The 4-Step Method to Stop Panic & Rewire Your Brain with Dr. Nicole Cain

I was taking benzodiazepines and I was taking Ambien and I was taking antidepressants. I was even given Seroquel, which is an antipsychotic, and nothing was working. The messaging that I got around fear and anxiety and worry was that it's a problem that I'm just going to have to live with. And I believed that for a long time. But I was on a mission to prove myself wrong. Foreign. Hey everyone.

Welcome back to the Earn your happy podcast. You guys, I am traveling. I just landed in Tampa and you better believe that I have brought my glossy, brought my laptop, brought my water bottle, brought my Isagenix bars, you guys, I always travel with food, with goodies, with supplements. I'm telling you, you guys, if you have not tried Glosy yet, go check it out@getglosi.com and use code happy. Because when I am traveling, the plain bloat is real and also dehydration and having your skin look dull and dry. And it is one of the best ways to to stay feeling really good even when you travel. So go and check it out, you guys. I would love for you to try it. Let me know what you think. And today on the podcast we have Dr. Nicole Kane.

She's a licensed clinical psychologist.

She talks about anxiety and trauma. She's an anxiety and trauma expert. She's the author of Panic Proof, the new holistic solution to end your anxiety forever.

When I heard the topic of this.

Book, I was like, hi, I need to have you on this podcast because who doesn't want to be able to stop their anxiety? I'm so excited to have her on. She is a true anxiety expert on the show. A previous version of myself would say I'm an anxiety expert, but in all of the wrong ways. So if you were trying to listen to this episode because you're experiencing anxiety, I absolutely feel you. Dr. Nicole shares so many powerful tools in this episode from how to identify your anxiety level to know the action you need. Take her four step framework to reprogram your response to triggers and a three minute hack to create a sense of empowerment in the present are freaking amazing. I can't wait for you to hear this and start to incorporate it into your life. And you guys, let's dive into the episode. Nicole, welcome to the Earn your happy podcast. Thank you so much for coming on.

I'm happy to be here. Love this podcast.

Oh my gosh. So this topic that you have written a book on, which by the way, feel like I just have to tell people right away exactly what we're going to get into. But I love your book title. It is so good. You guys panic proof, end your anxiety forever. I was like, whoa, whoa, Whoa. Give me 25 copies just for me.

Yes.

Because I'm going to dish these out, you know, I'm going to keep 10 for myself. I'm going to give the rest to family and friends. Because I do feel like whether it's extreme or whether it's small, we all have some form of anxiety or panic that we're kind of dealing with. And I think there's so much shame around it and a lot of people don't share it. And I know that when I talk about panic attacks or anxiety, I feel like every single time people come up to me and they're like, I would have never guessed that you deal with that. And I think so many of us are walking around with low key, you know, low key anxiety or panic attacks that we're trying to hide, and that makes them worse. So first of all, I would love for you to share just kind of what was behind the book, like, what was the moment? Cause I know that's a big decision, a book itself. You don't typically go, I can't wait to write this book on panic. Unless there's true, you know, you're truly called to it. So tell me a little bit about your history and why you wrote this book.

