change, you know, your life. Right. But if we have this nervous system dysregulation underlying our thoughts, then it's going to be really, really hard to actually change those thoughts unless we're being so, so conscious of it. And then we have to be, like, thinking about our thoughts at every moment of every day, which is not possible. Like, we have lives that are not gonna necessarily let us just, like, sit in a cave and meditate all day long. Right. So most of us. And so. So thinking about instead of that top down of, like, you know, your thoughts create your reality, which is. Is true. And when we can go bottom up and regulate our nervous system, then we're gonna be able to way more easily change those thoughts to then change Our life and our reality and all of that kind of thing.

I love that. And here's a simple example is if you have grown up eating really spicy salsa and really spicy peppers, your body has literally adapted to make that possible for you. Nocioreceptors, the pain receptors in your mouth down regulate so that when you eat the spicy food, you don't get as much of a pain response. It's like they've given up. They're like, oh, they're gonna keep eating spice. We just give in. And so if Hadley eats spicy salsa every single day and I don't eat spicy salsa, our bodies will have adapted differently to the same input of salsa. Our lived experience will be better. And so then if we both step back and Hadley is to tell me, nicole, just think that you can handle spicy food. Think cooling thoughts. It doesn't necessarily solve the problem. It may make my lived experience doing that a little bit better. But there is a biological adaptation that happens. And it's the same thing for our emotional well being. So if you struggle with weight gain, if you struggle with headaches, if you struggle with panic attacks or insomnia, then there is this truth in like creating your reality by wiring your brain the way you want to. And top down is a part of that where you start with the brain and try to work on your body from the brain. But there are the realities that the brain has adapted to tell the body the body has adapted, and then we can't ignore the body in trying to correct that. So the brain, the two pieces of language that we're gonna talk about is top down versus bottom up. And so in the beginning of this conversation, you know, Hadley, I love that you especially brought up meditation. So a lot of us are like, I'm gonna meditate, I'm gonna try to calm my nervous system, I'm gonna do yoga. But what if it isn't working? And why is that? And oftentimes it's because we're bypassing the body.

Yes. So a good way to think about it is just like top down is like you, your mind, your brain down through your body. Right. Whereas bottom up is like from your body up to your mind. So you can kind of think of it with that visualization. And yeah, the meditation thing is a really interesting one because I, from my personal experience, I have known about the, like, benefits of meditation since I was probably in high school, maybe, maybe early college. But, you know, I had heard about meditation before that. And so I started meditating in, I think it was like sophomore Year of college, and I was like, okay, this is going to be really helpful for me. But y', all, I actually was getting more stressed from meditating because I was in such a state of nervous system dysregulation. And I also had a belief that I wasn't doing it, quote unquote, right there was that piece of it as well, which a lot of us, if we are in nervous system dysregulation, we think that there's a right and wrong way of doing all these things. And we're going to talk about that in a little bit, too. But sometimes meditation actually makes us more stressed because of a lot of different things, but because we haven't actually regulated our nervous system first. So then we go into meditation, we're in silence, and our mind is just going nuts, right? That we. They call it the monkey mind because it's just. Just whirring around and just going all of these different directions. And a lot of times we think that meditation needs to be this state of emptying the mind. So most people that I've talked to are like, oh, yeah, I don't do meditation. Right. Because my mind is not totally clear. And even. Not even that, but, like, my mind isn't just not totally clear. It's like going all these directions. Like, it is just, you know, all over the place. Or it's like, hyper focused on one thing that I can't get out of my mind that I'm really, really stressed about. Right. And so that can make us, after the meditation, just become more stressed. So. And the other thing is, a lot of times we think that we're supposed to sit in a certain position. We're supposed to, like, do all of these things. The quote unquote, right way in Ayurveda, in, like, Vedic philosophy, in, like, ancient traditions in India, meditation as like, you know, just doing some sort of mantra meditation or clearing the mind was a super, super advanced practice. That was not actually what people started out with when they were, you know, on this path with, like a yogic path or whatever it might be, that wasn't the thing that people started with. And the fact that we're all, like, still starting with that while we're in this state of nervous system dysregulation is actually potentially doing us a disservice. So I really wanted to bring this into the conversation.

