00:00:03:07 - 00:00:16:23
Chris
Hello and welcome to the ending Buddy Burnout show. We are your host, Chris and Filly co-founders of a multi winning functional medicine practice serving busy people with energy, mood and gut issues.
00:00:17:00 - 00:00:24:21
Filly
Well, business, addictive doing, people pleasing and perfectionism might be the norm. It's not normal and it's a major contributor to health issues.
00:00:25:00 - 00:00:38:04
Chris
Our goal with this show is to give you a holistic root root cause approach to healing your body so that you don't have to continue doctor or diet hopping or popping a gazillion supplements hoping something might stick.
00:00:38:05 - 00:00:46:07
Filly
So get ready to heal your body. Get your spark back deeply, connect with yourself, and step into the life of your dreams.
00:00:46:10 - 00:00:55:17
Chris
Let's dive in.
00:00:55:19 - 00:01:27:01
Filly
Hello and welcome to the podcast. You are in for a treat today. Chris and I just recently interviewed the amazing Jessica McGuire, who is the founder of the Nervous System School, and I've been following her on socials for quite a long time. I love her, her take on the nervous system. She is so intelligent, which you are definitely going to gather when we have this conversation today.
00:01:27:03 - 00:02:06:05
Filly
And and so Sara, in her thinking around how the nervous system works and how it impacts the rest of our body, and also some really practical tools to support your system, depending on where your nervous system is at. There were so many, you would just hear Chris and I say a lot, wow, oh my gosh, there are a lot of light bulb moments that we had some huge knowledge bombs and this is going to be really great, especially, if you feel like you have tried so many things, you know, practice ending body you out method.
00:02:06:07 - 00:02:40:01
Filly
we're going beyond just using standard functional medicine protocols. Yes. That's important. Can definitely help with the healing and recovery from body burnout symptoms. but if the other part of you, the brain, the nervous system, the neural pathways, the unconscious mind isn't addressed, and it is also in a dysregulated and inflamed state, then it's really hard for people to get long term healing or to even get any results at all.
00:02:40:03 - 00:03:09:01
Filly
So this is going to allow you to really just see a different lens in terms of the body mind connection and how it's not about treating one or the other. It's actually looking at how our whole self interacts as a entire being. So Jessica is, as I mentioned, the founder of the Nervous System School. She holds a Bachelor of Health, Health Science and a master of physiotherapy.
00:03:09:03 - 00:03:37:19
Filly
Her post graduate study includes the fields of neuroscience, neuroplasticity, the poly vagal theory, and transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation. As a Ted speaker, lecturer and internationally published author, she believes that knowledge is power. Jessica teaches a long term, sustainable and profoundly transformative methodology of nervous system repair, empowering students to step into the driver's seat of their own health and well-being.
00:03:37:21 - 00:03:54:01
Filly
Today, her teachings have impacted the lives of over 16,000 students worldwide. And so I'm so excited for your beautiful ease to hear this conversation today. You're going to get so many takeaways.
00:03:54:03 - 00:04:07:07
Chris
From how do you everybody. Welcome to the anybody burnout show. We are so excited to bring this episode to you. We have our special guest, Jessica McGuire. yeah. Billy.
00:04:07:09 - 00:04:24:21
Filly
I am so excited to talk to Jessica here because I've been following you on Instagram for a long time. You have the nervous system at school, and you just. Yeah. One of the thought leaders I feel in nervous system, especially in Australia, but also globally. Yeah.
00:04:24:23 - 00:04:46:05
Jessica
It's really. Yeah, it's, it's been a really interesting series sharing my knowledge on the therapy system. And, we do have quite a global audience now. It's grown to be bigger than what I could have ever imagined when I first started talking about this system, through our social media channels. So it's a really exciting time for us.
00:04:46:06 - 00:05:11:21
Filly
Yeah, it's so cool. So we love with our guests to dive into just getting to know you personally and our listeners to know you personally, because often there's an overflow of your own experiences and then embodying what you do with what you do to help other people as well. So talking about body burnout, do you have an experience of when you struggled with body?