Lori, I wrote the book that I desperately needed growing up. I came from the Midwest, I know you and I share that. And Michigan girl. Yes, Michigan. And my family's culture was very much like, you suck it up, you deal with it. And if you can't deal with it, then you take a pill and suppress your symptoms. And by the time that I was entering college, I was on six different prescriptions for all sorts of things and I was getting no healthier. And there was so much family stress and trauma and so much generational trauma that I inherited all of this baggage that now I'm dragging through life. And to be functional in a dysfunctional life is really, really difficult. And, you know, we think about everything that people are facing these days, all of the stressors, whether it's family, environmental toxicity, and that could be literal substances or people or systems. There's so much that we're trying to deal with. The stimuli that's coming from the environment, it's just so much. It's so much. So not only did I come into this world with all this stuff that I inherited, whether genetically or through my Family experiences or my own trauma. But also all this continued stuff that's happening, we went through. I was in College during 9, 11, and then of course, we went through a worldwide pandemic. And all of the things and the messaging that I got around fear and anxiety and worry was that it's a problem that I'm just going to have to live with, and that you can't get rid of anxiety. And in fact, if you go to Healthline and you type in anxiety, it will say, it's just a natural part of the human experience, so you just gotta manage it. And I believed that for a long time. But I noticed a couple of things that made me really start to question that reality. Because we inherit a lot of our belief systems. We inherit programming, we inherit the way that we see ourselves in the world. And when I started to really do an audit of that and say, where did this belief system come from? Is this based on my beliefs, my experiences? Or is this something that was given to me that I'm just now reproducing and then passing on? And that anxiety is a natural part of the human experience that we just have to suffer with? Didn't make sense. So I was on a mission to proof myself wrong. I was on a mission to see what the story of anxiety was. So I went to counseling school, and then I went to medical school. I'm in private practice, and my Zona genius is I was treating patients who had really bad panic and anxiety with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. And I was like, I Brock, people are getting better. Everything's amazing. But I'm also. I started a not for profit, and I opened a clinic, and I started a supplement company, and I was redesigning the curriculum at the medical school where I was teaching integrated mental health. And then shit hit the fan, as it does for many of us. And it started with, I'm laying awake and I'm worrying, oh, my gosh, I gotta follow up with Susie. Oh, my gosh, this bill's coming in. Am I gonna be able to cover it? Oh, my gosh, I forgot to submit that deadline. Oh, my gosh, I had to renew my DEA number. And those oh, my goshes got worse and worse and worse. And on the outside, people didn't know what was going on. Kind of like what you said, Lori, is that so many of us walk around and we're able to keep it together just enough that most people don't notice. Although your trusted besties will be able to see, oh, what's going on? Thank goodness for Those people. But for me, it turned into, I call, the dark circle of hell, where I stopped sleeping. Oh, my body was total rebellion. I couldn't eat. I lost so much weight. I stopped having my period. And it was. It was just awful. It was the worst experience. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. And I knew all of the remedies, all of the herbs. I knew about ayurveda. I knew about acupuncture, chiropractic medicine. I'd spent money on functional tests. I was swallowing back supplements and pills and all these things. And then when that wasn't shutting down, my body's response to what was happening and what had happened, then I turned to pharmaceuticals, and I was taking benzodiazepines, and I was taking Ambien, and I was taking antidepressants. I was even given Seroquel, which is an antipsychotic, and nothing was working. And then there's that despair of, oh, my God, this is the. This is the end for me. Like, this is. My life is a. It's a drama. It's a tragedy. That was the turning point, Lori. And from that. And I love. Because I live in Phoenix half the year, and I love just the beautiful imagery of coming from Michigan, the land of green and water, and coming to this desert, this place where I just feel like I completely deconstructed, burned to ash, and then created a completely new way of understanding my anxiety. And the biggest difference is, instead of looking at our symptoms as problems is looking at our symptoms as our body's attempt at communicating something deeper that needs healing. And when we start looking at our symptoms as our companions, as our friends, as our helpers, as data, then when we are able to answer that, that's when we become free. And not just free, but my goal as a healer, my goal as a doctor, is to help people get to a place where they're living their life to the highest potential of why they were put here. So that all those people looking on are admiring them in wonderment. They're like, whatever you've got, I want that. I don't want to just be 5 out of 10 good enough. I want to be soul on fire. And that's what this answer gave me. And so then I was practicing. I knew this is the longest answer.

I love it.

I was in private practice, and I started changing the way that I practiced. The results were ridiculous. I had a wait list years out, and I was like, how do I help more people? I'm burning out again. I can't keep Doing this. So I decided I'm repeating myself all the time. I'm going to write a book. And that is panic proof. And the goal of panic proof is to show people how to be free of anxiety. And it's really different than not having fear. Fear and anxiety aren't the same thing. Anxiety is where we have a fear response and that's combined with a lack of personal power. I feel out of control. And then we're anxious versus fear is, oh crap, this person cut me off in traffic and I'm afraid I'm going to hit them, so I'm going to hit the brakes. That's fear. Or I'm in the woods gathering berries and a tiger comes after me. That's fear. Anxiety is I'm going to do public speaking or I'm going to really put myself out there for a job promotion and I'm having a panic attack. That's anxiety. And that's what we can overcome.

I mean, I, I feel like that's the one that is the worst anyway. The worst is, is that one for sure, like fear is, is very appropriate for so many of the situations we're in. But anxiety, oh my gosh, it is not, it's not really useful once you can understand, like you would, like you had said, you know, anxiety. Looking at it as, how is this informing me? And then kind of after you get the message. I think that's where I have been for long periods of time. I've overcome a lot, but I'm still in a place of, hey, I got this lesson. I don't need the body responses anymore. Like, I don't really need to be on stage with the anxiety anymore. It'd be really nice without it. So let's kind of start there because you explained the difference between, you know, panic and fear. Where does somebody go with you when they're like, okay, it's just, it's like it's not even in my control anymore. It's, it's like a body response. Not even something that feels logical to me.

Oh my goodness. And that's such an important question to ask because in mental health the approach of the conventional medical system is largely talk therapy or medications. And the thing is, is exactly what you're saying is that oftentimes the body is producing this conditioned fear response regardless of what you, you think. And your brain isn't concerned about our well being. Our brains are concerned about our survival. And so you could tell your body all you want, it's fine, don't worry about it. We're not back in 1996 when I was being bullied or I'm not back in that scary car crash. We're not there anymore. But the body's like just in case. And so the body's going to keep producing this conditioned response. And this conditioned response can affect you from head to toe. And so that's why anxiety and fear and panic can look so different for people. In fact, I've re categorized it because our general understanding of anxiety is you just put it all in a big bucket and it's like, oh, you're anxious, Take this antidepressant. Even though it's almost as good as placebo, like that's, that's the best that we've got. That if we characterize it a little bit more specifically and we try to understand what it's trying to tell us, we can get a lot more precise and the results are better. So for example, if you're open to telling a little bit about your experience when you used to have panic, when you felt really, really panicky and activated, what did it feel like in the body for you?