Yeah. And I want to echo that with some neuroscience to validate what you're saying is that when we're in that amplified fight, flight, freeze, stressed kind of state is that our brain has more blood flow, more glucose metabolization in the amygdala and the emotional parts of the the brain, resulting in bigger feelings and less blood flow and metabolic activity in the prefrontal cortex. Bessel van der Kolk calls it the Mohawk of self awareness. And so this is like if you put your hand on your forehead, so that area of the brain behind your forehead, and then if you gesture kind of along the areas where a mohawk would be, those areas of the brain are shut down when we're in a stressed state. And that's because when you're running from a tiger, you, you don't want to like think about the meaning of life. You just want to focus all of your energy on the fear of helping you survive and run away totally. And so as Hadley is describing is you want to go to the body first and you want to work with the body and listen to the body. And that's what's going to bring down the amygdala, the fight flight, freeze emotions. And it's going to online your, your logical brain. In particular, you want to online your medial prefrontal cortex, that area behind your forehead, you want to turn that online because that's the part of the brain that's going to give you control over your moods and your nervous system. But if we just try to start and try to force ourselves to think logically when literally, biologically you cannot access that, you're going to just feel like hitting your head against the wall and it's not going to work. And then you're going to get more stressed, your amygdala is going to get more loud, you're going to get more stress hormone, your immune system is going to kick into action thinking, oh my gosh, we're in danger. So then you're going to get all this inflammation. As a result of inflammation, your amygdala gets more anxious, sends out more stress hormone to try to combat that inflammation. So now we have people who are chronically inflamed, they're chronically stressed with cortisol. And so then because of high cortisol in this state of amplitude, our thyroid will start to under produce, is trying to bring down energy. So then we get these hypothyroid symptoms. And then as a result of our thyroid changing, then our estrogen changes. And when our estrogen changes, our progesterone changes. And now suddenly we have this polycystic ovarian syndrome, or we have PMS, or we have symptoms of erectile dysfunction, right? And so it's like a domino effect when one thing changes. Every other part of the body has to adapt. And it's all trying to be your superhero. It's trying to protect you. But sometimes these adaptive mechanisms are no longer adaptive and we get stuck in that. And so what Hadley was just talking about is starting with the body, working with the body to put it back into balance so that you have access to the top down, to access to that upper brain.

Right. And the thing is like meditation. I still do meditation most days, but first before I go into like a meditative, more like, you know, kind of like more like spiritual state or like, you know, getting like getting set up for the day kind of state, I start with nervous system regulation and that's like that bottom up approach. And then I go into the meditation after that. And so we're going to talk about some of how we actually start to regulate the nervous system with some of these different practices. And you can do this in the morning. You can do this. Also a lot of these practices you can actually just do throughout your day as you feel like activated or you know, maybe you have like a reminder set in your phone or something like that in, in case you forget. Because a lot of times when we're in activation, we forget to actually do anything about that. But then, but the more we do these different practices and not even just practices, but bringing it into the everyday life, the more we're gonna be able to have more adaptation and appropriate adaptation for different circumstances. So not just adaptation from your past that is like informing your present, but really being able to be resilient and adapt to, oh, okay, this thing is happening. What's actually going on here rather than how am I being triggered from my past experiences.

I love that. So we're gonna take a quick break here and share with you some of the cool stuff that we have going going on. And then when we return, we're going to talk about our favorite bottom up strategies so that you can start to feel like yourself again and to take control over your physical and emotional well being. And so definitely stay tuned and we'll be back in just a moment. All right, everybody, we have some really cool stuff going on. One of the things that I definitely want to make sure that you do is follow us on, on social media. Hadley, tell us your handle.

I'm happy, healthy Hadley. And Hadley is spelled H A D.

L E E. What are the main things you got going on right now?

I'm really excited because I am revamping my signature coaching program and so I'm working on that right now. And the three pillars that I've got going on in that program are the foundational habits and routines, means for, you know, having a thriving mind, body, spirit, but also your relationship with food and your body and kind of how we optimize that. And then the third pillar which we're talking about today is nervous system regulation and emotional processing because all of these things go together. And so, so stay tuned for some of the stuff that's coming up with that. I'm really, really excited. I'm going to be relaunched, launching that program very soon.

That's awesome. Yeah, definitely a great way to give you more support with the nervous system reprocessing in that group.

Yes. It's so fun. It's like, and it's, it's also a community group and, and people have been just having some amazing, amazing breakthroughs recently.

So I love it. Get in there, friends.