00:05:11:22 - 00:05:17:20
Filly
What did that look like? When was it and how did you move out of it?
00:05:17:22 - 00:05:51:07
Jessica
Yes, I do. so it's probably going back, I mean, to say about 12 weeks ago and I had my own physiotherapy clinic, so, it was busy and looking at it now, in hindsight, for the younger version of myself who had these really high, lofty expectations and thought she could do it all. you know, it was seeing a full patient pay per day managing the practice and a team of other people, and then still looking at business operations.
00:05:51:07 - 00:06:15:02
Jessica
And, you know, that's really three roles in one. But I would often tune out listening to my own body and what it needed for that bit of a story around, you know, had to do it all, had to be everything to everyone. And so, but it didn't take what took a few years. But I started to get some digestive symptoms, first of all, show up.
00:06:15:02 - 00:06:44:00
Jessica
And I find for me, that's always the first clue of when, I've been pushing it a bit too far and then, that also coincided with some insomnia and yeah, a stage where I hit burnout. But it was a I think it's an interesting lesson because you can then really emphasise with the people that you help if you been there yourself, but it also was one of the steps towards learning more about the nervous system and the work that I teach today.
00:06:44:00 - 00:06:57:16
Jessica
And I think you really need to be able to walk the talk as a clinician if you're going to help other people, you know, you've really you can recognise that, empathise with other people, but also you've really embodied the work that you're teaching.
00:06:57:20 - 00:07:23:05
Filly
Yeah, you have those you've practised the tools, all the things in order to be able to help people because it's very different. Just like textbook, this is what you should do to, you know what? I actually really know what it feels like to be in that situation and actually to do or be to move out of that. So you mentioned, like the lofty ideals, expectations, wanting to be everything for everyone.
00:07:23:06 - 00:07:32:00
Filly
What do you feel like was the was the deepest root that led to the burnout back in practice?
00:07:32:02 - 00:07:59:12
Jessica
I definitely think it was beliefs around that were outside of my awareness. Like I didn't have the self-awareness. And I think also I didn't have this understanding of my own nervous system to be able to recognise, I've shifted into a state of sympathetic overdrive. What I'm starting to shift into this state of feeling, burnt out.
00:07:59:12 - 00:08:24:03
Jessica
I just didn't have that awareness or knowledge, which is, you know, pretty much the entire starting point for all our education programs. Now. And I think I just didn't have the skills to be able to, look at the underlying beliefs that were driving my behaviours and choices and to step back and see the big picture. You know, I wasn't very old.
00:08:24:03 - 00:08:56:03
Jessica
It was the first time I'd ever run a business. I wanted to do really well with it, but also there were just things I didn't know about. You know, what to do at tax time, what to do with employment things. And I think it was they were big, big challenges. But I like to say that was a little bit of my apprenticeship around, learning about myself and how to work with a team which has paid off to today, and it's just a stepping stone in the work of what what nervous system school does now.
00:08:56:05 - 00:09:25:20
Jessica
but I think knowing now what I know, if I had the skills to recognise what was going on in my brain and my body at that time, I could have probably, done taken steps that were a little bit more, kinder to myself, but also a little bit more empowering and asked for help sooner and recognised when it was time to, cut back a little bit when, when I was pushing to do more, more, more.
00:09:26:00 - 00:09:28:06
Jessica
00:09:28:08 - 00:09:43:16
Filly
I'm curious, this is a question that I sent to you that like moving from physiotherapy, like standard physiotherapy to nervous system. What, why why why did you make that jump that late.
00:09:43:18 - 00:10:10:19
Jessica
they are, it's very intricately connected. The work that I was doing and the work that I do now, it's looking at the communication between the brain and body when we look at what physical pain is. When I had a lot of people that came to me with persistent pain that had gone through, you know, the usual routes initially to get treatment and that hadn't worked.
00:10:10:19 - 00:10:40:22
Jessica
And so, tended to be the clinic that GP's referred to when they were like, oh, this is a chronic case, or this is complex because there's PTSD involved or there's anxiety or there's got disorders. And so I actually really enjoyed that challenge. And I'd had an intuitive knowing for a long time that, you know, there's this emotional component to it that was underneath for a lot of these people.