For me it was always like I was going to pass out. So I, it was, it was like I couldn't breathe. Tightness in my chest, my solar plexus was just like, like very sick to my stomach, really shaky. Like I needed to like run or get out of the situation. And sometimes it can come up as then like wanting to cry and yeah, the whole passing out, I found, I still find like I can really get in that before speaking on a large stage. And all of those, all of those things happen kind of simultaneously at once.

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So what we would do is a couple of things. The first step is we want to figure out your green light, your yellow light, and your red light. Mm. And green light is where you feel really calm. You're like, badass Lori. You're like, I've got this. It's when you feel like you're owning your strong, idealized essence. Right? So that's green light.

We love green light.

We love green light. And we can optimize green light. Let's do it. So first we're gonna write down what it feels like when you're in green light. You write down what it feels like in your body. You write what it feels like in your behavior, your thoughts, how you conn with people, the activities that put you there, like getting a facial, getting a massage, traveling, eating, your favorite nosh. And then we think about yellow light. So that's when you get a little bit activated. So that's your first sign that your body is getting stressed. So for you, do you have an idea of what that first indicator is like? Ooh, I'm not green anymore. I just shifted.

I'm trying to think if it's breath or body, I can start breathing a lot more shallow. And even though I'm trying to do deeper breaths, it's almost like I can't get them.

So you start with chest anxiety?

I think so, yes.

Okay. So that's your canary. And for those who are listening is if you can figure out your canary, and then you can figure out why that canary is chirping at you, then you can oftentimes reroute that process so it doesn't continue. So let's put a. We'll put a pin in that. And then with yellow light, for everyone who's listening is we're going to think about all the signs that I'm in yellow light from the very first little canary, that first little sign, that chest can't quite get a good breath, whatever that is for you. And then write down what tends to get you there. So for me, it always starts with a tightness in my chest to. That's my alarm. That's my. Ooh, I need to. We need to figure out what this is, what it's trying to tell me, and write all that down. And then the next light, before we go back to our canary, the next light is red light. This is sheer fear. This sheer panic. This could be rage. This is passing out, right? This is when our body's like, all right, we're exit strategying now. We're gonna. We're gonna throw up, we're gonna pass out, we're gonna dissociate, we're gonna scream, we're gonna cry, whatever that crisis is for you. And so you're gonna write that down, what that feels like. And then now that you have your stoplight, then we're gonna go in, and we're gonna get data, and then we're gonna create solutions. So if we go back to your example. Thanks for being the guinea pig with us.

Oh, yeah. I love being the guinea pig.

Good. So if we go back to that example, that little warning that you get in your chest, if you just allow yourself to drop into that sensation and you just notice that sensation, and if we just imagine zooming out, almost like you're a bird and you're flying up into the sky so that you can look down and you imagine that sensation. And then I want you to imagine that there's a timeline, so maybe even you can visualize a line, and that timeline goes into your past. And what I want you to do is try to remember the very first time that you felt that.

I'm getting a. I'm getting a few different times because I've definitely, like, thought of this before, but I think I'm getting a clear one around the chest, which is interesting, because now I'm realizing I might have it in a couple different spots. I don't know if that's possible.

Yes.

The one in my chest is around. I think it might have been, like, inherited. It was around at the. At my church. You would raise your hand. You would give answers to these, like, different questions they would ask, and you would. You know, is it like a Q and a portion of the. The church on Thursday nights? And I used to raise my hand all the time, and I remember my mom had raised her hand, and she would always be like, I'm so nervous or oh my God, I'm having a panic attack like on the way of the microphone coming to her. And I remember like getting so nervous for her that she was having this thing that then ever since after that it's like it started to happen to me.

Yes. So let's stay with that. So what I hear you describing is that you're in church, you're with your mom, There's a moment when you can raise your hands. You would often raise your hand. She might. And she's telling you this experience that she's having as the microphone is coming closer. And it sounds like she was experiencing anxiety, fear, nervousness, right? Yeah.

Like almost crying, like panic.

So she was, it was very extreme. So almost crying in panic. And so what happens is that your brain notices this. And when we're children, we get a lot of our cues for reality from our caretakers and from our early experiences. And so the brain is so associative. So the brain, what could be part of your story is that it noticed, okay, raising hand, someone coming with a microphone, fear. This must be dangerous, right?

For sure.

And so then what happens is the amygdala, this is a part of the brain, the emotional part, the emotional processing part, it gets together with the hippocampus. And that's the part that stores this memory. So that anytime there's a cue that could be seen slightly reminiscent of this, it could be the music, it could be raising your hand, it could be thinking about a microphone, it could be the scent of your mom's perfume, it could be so many things that we could deconstruct in that moment. But then what happens is anytime that there's a cue, that this process is automatic. Because again, remember, our brain doesn't care about our well being. It thinks that this is dangerous. So then it sets off this, this conditioned fear syndrome. And what I think is really important that a lot of more cognitive based clinicians aren't quite talking about as much yet, is that this conditioning doesn't just involve the thoughts. And so this is why when you tell yourself it's totally fine, this was my mom's experience. Nothing bad happened to her. It's totally fine. But this also gets stored in other parts of the body. Parts of the body that don't have language, parts of the body that don't have time, and parts of the body that may be in the gut or the immune system. We know that there's a really strong relationship between the nervous system and the immune system. And so then when you try to talk yourself out of it, your body's like, sorry, we don't care. Right. So this can be really frustrating for people. So then you are on stage, you're a public figure, and yet there's this early childhood experience that's still stored in the. In the body. Right. And that can be frustrating.