Yes. Awesome. What about you? What are you working on right now?

Panic Proof is coming out. We're working on that. My deadline is September this last quarter. I'm going to finish it up. And so if you want to keep in the loop of all the cool stuff that's coming up is jump into the Holistic Wellness Collective. It's under the cost of a cup of coffee a day. You can get in there. We analyze your labs, we explain to you what labs to run. We'll teach about supplements, how to make your own tinctures, we teach about functional testing and strategies like all, all sorts of things, like how do you pick a homeopathic remedy, how do you make a Bach flower blend, how do you deal with meditation, where your brain is racing? Like all these things we talk about in the Holistic Wellness Collective. And so you can find that information on my Instagram, Dr. Nicole Kane, and of course Hadley's in there too.

So it's a really cool community, guys. Like, it is just giving so much value. It's amazing. You guys gotta join. It's awesome. Yes. So, yeah, follow us on, on Instagram DM us with any questions that you have. Also if you have any topics that you want us to cover on the podcast or if you want us to send you any like, resources, information like we're always help. Happy to do that. We love, we love connecting with you. If you want to share the podcast on your Instagram, we love to repost and all of that good stuff. So stay, stay connected with us there. And if you really love the podcast, please, please write us a review. We so appreciate when you do that, it really helps the podcast and it helps us to be able to see, you know, how it's impacting people because that's really the point of all of this. We just want to help. So.

Awesome. Are you guys ready to get back to the show?

Let's do it. All right, welcome back.

We're going to be talking about bottom up stuff solutions so that you can get your nervous system back on track and re regulated.

Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm. This is like my favorite thing. And you all know if you've been listening for a while, I love to use touch with the body to be able to do all these things. So I think I find that touch is the most tangible way to do it. So even if we're, if we're in like a mindfulness training training or we're, you know, trying to, trying to do a meditation or trying to do something that is more of that top down approach that, like the, that mind based versus body based. If we can bring in some sort of physical touch or a way of making it feel really tangible within the body, that's going to be even more effective. So for example, we were just talking about this beforehand. Dr. Kane and I were about how a lot of times we'll do like body scans. And body scans are amazing because we bring our mind into our body. We start to recognize, oh, like I'm feeling tension in my shoulders. Okay. And we do this without judgment, but we, we notice like, oh, I'm feeling maybe some like constriction in my chest or some openness or you know, sort of like a buzzing sensation in different parts of the body, whatever it might be. But I find that it's even, it becomes even more effective when we can actually place our hand on those different parts of our body while we're doing doing it. Whether we're like tapping those different parts of our body or placing a hand there or rubbing those different parts of our body, that makes it so that your brain is super present with each of those body parts. So like a lot of times our mind will start to wander and if we're actually putting our hands on those body parts, it's like, oh no, I'm very here, I'm very present with it. If that makes sense.

It does. And EMDR has studied why that works. It's dual awareness processing. And so remember we were talking about the thalamus is the filter and then that sending the information to the amygdala and then the amygdala looking at the Hippocampus, which is storing all those memories, is that sometimes memories are stored in parts of the brain where you don't have logical access to. They're in the unconscious brain. So sometimes trauma can get stuck in a time warp. You may not remember seeing that scary person when you were three years old, but your three year old self that's stuck in a time warp in your brain does. And so if you can go back to the body and touch the body, whether it's by tapping or bilateral stimulation, like walking or using EMDR or drumming or doing some qigong or whatever it is that you do to stimulate yourself left side, right side, left side, right side, that, that then activates that part of the brain that's bringing something up. And then the stimulation will tell the brain that something's happening in the here in the now. And so it's like time stamping, it's temporal. And so that's the part of, of why we think that EMDR works so well.

I love that. And it also reminds me of a lot of traditional movement practices are actually on this like horizontal plane rather than like the vertical plane. And what I mean by that is like the vertical plane is like that up and down. And so if we think about like a lot of times, like weightlifting or you know, different, like high intensity interval training, a lot of times like, you know, burpees, they're up and down, you know, all of these things, they're like, they are on that vertical plane, whereas the horizontal plane is more of this movement, movement of like moving your hips and like they're going side to side rather than up and down. And so, you know, belly dancing, hula dancing, salsa, all of these traditional modalities of movement are actually also helping us to process trauma and process, you know, activation and all of these different things that are going on in our brains. And so it's so cool to, to kind of marry that ancient wisdom with the modern science that we've been able to, to research and study. It's just. I geek out.