00:10:40:22 - 00:11:00:16
Jessica
Like the story was always the same. It was something along the lines of someone had been through a difficult period in their life, and they'd had a flare up of their symptoms. and each time there was something emotional going on or they went outside, you know, into that high levels of stress for long periods of time, then their pain would flare up.
00:11:00:18 - 00:11:33:22
Jessica
And so I was looking for frameworks and understanding for myself as a clinician, but also to educate patients in a way that wasn't sending the message. It's only in your head, because for a lot of the time, that's what patients are getting. When clinicians try to educate them around the connection between the brain and the body. And like, you know, we know that when there's physical pain, there are changes that happen in the brain around processing that kind.
00:11:34:03 - 00:11:54:03
Jessica
However, that's not to say that the pain isn't very real. And I've always loved Shades of Grey. I've I liked the place when it's complexity and nuance. probably the thing that irritates me more than anything on social media is saying, everybody should do this all of the time. And that will say, you know, I see it with trauma now.
00:11:54:05 - 00:12:29:16
Jessica
Like, it just it's my bugbear. But for me, once I got a deeper understanding into neuroscience, I looked into a lot of biofeedback before physiotherapy, I was doing a lot of study that looked at like with EKGs in the heart. It was kind of a unique way that I was beginning to see the connection between what we might say as musculoskeletal, combined with what is nervous system combined with immune and endocrine.
00:12:29:18 - 00:13:03:01
Jessica
And rather than having this separation, I began just to look at, well, how does the brain and body communicate? And it just became such a fascination. I mean, I became really obsessed with it. And through 2016 to 2018, I started to step away from traditional physiotherapy and do more postgraduate study. And then around about 2018, we taught the first vagus nerve master class, and I was predominantly doing this with my patients.
00:13:03:03 - 00:13:30:12
Jessica
And then it just really grew like people were really wanting this work because it was giving them frameworks to understand why they were having chronic health issues, but also in the moment to say, oh, I recognise this response in my brain and my body and that reappraisal, but to see what was going on was so empowering because it stopped people feeling like, oh, there's something wrong with me.
00:13:30:12 - 00:13:51:06
Jessica
It was like this pause to go, no, no, this is my nervous system responding in this way, because this is what it's learnt from my past. And so it just was this wonderful evolution into then the vagus nerve program. And I think we've now had over 16,000 students come through system.
00:13:51:08 - 00:13:51:22
Chris
that's awesome.
00:13:51:22 - 00:14:17:11
Jessica
That is awesome. Yeah. It is. It's so amazing that I didn't see this happening. It was just I had a compelling desire to share this information and really give people back this sense of agency. Because if we look at what traumatic stress is, it's a loss of agency. You know, it's a loss of power. So I wanted people to feel like you step back into the driver's seat.
00:14:17:16 - 00:14:21:09
Jessica
I'll just show you the ways that you can do that.
00:14:21:11 - 00:14:44:13
Filly
I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that, because I feel like my own journey as well. I started well, I got into functional medicine, nutrition because of my own health issues that got stuck at Covid time when all my health issues flared up again and it's like, oh, what? Why are the supplements and the diets and the exercise and even like the meditation, why is it not working this time?
00:14:44:15 - 00:15:02:17
Filly
And it was yeah, my my whole system had got to a point where it's like, this isn't just physical anymore. Like there were so many neural pathways in my nervous system. We're so stuck in a fight flight that that was the next level of healing that needed to happen in order for my body to actually be able to heal.
00:15:02:17 - 00:15:28:16
Filly
But there was still like, it's interesting when you said, you know, because there is the message of it's just it's only in your head, just like, calm down, just relax, stop stressing. And that can be really disempowering for people. but when you can understand that, yes, emotions and stress affects you, but it's affecting you in a really physiological way.
00:15:28:18 - 00:15:43:14
Filly
for me, I had histamine intolerance. So literally, like my body was producing a lot of histamine. There was a physical response there, but there was a deep in nervous system, emotional raisin that was leading to that. Yeah.