Yes, Very frustrating.

Yes.

Really annoying.

It takes out.

I'm sure you hear from a lot of your people, and I think a lot of people listening can relate to the fact that it takes way too much energy to do these things that we're dreaming of, because it's just like we have to not only overcome or learn a new skill set and get over natural fear, but also deal with this anxiety that follows you everywhere. It's like a cloud. It's just like it stops you from a lot of things, you know?

Yes. The most beautiful thing that I'm so excited that we get to have this conversation that I want to share with people is, is that the brain and the body are incredibly plastic. And by that, I mean that the brain and the body are continuously changing. And I want to. I want to give you an example. I want you to imagine right now that I hand you a lemon, a lemon wedge, and I want you to imagine putting that lemon wedge in your mouth, but I don't want you to salivate. So imagine putting that lemon wedge in your mouth and imagine the taste, imagine the sour, but don't salivate. And then I want you to even maybe bite down a little bit. You feel that lemon escaping the wedge, and you feel it filling your mouth. So I want you to do that for just a moment. And then we're gonna pause, and I want you to tell me what you noticed in just the last few seconds.

That my mouth was salivating, actually, yet it was doing. Yeah, it was like anticipating exactly what a lemon is.

Exactly. So what just happened is that your brain imagining something created an involuntary biological response. And so if it is so easy that we can imagine sucking on a lemon and we salivate, how would it make sense to say that this early childhood experience that was paired with something fearful and scary wouldn't also create involuntary bodily responses.

Right. Absolutely.

Yes. So what we want to do is we want to go in and we want to reprogram that. And so this goes back into our origin stories. I was telling you about my story. I came in with all this baggage and epigenetics, family patterns, belief systems, watching my parents being in culture, social media, all of these things that are happening. We inherit These patterns and our response to them is an adaptation. Your wise, beautiful, brilliant little self, little Lori, became fearful because that protected her. Or at least so your brain and body believed. Yeah. So what does all this mean? I know I just kind of threw a lot at you, kind of. Tell me how this is all landing so far.

No, it makes. I. I have analyzed it a lot.

So you're like, here for it. You're like, yes, yes. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Good. So what we want to do is we want to reprogram that, and I'm going to give your audience four steps for that.

Okay.

And that can make it really easy. And these four steps, I would suggest that they're practiced every day preventatively, and that if you're able to practice this every day preventatively, after approximately 90 to 120 days, that's when we really see the brain creates a new habit. I want to use a metaphor for those who are listening, that are more visual creatives, is imagine that you have a dry desert. We're in Phoenix right now. We have a dry desert. And there's rivets that are dug into the desert floor from water. So the water's been traveling these rivets for a long time. So that's, that's your brain patterning. Now, as you do the 90 days to 120 days of patterning, you're actually carving a new rivet that you want to use so that when it rains, when stress happens, when you put yourself into new and exciting and potentially anxiety provoking situations that your brain has been practicing every day going down the rivet that you want. And that's the rivet of feeling personal power. It's that rivet where you are your ultimate badass. And people are looking on and they're like, I want that. Whatever you're doing, I want that. Now, the important thing is that that old rivet will probably be there. And so if there's a giant flood, you may notice that you get anxious sometimes, but if you keep maintaining, this is how I want to program, that's where it will go. Right. So let's talk about the practical four steps. Are you ready?

Okay, I'm ready.

Okay. Step number one is that when we start to notice our canary. So you get that little bit of tightness in your chest that you notice a little bit of harder. It's harder to breathe. You feel like you can't feel your lungs as well. Whatever that is for somebody is the first thing we want to do is we want to get back into the body by stimulating the senses in the brain. Because neurologically what's happening is that our prefrontal cortex, our logical brain that makes us feel analytical, in control. I've got this. When we start to hit arousal, when our canary starts to get hit, is that prefrontal part of the brain starts to shut down. And so you might feel like, oh, my God, my brain just went blank. Or totally, I totally forgot what I was gonna say. Or oh, my gosh, I'm just like spinning my. This is my clothes.

Clearly not good for public speaking. This is literally what happens. I'm like, now I. Now I forget everything. I have no idea what I'm going to say. Yes.

You're like, just.