Yeah, I love that. And then as you're saying, is that hemisphere where when you cross that central line with the horizontal movement, like in qigong is a big part of that, is that you're integrating the two hemispheres of the brain.

Totally. I also want to like just give a shout out to, and not to hate on this at all because I do it all the time. But yoga, a lot of times is a vertical movement is up and down. You're like doing your down dog, you're doing Your, the vinyasa flow, your chaturanga, all of that is very vertical. And so we do want to bring in. Even if you're doing like a bunch of yoga and you're like, it's not you. It was working really well at first, and now it's maybe not regulating me as much as I thought it was going to. You want to bring in some of those horizontal. More horizontal movements and bringing in more of that, like, flow, so. And again, I do yoga all the time. I love yoga. And I also bring in more of those that like, dancey horizontal movement as well.

And Hadley, I've seen you dance, and it's like the happiest I see you.

It does. Totally is. I love dancing. It's the best. I mean, I'm not like an amazing dancer, but I just have so much fun.

Pretty good.

I love, like, I love moving my hips. That's always been a thing.

Yeah, I like it. It's good.

More of that.

More hip movement.

Yes.

So I like what you're talking about is you're talking about touch, and then you've been talking about, like different ways to touch. We actually have a whole podcast on that, and so we can definitely link that. And so therapeutic self touch, you know, even if it's like crossing your arms and then doing that hemispheric crossing. I love that you're talking about movement because there is that benefit to that up and down movement. Because when we think in terms of nervous system posturing is we want to break that nervous system posturing, where when you think of typical fight flight, freeze is the body has evolved to do this pulling down motion as though you're grabbing a tree and you're pulling yourself up into the tree. So it's like a bicep curl. And so we find ourselves kind of like fetal position. Our arms are in against our chest and our elbows and our wrists may even be bent. And so then an exercise that could be helpful for that is to unwind it, where you put your arms up and. And then curl in and unwind. Up and out and curl in. And then you can do that with your legs too. Where a typical panic posture would be where your legs are in full extension as though you've just like ricocheted yourself off of the ground and up into the tree. And so like curling in and then extending out. So it's almost like I am in the fetal position and then I starfish. But what I hear that I love that you're adding to that is then let's add Some twisting into that where maybe we, we rotate our spine or cross our arms over it or maybe do like a little bit of hip shaking. So like something that you can do with your body to unwind is a bottom up. Especially if you can do it by becoming first mindfully aware of any tension or stress or emotions or uncertainty in the body and then use that movement to try to access it and shift it and get it unstable stuck. That could be a really powerful process.

Yes, I love that. And I, I want to also bring into the awareness that like a lot of times, especially as women we it in like workout classes and like the fitness realm, like we are taught a lot of the time to tuck our tailbone under and, and engage our, our abs. And that's to protect us from you know, pulling a muscle or straining anything. So you know, it's great. And a lot of times we then stay in that position the time and that's a position of fight flight. You know, it makes it so that we're able to then move our bodies in a certain way. So if you think about like a deer, I, one of my teachers, Katie Silcox has, has given this example many times where like a deer in the forest is going to have, have their hind quarters like tucked in. If they hear a sound that you know, they hear like a stick break or whatever and they, they suddenly tuck their tailbone so that they're going to be able to run faster away from that. But when we're constantly in that state then that's going to make it so that we are you know, more likely to be in fight flight in our minds as well all the time. And so I love how you're saying like kind of bringing that out so like tucking your tailbone but then also bringing it like into that neutral position or even you know, stretched out even more. So you're like popping your booty out a little bit and bringing that in and out like you're saying with the arms and the legs can be really helpful as well.

I love that. Scared tail or wagging tail?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

So good. Wag your tail my friends.

Yes, wag your tail. Wag your booty.

So we've talked about a few bottom up strategies. Just want to make sure that we're keeping them organized in our brains here. So touch is one and we talked a little bit about bilateral stimulation. And so bilateral means two sides, right? So that's the left and the right. And you can, anything that you do in your life, you bilaterally stimulate like you can do that.

Totally. You can. The other cool thing is that you can bring like a specific thing that you're working on into your awareness while you're doing this. But you don't even have to. Like, there are a lot of times where you can process things without even realizing that they're a thing.