00:15:43:15 - 00:16:14:06
Jessica
It's it's hard, isn't it, because we've separated systems that actually communicate together. Like we can actually think of it as the near immune system when it comes to pain, because there's just as much a response of the immune system as there is of the neurones. And I think, you know, whilst the term neuroplasticity has been really helpful for us to understand change, we like to talk about it as bio plasticity because it is not just neurones that are changing.
00:16:14:06 - 00:16:42:19
Jessica
When we have things in our past that are traumatic. it's also things like our immune system and our immune system has a memory. It remembers what happens and it's also then our endocrine system, it's our digestive system. But that's also the positive side. Is that what we do? Because it's all going to change anyway. We can just influence the way that it changes, you know, in a nourishing or depleting way.
00:16:42:21 - 00:16:58:21
Jessica
And I think that's where what you're saying, the essence of what we can call healing. There's so much science to show how these systems connect together. And when we look at the emotional part, we're also working on the physiology, which is such an amazing thing.
00:16:59:00 - 00:17:26:09
Filly
Yeah, yeah, it's so cool. So cool. The holistic approach now you have a lot of emphasis on the vagus nerve in Nervous System school. Can you talk about what that is and specifically like in context of a lot of our listeners are busy, overwhelmed, maybe running perfectionism, people pleasing type patterns. why are they more susceptible to having a wonky vagus nerve?
00:17:26:11 - 00:17:56:14
Jessica
Oh, it's such a good question. love the vagus nerve. Could talk about it all day, so I'll try not to nerd out on it too much. But the vagus nerve is one of our cranial nerves, and these are really the nerves that act like a bridge between the body and the brain. So to make it easy to understand where it runs, if you place one hand on the back of your head where the skull meets the neck and you went inwards from there, we have our brainstem and that's where it originates.
00:17:56:20 - 00:18:22:04
Jessica
So it starts from there. And one of the branches goes to the heart. And so this is the branch that returns us back towards regulation and slows our geology down because it connects directly to the heart pacemaker. The other branch goes from the brainstem down right down to the lower abdomen, and it touches almost every organ on the way, which is amazing.
00:18:22:06 - 00:18:43:04
Jessica
so it's got, you know, I hear this is another one of my social media twinges. We hear a lot about how we, you know, hack the vagus nerve. And it's like this one nerve that if we fix it, you know, all our problems will go away. But it's useful to think of it more like almost like a series of ecosystems in a forest.
00:18:43:06 - 00:19:06:04
Jessica
You know, we've got that one branch. It's coming down to the heart, one branch that's coming to our gut. We also have a branch from our heart that goes up to our size, and that's involved with communication, speech. And it's influencing the people around us. And it's why we are influenced by the people who we're spending time with.
00:19:06:04 - 00:19:49:12
Jessica
So, you know, if we're going honest people who are stressed, who are dysregulated, we eventually ourselves will be picking up on cues more likely outside of our conscious awareness that will change our own physiology, making us more prone to shifting towards these regulation as well. So really interesting how we can say there's the emotional part, there's the physiological part, but there's really what I find so fascinating is the relational part and this sense of belonging to, you know, within our communities at large, even will be impacting on our nervous system.
00:19:49:14 - 00:19:50:06
Chris
00:19:50:11 - 00:19:54:05
Filly
Wow I have a question about that. Sorry.
00:19:54:06 - 00:19:59:12
Chris
My brain is just gone. But. Super cool.
00:19:59:14 - 00:20:14:10
Filly
So if we're picking up on like unconsciously as well picking up on cues, can that be different from one person to the next in terms of their past experience and maybe even their belief system that they have about themselves?
00:20:14:12 - 00:20:43:09
Jessica
Right. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, somebody could remind us of somebody in our past who, you know, we didn't, feel was that safe to be around. And that could be setting things up. I think it's very easy for people, if we're in relationships today where something feels similar from a body based perspective to something that a previous partner did, we might react pretty quickly and feel ourselves, you know?