This is making so much sense. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So the very first thing that you want to do is you want to get back into your. Your prefrontal cortex. And the way to do that is the inroad is with the body. Because the body is awake, the body is paying attention. We're shifting into brain states that are really hyper aware. You have a part of your brain called the insula, and the insula is scoping everything out. And it's like, okay, what kind of danger do we have? What do we got to do? Talking to the hippocampus, we have this stored context, and so they're running rogue. So what we got to do is it's almost like poking. It's like, hey, hey, Lori. Hey, get back in the body. So here's some tangible hacks. I like to make a panic pack. So I have this, like, I talked to Tamron hall about this, actually. So I was on Tamron hall and I had this like bang and panic package. We were talking about it. It's like blingy. It's super cute, super subtle. Actually, it's not subtle at all. Splitting. But nobody knows. Panic pack. And so what we put inside of it is a really sour tasting candy. Sour. Sour candy or lemon drop. So sour can stimulate vagus nerve, it can bring you back in the body. Swallowing stimulates vagus nerve, brings you back in the body. I also include temperature things and so like a heating pack or an ice pack. This comes from dialectical behavioral therapy, dbt. Are you familiar with that yet? No. So Marsha Linehan created this. And so we stand on the shoulders of giants. So I just want to give credit where credit is due. She discovered that if we put our faces in buckets of ice water, that it activates something called the mammalian dive response. And so the water, especially around the eyes, our blood pressure drops, our heart rate slows down, anxiety drops. But, Laurie, I don't carry around a bucket of ice water. That's not my bangs. I can't have that. So we have a more practical idea is so if you're in the car, you're on your way to a public speaking, maybe you're backstage, they have these first aid packs that you could kind of share, shake up, and then they get really cold as a result of that. And then you just apply it over your eyes or your face, apply it on your chest, on the back of your neck. Another thing that you always have with you is your breath. And people always tell me, they're like, oh, my God, please don't be another person telling me that I need to do breathing. I need the proof. And so if you're open to it, I love to spend just. I know we're spending a lot of time on this one, but I think this is really, really important. Is. Is do you know how to find your pulse?

Just like on my wrist or my neck?

Yes, anywhere. If you find it on your wrist, that's more ideal. If you think about where your doctor, when you go and you get your. Your wellness exam and they feel your pulse is going to be on your wrist on the side where your thumb is. And so if you can find that, that's ideal. Watch a YouTube video, or if you can't, then just find it in your neck. But what we're going to do is we're going to show right now how the breath will change your autonomic arousal. So what we're going to do is, Laurie, you and I are going to inhale for four. We're going to hold at the top for four, and then we're going to exhale for four. And I want you to pay specific attention to what happens to the speed of your pulse during each of these steps. Are you ready? Yep. All right, so everyone who's listening, let's do this together. So let's inhale. 2, 3, 4. Hold your breath at the top. 2, 3, 4. And then a big sigh. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So it's just one try. We're getting our wiggles out. But during that one try, did you notice any change in your pulse?

Here's what I think I noticed. So I think when I breathed in, it may have went up a little.

I'm not sure.

But on when I was holding, I feel like it slowed a lot at the end.

Yes.

And then that kind of went back to normal when I breathed out.

Ooh, that's so good. So you have heart rate variability that's noticeable. So that's a huge victory. It just shows how much of the work you're doing. So 10 out of 10 there. Great. So when we inhale, you know, it's like, oh my gosh. Yeah. When my husband's driving, I do that all the time. Right. Same stimulates sympathetic nervous system. So that's that fight, flight, freeze response. And then when we hold bear down, that stimulates vagus nerve. That calms us. Have you ever seen a kid who has a tantrum and they're like holding their breath and their face is getting beat red and you're like, oh, yeah, they're gonna scream. Yeah, they're stimulating vagus nerve, they're calming their body. And then on the exhale, if we, if we sigh and exhale very deeply, that stimulates vagus nerve. And so what you're noticing, as you inhale, your heart will beat faster, which is totally what we expect. And then as you exhale or as you hold at the top, your heart will be slower. So that is stimulating your vagus nerve, which is going to calm the brain and it's going to send a signal to the gut to change the microbes in your gut. Within five minutes, they'll start to create more calming. Wow. Yeah. So that's always with you, Questions, thoughts?

No, I just, I was, I've been thinking about the time, like I've always taken deep breaths and I've tried different, you know, some breath work techniques, but I've never really held it. I've never thought of that because it feels counterintuitive, if you know what I mean. When you're already nervous, it makes you feel kind of. The thought makes me feel panicky of like, well, why would I hold my breath? Because they always say, don't hold your breath, you know?

Yeah, do a four square. So for, for those who are like, I just need, I need specific concrete guidelines. Because, you know, kids who hold their breath, then they pass out because they're not eating. So try to inhale for four, hold for four and really try to bear down if you can. And then delicious sigh for as long as you can. Like maybe four, five or six counts, hold at the bottom and then you take a breath. And doing that a few cycles can really make a difference. Okay, so those, those are a couple tangible things. I also like fidgets. You know, we have a generation of fidgeters. Like every clinician I have A couple counseling offices. All the clinicians are baskets of fidgets. Like, everyone's fidgeting, and so that rocks. So there's a couple of things. So that's step one. We'll do the other ones more quickly because I know we. We got a wrap here in a little. So now that we've gotten back in our body, we've woken up our prefrontal cortex. We're like, okay, I'm a little bit calmer, and now I'm aware that I have this canary. Now what we want to do is we want to use all of those logical resources that we've been practicing. So, okay, what's the situation? What is this trying to tell me? What is activating me? Do I have an unmet need? Am I feeling overwhelmed? Is this something from the past that I need to circle back to? So circling back to that experience that you talked about in church. And so let's say that theoretically you have the space to do that. I have an exercise called a three minute hack. And if we have time, I'll show you exactly what to do in that second phase. But really, the main kind of TLDR for that second phase is that's when you use your coping skills and your logic because you turned your brain back on. So now the third phase is when we connect the brain and the body. And a sign that you might need a little bit more tlc, connecting the brain and the body is if you feel like your panic is coming out of the blue, or if you feel like you dissociate or you zone out, or you're not quite present or you're forgetful, or if you feel like your body is panicky, even when your brain is like, chill out, body. We're fine.