Totally.

So if we have a practice of like moving, moving our bodies in a, you know, doing that bilateral simulation or, you know, horizontal plane movement, that can be really helpful even without like being like, I have to work through this thing. Like a lot of times we get really serious about it and really we can be a little bit lighter about some of these things as well.

Yeah, I love that. And tapping. And so there's lots of rules. You know, we were talking earlier about there's all these rules. And so we've been given a lot of rules for tapping. And honestly, my friends, is that the clinical literature doesn't really support that you have to follow rules for tapping in order to get results from tapping.

And so can you explain what tapping is in case anyone doesn't know?

Yeah, it's where. So you, if you've heard of tapping, you've probably heard of emotional freedom technique, which is a method of tapping that was coined. And you know, people will tap on like the top of their head and then on the edges of their eyebrow, under their eye, under their nose, nose, above their lip, and then, etc. And so then there's like a whole process through. You can do the tapping, but tapping can also be, I'm just gonna, you know, tap like anywhere. Like if you feel stress or tension somewhere, you want to bring your mindful awareness to it, you just tap on the area of stress. So I often get a lot of stress right in my chest. And so sometimes I'll try to notice that. But if my brain is like two too hyper and anxious and not focused, like Hadley was saying earlier, I'll just tap gently and repeatedly on my chest or my breastbone and like, try to get my mindful awareness to my body and notice that and acknowledge it. So tapping can be whatever you need it to be. You can tap on acupuncture points. If you're like wanting to get that double benefit, you could do emotional freedom technique tapping, or you can like bounce your foot. You know, a lot of people naturally get restless and they want to bounce their foot. That's just your nervous system needing to move and express itself. And honoring that can be really, really restoring a balance. So tapping. And then there's an exercise that I teach is called somatographic imagery, which I have a whole free masterclass on that on my website. But essentially what you do is you bring up something that's disturbing or bothering you, something big, something small, and then you just body scan head to toe, toe to head, and notice where you feel, feel that the strongest in your body. And so let's say that you're feeling a little anxious about your Monday morning. You get the Sunday scaries and you're noticing Monday morning I feel a little bit nervous and I feel it right in my chest. And so then the somatographic imagery allows you to work with your body to clear that sensation. So you don't even have to go into, well, why do I feel anxious? How can I think positively?

Yes.

So about Monday mornings.

Mondays are fun.

They're an opportunity.

You can do that after you do the processing. Yeah, you do that later.

You can like then install your desired state later. But yeah, by starting with the body, this is like a bottom up nervous system therapy. You're activating the body, you're noticing the body and then you can shift the body. And there's different ways that you can shift the body. You can simply just breathe. And that's how you do your meditation, is you just imagine breathing golden light into that part of the body and imagining changing the size, the temperature of that part in the body and you can breathe out the stress. Like, there's lots of different ways that you can go about doing it. There's really no rules.

Yeah, I think a lot of times we think that there's this magic way to do something and if we can just find, if we can just follow the rules enough to get to that magic place, then it's, everything's going to be fixed. And I think we need to get away from that. Like, everything needs to be fixed. Mindset of like, I, I'm, you know, there's something wrong with me that I have to fix and instead just be like, what, what works? What works for me? You know, and kind of get more into that like curiosity state. That like, detective state of like, ooh, that felt really good. That part didn't work quite as well. I, I find that the more I let go of the rules, like I learn the methodology, but then I don't actually follow the methodology to a T. That works way better for me and for all of my clients than to be like, well, I don't think I'm doing this thing right and I don't think I'm doing like, because if we're in that rigidity, then we're not even going to be able to like let go into any sort of nervous system regulation. We're just going to be in that like fight flight, fight flight state or freeze or whatever state of like forcing. And we don't. That's like the opposite of what we want.

Yeah, you're trying to regulate your nervous system instead of allowing your nervous system to regulate.

Exactly. Yeah. Because that's our natural state is to be in regulation. And so allowing that rather than forcing that is huge.

I really love that. So if you're wondering what you can do right now is start practicing meta awareness. Meta awareness is the awareness of being aware. In a sense, it's thinking about thinking. And so when you have an experience nervousness, a headache, gastrointestinal distress, or you get on the scale and the number's not what you want is to step back and then just notice what's coming up for you, whether it's thoughts, feelings or sensations. And then allow yourself to stay in that with curiosity and compassion and then see how it moves and shifts and works. And especially allowing your attention to focus in on your body. Because your body has a lot of say about what needs healing and how.