00:20:43:11 - 00:21:15:20
Jessica
but yeah, it's really like through the sound of someone's voice, the gestures, like the movements of their head and neck, it's the expression on their face that is sending these cues that are going to the lower parts of our brain, not necessarily into the cognitive parts where we make those rational, slower decisions. It's more to the part that moves quickly and can will be related to past memories that we've stored outside of conscious awareness.
00:21:15:21 - 00:21:36:17
Filly
So if this is happening like what's, what's the what's the next step to help regulate. Is it kind of like returning back to yourself or is there things that you could do so that if you're in that situation again with that person and they haven't changed, you can become more resilient? I know that this will be a question that listeners ask as well.
00:21:36:23 - 00:21:37:13
Filly
Yeah.
00:21:37:15 - 00:22:04:21
Jessica
Yeah, I the really good question, I think for any of this to this where we first start like a lot of people say, well, you know, what can I do as the basic to the size before we start and needs to be having this awareness of what our system is doing and what state we moving into. So for instance, let's say we're around someone who, might be, you know, checking their phone, looking away, not really listening.
00:22:05:02 - 00:22:43:10
Jessica
We can feel this reaction in our body and it might go in two ways. So we might notice that we get irritation. We get like our heartbeats a little bit faster. We get our jaw clenching, and we're like, oh, this are rude. So that could be one response. But when we've done the role playing with this, one thing that actually happened more, which I was really surprised we did not workshops, was that a lot of people actually had a shame response, and they had a little bit of like a collapse of what I have to say isn't actually worth listening to anyway.
00:22:43:12 - 00:23:22:10
Jessica
And so there was the drop in the nervous system of what we might say led them more to the state of hypo arousal. And they we might look at it as like a shutting down where they didn't speak much after that. So whatever state we move into, we will use different resources. because if we're talking about how our nervous system changes through that word I mentioned before around neuroplasticity, which basically just means neuro neurones and plasticity means to change, we need to be specific in order for that process to happen.
00:23:22:12 - 00:24:05:17
Jessica
So one way that we can look at this is first of all, learning to recognise the state. And if we are moving up into that heightened state where we've got the anger, the irritation, that might mean where we want to coax our nervous system back down a little bit. And so the way that we might need to do that is being able to go, okay, I recognise the clench or I recognise the shoulders of my racing heart, if I just can soften through the jaw, if I can connect to my environment by slowing down a little bit, and this could be like, I'm going to just slowly look around the environment for a minute.
00:24:05:19 - 00:24:24:21
Jessica
But on the other hand, if we've had that drop in physiology, well, we might say I need to add some energy into my system. And so when people tend to have that collapse shame, that might look like I'm going to sit back up, lift up my breastbone, open my shoulders, I'm going to try and lengthen through my spine.
00:24:24:21 - 00:24:27:03
Jessica
And I mean, I can feel my energy come up. Just bring.
00:24:27:03 - 00:24:28:03
Filly
It to.
00:24:28:05 - 00:25:05:07
Jessica
Yeah. So those little ways that we learn to do it, especially in the heat of the moment when we are triggered, that's where we really get change, because our survival brain, which is the part of our brain that's determining what state we move into, is learning something new in that situation. And we just spoke about so much of what we do is respond to what's happened in our past, because our nervous system, its shapes, its cells based on our experiences, you know, with our relationships and the environments we're in.
00:25:05:10 - 00:25:20:04
Jessica
So essentially, we can teach it something new, a new way of responding. Today it's far more empowering and keeps us more regulated. I love that cool.
00:25:20:06 - 00:25:35:14
Filly
Sorry. Cool. so the vagus nerve and nervous system is flexible resilient. How might someone know when there's quite a lot of dysregulation happening where they get stuck in a chronic state of fight or flight.
00:25:35:15 - 00:25:38:22
Jessica
Yeah. sorry. Clearly you did ask me that about the vagus nerve.
00:25:39:00 - 00:25:41:08
Filly
It's okay.
00:25:41:10 - 00:26:04:17
Jessica
so when we look at the nervous system state, we can look at it as having three primary states. And we've touched on these a little bit. So we can say a regulated state, which is let's say we're talking with somebody. We feel connected. We feel that sense of what we might say in this state. It's that sense of feeling safe and social, you know, like someone who really sees and hears you.