Yeah.

So those. Those may be signs that we need to connect it. And so what I want, want everyone who's listening to do is to practice interoception. Interoception. So remember earlier we were talking about the insula, and insula is scoping out all the data from our body, from our environment, and it's deciding if it needs to go to the amygdala for the whole danger process. So when we practice noticing our body from a place of calm, curiosity, love, compassion, and acceptance, that helps the insulin notice what's going on without automatically going into that fear cycle. So, oh, my chest is tight right now. Or I can't feel my face, or I feel really bloated, really gassy. Oh, my gosh, it's so embarrassing. I feel like I need to go to the bathroom or my brain just went blank. How interesting. So we practice, we notice it, we breathe, we allow ourselves to be present. And then the fourth stage, this is the most fun one, this is when we actively reprogram, and we want to actively reprogram how to go into arousal and alchemize that into personal power. Because remember, the difference between fear and anxiety is that sense of personal power isn't present in fear. We fail out of control. Right. So if you go into a fear state, like when you were at church, you were a kid, you aren't in control. You couldn't make your mom not panic. You couldn't pop yourself out of there and go into a field of flowers and just be happy and run around out there. You, you were there, you were a kid, you didn't have personal power, or at least as much as you do now as a grown up, Right?

Yep.

So what we want to do is we want to recreate experiences where we have agency. So some people are really into doing cold immersions. So they'll get into cold water and they'll sit in there for 40 seconds. And when we're in that cold bath, our body's like, oh, hell no. This is so cold. I hate this. And you see people and they're breathing through it and they're calming the body and they're holding space and they're like, I can do this for 45 more seconds. And then when that 45 seconds passes, they're like, I could do it again another 45. Or they can opt to rescue themselves and get out. Yeah. So that suddenly I can feel all of these yucky feelings, and I choose to when it stops. So I know I have control and agency. And that's very corrective. Another example is doing a high rope scores. That could be objectively freaky. You go up on the high rope score and then you get down. When you want high intensity interval training, you run really hard, your heart rate goes up. That could feel scary for some people. And then you slow down and you bring it out. You do the breath. You get back into the green zone, and you do that a few times. You practice. So for you, you do this because you keep getting up on stage. And so you've provided these corrective experiences for yourself. And so when people keep doing this, you show yourself that I can do that, but there's still a little piece that remembers the past. And so that's when the three minute hack would come into place. And so the three minute hack is something that you can do in the moment when stress is striking and it only takes three minutes. And this is powerful. This comes from emdr, which is a form of therapy that has been studied to unlock trauma from the body. To unlock trauma, whether it's little teeny, tiny traumas that happen lots and lots of times, or something really big, one single event trauma, or just stressors and adversities that the body just is stuck on and is repeating even though you don't need that. So it stands on the shoulders of emdr, stands on the shoulders of internal family systems, which looks at us and our experiences as different parts, different parts of ourselves. Like today, part of me, after we finish this interview, I'm going to go and I'm going to get a smoothie, or maybe part of me actually wants a really delicious taco. Not sure. Right. Good choices. Thank you. So what you're going to do is, is you're going to go back and so we're going to practice this together and I'm going to kind of rush through it just a little bit for time's sake. But when, when you guys listen to this episode, write down the three steps and then just give yourself the deliciousness of a full three minutes and do this on your own. But what I want you to do is we're going to start by crossing our arms in front of ourselves, like a butterfly hug almost. And so your left hand is going to be on your right shoulder and your right hand is going to be on your left shoulder. And then throughout the entirety of this three minutes is you're going to be tapping left, right, left, right, left, right. So you're going to tap this whole time. You're not going to stop till three minutes are over. So what we're going to do first is we're going to set our alarm for 60 seconds. And in that first 60 seconds, I want you to notice that feeling of tension in your chest. Notice that feeling of, oh, I'm just nervous. Oh, it's kind of yucky. I feel really fearful. Or it could be a moment of quite big red light zone symptoms. Whatever it is that you want to work on, you just notice it. And we're going to acknowledge and notice it, because what we deny will amplify, what we address will be freeing. Right? So we don't want to deny, we don't want to amplify. So we're going to notice it, we're going to acknowledge it. So you're going to notice those sensations for 60 seconds, then your alarm will go off. And then the next 60 seconds, you're gonna do what you and I just did. Lori. We're gonna go back to the earliest moment you ever remember feeling that way. And so you remembered being in the church with your mom, feeling really nervous, right? Really fearful. And so you're gonna notice her, you're gonna notice that part. You're gonna be in that space with her. You're gonna witness that just for another 60 seconds. Notice how she was feeling, notice that part.