Well, a lot of times we hear the phrase like, feel your feelings. And I have found, you know, that when I say that, a lot of times people actually think that they are supposed to think about their emotions. And what I mean when I say feel your feelings is not that. And so I need to be very, very intentional about saying that when I, instead of just being like, feel your feelings, it actually means to feel the physical sensations that accompany your emotions and feelings. And, you know, whatever is going on in your experience, actually feel the physical sensations of that because that's what's actually going to process it. Otherwise, when we just think about the emotions, then we can get into that spiral and start like wallowing in those emotions and staying in them rather than actually processing them through.

I love that. And so strategies to process it through. Because sometimes I know that I can feel this way. Like if I get into this feeling, it's going to be a fire hose to the face. It's going to be way too big and way too hard.

Yeah. So how do we ease our way in?

Yeah. So the first thing that I suggest that you do is to create a mindful place or a real place that feels protective for you. And in emdr they call this calm place or safe place. And so spending time being creative and imagining it like, oh, I'm gonna go to my happy place in my brain now. See y' all later. It could be a physical space if you have a room that's just for you that you can go into to do this work. And then to create a designated amount of time for doing this work, like you could even set an alarm on your phone. And then when that alarm goes off, then you do an exercise called the box technique, where you intentionally and mindfully take everything that you've been working on, you put it somewhere for safekeeping, you imagine breathing it into that box, close the box lid, and then set it away. And then you physically relocate yourself.

Oh, I love that.

You need a pattern interrupt.

Yes.

So you go into your space, you get into your body, you notice the calm place, and then you begin doing the work of noticing, scanning, feeling. Maybe you're going to be tapping or doing some like horizontal movements just to work it through. And then when your alarm goes off, put it in a protective box and then literally relocate yourself. So that's kind of a process that you can go through to do a bottom up therapy. And I would give yourself like 5 to 15 minutes several times a week to practice.

Totally. And if you're like, well, I don't even have five minutes. Do one minute.

I love that.

Or less do 30 seconds. Whatever it needs for you.

Yeah, I love that. Because we can't be perfectionists about it. It's just giving ourselves the time and space to start.

Yeah. Because I find a lot of times, I mean, I'm this way, A lot of my clients are this way, where it's like, well, if I can't do five minutes, then I'm not gonna do anything at all. Just do one. Just do 30 seconds. Just do whatever you can actually do.

Yeah, I love that. What did you guys think of this conversation? We've been talking a lot about nervous system emotional processing.

It's so good. I'm so excited. I hope that this was helpful. I hope that you guys have some. I mean, we gave you some very tangible takeaways and you can just play with one at a time too. You don't have to. I don't want this to overwhelm you and be like, oh my gosh, I have to do all five things, like every day. No, we're giving you options. These are not rules. These are not things that, that you, that are like shoulds or you have to do. They're in service to you. You are not a slave to the practice ever. These, all of these practices, all of these methodologies are just here to serve you as you need them or as you want to practice them. So take it that way rather than being like, now I have to do all of these things.

I love that. It's in service to helping you live fully in your mind, your body, in your spirit, and remember your superhero. Your body is your superhero. It wants to create homeostasis for you. And so that can help your blood pressure, it can help your pain tolerance, it can help your weight, it can help your moods, it can help cognitive clarity, it can help performance, it can help endurance, it can help adrenals, thyroid, like anything you name can help it. And so all of it. Yeah, all of it. Awesome. Well, thank you for being here. Thanks, Hadley, for such an amazing conversation again, as usual, I love it.

It's so fun and so fun. I just. These are my favorite days when we get to podcast together.

Same. So all y' all rate and review and share.

Yes, please do. We would love to hear what you think. And if you have any friends who might benefit from learning about this stuff, be be sure to share the podcast with them.

Awesome. Thank you.

Bye everyone.

Bye. The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Caine, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology, and Happy Healthy Hadley, an Ayurveda expert with a master's in health, behavior and health education. While these opinions are based upon literature, counseling education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological, or other form of treatment. If you are in a crisis, please call 911-OR call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you are in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole and Hadley are passionate about you becoming the expert of your own emotional and physical well being. If this resonates with you and you think that this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast.

Sam Sa.