00:26:04:19 - 00:26:28:07
Jessica
But we we said before, if someone was being a little bit rude, maybe talking over the top of this, maybe said something offensive when we feel that a mobilisation happened first, that takes us up into the sympathetic nervous system state. And basically in that state, it's just mobilising energy to meet a challenge and face a demand, you know?
00:26:28:07 - 00:26:50:01
Jessica
So stress itself gets a really bad rep, but it's not actually bad for us if we get to recover fully from it. So if we take, say, that annoying person who was talking over the top of us and we felt the sympathetic energy come up and we have, what happens in that time is the vagus nerve actually withdraws.
00:26:50:05 - 00:27:16:01
Jessica
So that lets that energy come in, because the vagus nerve is acting a little bit like a brake on our heart and slowing our physiology down. So say our mobilising energy comes in. But you know, once we leave, we go for a walk. We start to feel better. The vagus nerve will come back on, our heart rate will slow down, and that mobilising energy will go back to it'll it'll dissipate back to where we started.
00:27:16:03 - 00:27:40:16
Jessica
Now, the other way things can go, which I mentioned before as well, is the drop in energy. So from that regulated state we might drop down and feel the sense of hypo arousal. And that has also been called the dorsal vagal state. In that state we'll feel more of a collapse. But its energy is immobilising. So we had the mobilising before.
00:27:40:18 - 00:28:10:21
Jessica
This one is in mobilising. And it's tricky because we sometimes say, well, why would my nervous system immobilise me when I feel threatened, you know, why would I freeze? Why would I collapse? But if we think about it evolutionary wise, it actually makes a lot of sense. Because if we were being chased or doing a really dangerous situation, collapsing can deter a predator who thinks, oh, well, they're not running away.
00:28:10:23 - 00:28:32:01
Jessica
But it also means that we might not be seeing if we drop to the ground. And for a lot of people, this can be the safest thing that happens. You know, if someone's in a dangerous situation with somebody who is threatening them and they freeze, that might be a safer thing to have happened and to fight. So it's a very protective thing.
00:28:32:03 - 00:29:08:07
Jessica
And I think our society doesn't quite have a handle on understanding this. So. Well, you know, we need to be judgy around. Well, why don't they do something? If they were having such a hard time, why didn't they speak up? But people with this, if you move into this physiological state, you can't. So when we talk about what is traumatic and what is not traumatic, moving into that dorsal vagal stay at the time of something difficult, where we freeze or we have a, we have a collapse, we could say is really what I'd like to find that as being something traumatic.
00:29:08:09 - 00:29:37:11
Jessica
And then what can happen is that the nervous system continues to respond with the same energy to challenges today. So then I go to, you know, do something at work, like a presentation. I might feel myself freeze or collapse or in difficult conversations, I might completely just withdraw, isolate. And that's how, again, the nervous system is always changing and shaping itself.
00:29:37:13 - 00:30:05:20
Jessica
But if we spend long periods of time in either the mobilise nation state where we're anxious, angry, irritated, we don't sleep because we can't wind down or we're down in that shut down we're in collapse or freeze. Well, essentially what would look like burnout as well, then we can call that dysregulation. And so it's a little bit like stuck on high or stuck on low.
00:30:05:23 - 00:30:10:13
Jessica
Or for some people that oscillate between the two states.
00:30:10:15 - 00:30:35:18
Filly
Yeah. Okay. Sorry. So you're talking about trauma a lot as well, which can keep people in either one of those states like the to to high to low. So what's from a nervous system perspective. because it is the body and it's not just the mind. What's your take in terms of being able to process past trauma. Say someone can start self regulating.
00:30:35:20 - 00:31:07:18
Jessica
it's a great question. And what we'll say in people who are dysregulated is that there is a lower, we call it violent tone. But this is where we say the vagus nerve isn't working as well. And that is because of at the time. If we're still responding where the vagus nerve withdrew because we haven't completed the stress cycle per se, we then don't have that vagus nerve coming in and having a break on our physiology.