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And then in the last 60 seconds, you're going to timestamp the time warp. Warp. Timestamp the time warp. So what you're going to do is you're going to say the following or your own iteration of the following is, hey, little Lori, I am with you. I hear you and I am so grateful that you're talking to me today. And I want you to know that I've got you and that you don't ever have to go back to sitting in this congregation, to feeling really nervous, to seeing mom scared like this. You don't have to do that anymore, because we already did that in this 2025. And I want to ask you to set down that heavy burden of trying to take care of me, because I can take care of you now. I'm all grown up. I have resources you didn't have. And look at this awesome life that we have. And you may even pull out your phone and show her. And then you might imagine that she has a backpack. And in that backpack are the worries that she's carried, the responsibility that she's carried, the stress that she's carried. And you may even invite her to set that down and then notice what it feels like to be free of that heavy burden. And then if you even feel inclined, is you could take that backpack and you could dispose of it. Some people want to put them in a container. Some people want to light them on fire or eat them into the sun. Whatever you want, you can do that. And then before that last 60 seconds runs out is you may invite that part to do something really fun. Just imagine her playing. Imagine her being on stage and people thinking that she's the bee's knees. Whatever she wants to do, imagine allowing her that freedom. And then we close at the end of 60 seconds with a nice, delicious breath. You're going to take a breath in four counts. We're going to even hold at the top for four counts. If you want, you can bear down, just extra calm. And then we're going to sigh. A big, beautiful sigh. And that, my love, is the three minute hack.

Mm, that's a good one. Like, it's very relaxing, actually.

What did you notice? Did you have a chance to kind of get in to talk to her just a little?

Yes, there was kind of a moment of, like, almost a little bit of, like, really feisty rejection. I definitely said these people.

Yes.

Because I was feeling a lot of just the pressure of everyone in there. And I believe that's why my mom also felt that. So, yeah, I had that moment and I took the backpack and I did chuck it. But then when you said burn, that also felt great.

Yeah. Good.

Yeah. So she was angsty, so. Or actually, maybe I was, and I just was relieving her, you know?

Absolutely. And what you just did in those three minutes will permanently, literally change your brain. And so just imagine doing something like that for 90 days. Like, I'm getting goosebumps as I talk to you about this. And I feel emotional because I see this working for people. And the thing is, is it doesn't have to be so complicated. Healing doesn't have to be so complicated. Yeah, yeah.

And I think they do. It's funny, I've made this so complicated, to be honest.

Like, not all of it, but just.

This little bit of, I would call.

It like there, there's just, there's just.

This thing in the corner I can't get rid of. You know what I mean? And it's, it's just this little bit of anxiety that can flare up around kind of that public attention. Because when I've had that public attention, it has been associated to negative things, whether it was that moment or whether it was, you know, bullying or whether it was being made fun of. So I think that those things, we can learn all of the techniques, but I think if we don't go back and do the things like you're saying, they get kind of stuck.

They, they get stuck in your body.

Yes, yeah, stuck in the body. And then we go to these well intentioned doctors and it's just like what I used to do is, you know, take this supplement, take this herb. But the thing is, is that the body is doing everything that it can to protect us. And then when we go in opposition to that and we fight that, it's undermining everything that the body is trying to do and it doesn't give us greater life, we end up feeling burned out. And so, so many women that I'm working with right now who are going through perimenopause and menopause is. They're in a flop, they're burned out, they're so exhausted. I can't fight anymore. I just like need to zone out in front of my phone. I need to dissociate. I just wish that I had the energy to do all the things. I just don't. And oftentimes it comes from being at battle with ourselves for so many years. And what if we were to completely pivot that and then focus on how can I absolutely love my littles and how can I lean into the healing messages that they're asking me to? And functional medicine absolutely has its place. Heal the gut, bring down inflammation, move the body, detoxify, use clean products. And let's change our views on what the messages of our symptoms actually are.

What are some of the. Because I know you work with so many people. Do you have kind of like these common themes around anxiety? Are there certain things that have triggered people? Like what comes up the most with some of the stories?

I feel like the biggest stories that I have coming into my office are unmet needs. And it's needing to be seen, heard, respected, and honored. And I think that I'm seeing more of that right now because we live in such a disconnected and lonely society. We have a whole generation of kids growing up that didn't get to see each other's faces because they were behind masks for the entirety of the pandemic. And I was just on an interview earlier today where they were talking about how so many of us don't even make eye contact anymore. And so humans are starved for affection. And Bruce Perry and Oprah wrote this really great book. It's called what Happened to you? And so it's standing on the shoulders of Bessel Van der Kolk, who wrote the book the Body Keeps the Score. And I think that what we're seeing now is unmet needs. I feel lonely. I feel unseen. I feel unheard. And we're desperate for connection. And I honor you because you are really good at creating places where people can really connect, not just in a superficial level of, like, hi, I'm talking to the checkout person at Trader Joe's, but, like, really, like, how can we. How can we be together as human beings instead of human doings? And people desperately need that. And when we don't have our needs met, then our body tells us in all sorts of ways.

So is that showing up for people, like, when they're saying that? Is that panic anxiety? Like, is that how that's coming through for them?

I see it come through with panic anxiety, and I see it coming through a lot with the immune system. If you have a hundred people and they go to school in a wet building, and so there's mold in that school. We found from the clinical research that not everybody who is in a moldy school building will get sick. Not everybody will get mold illness. But we have found that those individuals who have early childhood stressors, and there's an ACEs study that was done by the CDC and Kaiser Permanente. You can take it online and identify your ACE score, your childhood stress score, and that people who have higher aces, who have early childhood stress and trauma, that they are at a significantly greater risk of getting sick from these things. And so I'm seeing a ton of mold sickness. I'm seeing a ton of Lyme disease. I'm seeing chronic fatigue. I'm seeing post Covid, long haul Covid. And so we're seeing these immune system issues that are coming up, but when we treat it immunologically, it isn't working because it isn't rooted in the immune system. It's Actually rooted in the nervous system. And so then we have this neuroimmune conditioned system that's being programmed that we have to completely unravel.

So you had talked about, you're really digging into just stress in trauma right now, just those particular themes. Is there a reason that you're so passionate about those?

I think that those are the root of the root of the root. So somebody, like, if somebody comes into my office, I'm thinking about the person that I talked with this morning. I did an EMDR session with somebody in Italy this morning, and she came to me because she's really struggling to lose weight and she has anxiety and she has a ton of joint pain and she's like, oh, Kane does anxiety, maybe that'll, that'll be helpful. And so we did all this immune system testing. She's seen lots of doctors, they have her on low dose naltrexone, they have her doing stretching, she's doing all this physical therapy. She's good medicine out there in Italy, and she's doing all of the things, but nothing is shifting the way that she needs it to. So what we did is we went into the body. So we said, okay, notice in the body where you feel pain, and I want you to, in the body where you feel anxiety, I want you to notice the struggle to lose weight. And then what we did is, we did what's called a meeting place. And so we imagined a room that she could create in her mind that had a door. And when she opened the door, she invited all of the parts of herself that may be a part of her symptom picture. And so this started this journey where we've been digging into early childhood experiences that created a whole domino effect of adaptation. And by going in and trying to treating the root of the root of the root, which are these, these really difficult stressors that she went through, is that her immune system numbers were getting better, her subjective experience of pain was getting better, her weight started to come down. And we're seeing that in the EMDR research that if we can try to find the root of the root of the root. Well, I have low vitamin D. Well, why do I have low vitamin D? Well, I, I have this gene that predisposes me for not having low vitamin D. Well, why is this gene activated? Well, you know, so it's like always asking why, why, why? And then when we, if we can get to the root of the root of the root, that's where true healing takes place. And I'm seeing that it's in the. It's in the nervous system.

Just for anyone listening who doesn't know what EMDR is, just explain a little how it works so they can understand it.

So EMDR was invented by Francine Shapiro in the 1980s, and she was aware that there was some sort of a deeper process that was taking place. When we experience symptoms, whether it's really severe ptsd, they did a lot of their original studies on combat veterans, or if it's a lack of a need, maybe it's neglected. And so predominantly people were using talk therapy. And like you said earlier, Lori, I think you hit the nail on the head is, is that the body doesn't necessarily care what we think logically. And so what Francine worked out, she was studying hypnosis quite a lot actually at that time in her career, is that if we stimulate the body and we remind the body that it's in the present moment, just like we did the butterfly hug and we tap. When we tap, it's like, hey, come back to right now. Come back to right now. So for activating those parts of the brain through stimuli and specifically a lot of the research is left and right and left and right. And you can do it with tapping like we did, or you can use your eyes and you can rotate your eyes left and right. That, that brings us back to the present moment. So that when we go into to those past traumas, those past stressors, that suddenly we've built a road connecting A to Z and we've given it access to time. And oftentimes when people go through this counseling process, which your insurance covers, which is so lovely, is most insurance will cover this is that after three to five sessions of doing this is that 80% of people are no longer diagnosable with PTSD. Their symptoms are so much better. And so it's pretty cool. And so I've kind of taken pieces from EMDR and pieces from hypnosis and ifs. And that's the panic proof method that you read about in the book.

I love that. I'm so excited for people to get this book. You guys, if, if you have anything like I do in little corners, swept under your bed is definitely the way to get, to get rid of those things. So I'm so grateful that you took all of this work and all the things that have worked for you and your people and put it all in one spot. So where can we go and get it?

Anywhere books are sold. Shop local. It's for sure, like Barnes and Noble and Amazon and book trader. And so, yes, please, please order it. And if you, if you love it, share it. I would be so very grateful. Yes.

In the show notes, I'll put all of the links and all of the things so they can also go follow you. What is your handle?

Dr. Nicole Kane. And that C A I N. Thank.

You so much for being on. I'm so grateful for you for sharing and for bringing me through some of those exercises as well. And you guys, I'm so grateful for you. Always go give her a follow. Check out the book. And until next time, earn your happy.

Bye, everyone. Sa.