00:31:07:18 - 00:31:28:11
Jessica
So let's say that you imagine you're on a bicycle and you're going downhill. You just going to keep a little bit of the brakes, engage with your fingers so you don't go too fast. Well, that's what the vagus nerve is doing to us at rest. But when we have experienced something traumatic, it's a little bit like that break isn't engaged.
00:31:28:13 - 00:31:56:19
Jessica
And so we go downhill afterwards and we end up going too fast. You know, we have the hypervigilance, the really high levels of, anxiety, panic or for some people it presents as anger and rage. And then if we can't cope with that, we end up shifting into that, like the collapse. Now, I think for a lot of people, there's a we think of something traumatic happening is being psychological.
00:31:56:21 - 00:32:20:21
Jessica
You know, it's like, well, it's in my, my mind, isn't it? But if we look at this from a nervous system point of view and a neuroscience point of view, what we say happens is that we have a loss of vagal tone, which is in the body. We have an increase in sympathetic activation, which is also in the body.
00:32:20:23 - 00:32:52:10
Jessica
And when we look at what happens for people that move into that shut down today, they often dissociate from the body. So it's not body, it or brain, it's actually how they communicate. And so if I'm going into that shut down dissociative state where I can't really connect with my body, it's about the signals from the body not reaching the brain and keeping the brain on line.
00:32:52:11 - 00:33:16:23
Jessica
So there's two really important regions here. And stay with me because I'll go a bit nerdy. But it's important, I think, for people to understand this. But the one of the main read regions is deep in the centre of the brain, what we call the insula or the insula cortex. Now, when we've looked at research on people with post-traumatic stress disorder, they can go two ways.
00:33:17:01 - 00:33:44:15
Jessica
So if you imagine that bodily signals are like the volume on music, and so I can have signals that the volume is turned up too high. So it's really loud. Now those signals are being relayed via the vagus nerve primarily. But there's also the spinal cord as well. And if they're too loud, I feel them, I get overwhelmed.
00:33:44:17 - 00:34:10:11
Jessica
And it just shows that the insula, there's a lot of activity happening in that. It's a bit like Heathrow Airport, you know, right in the middle of the brain. There's planes flying in, there's planes flying here, flying there. And one of the ways that the planes tend to fly is to the fear circuitry. So we feel a sensation and automatically it gets appraised as something really bad is going to happen.
00:34:10:13 - 00:34:38:14
Jessica
you know, and that escalate what's happening. So that process of noticing and understanding our bodily signals is called interception. And they're a sensory system. So, you know, we've got our five out of facing senses. Then we've got our sixth sense, which is proprioception or the joint position of our body in space. We've got our seventh sense related to our vestibular system or the position of our head.
00:34:38:16 - 00:35:12:14
Jessica
And then interception is a system that is telling us like relaying to the brain what's happening in the body. And it's a big feedback loop of the vagus nerve that's saying, you know, this is coming up to the brain and then the brain is responding back down. Now, when we look at interception and people who tend to cut off from their body or shut down, it's showing that when signals are relayed via the vagus nerve, there's a lot of activity in the insula.
00:35:12:16 - 00:35:36:08
Jessica
And so they don't reach our awareness. And if we look at that, what it tells us is that people may struggle to understand their bodily states. So it's like not having cues of hunger, thirst. So that influences their ability to regulate their physiology because they can't take care of it. But then it's also to do with their emotions.
00:35:36:10 - 00:36:00:09
Jessica
And so in this case, we might not notice. We're getting irritated. We might not notice, okay, this irritation is going to anger. And then we end up slipping our lead because we haven't been at to rate these bodily signals. So in that case, it's like the volume is too quiet. And so the best thing that people can do once they have or following traumatic stress.
00:36:00:11 - 00:36:04:17
Jessica
And this can also be the case for neurodivergent individuals as well.
00:36:04:18 - 00:36:06:04
Chris
I was just thinking that.
00:36:06:06 - 00:36:35:05
Jessica
Yeah, they fall into these differences in the inter receptive awareness is to fine tune this process. And this is where the vagus nerve goes. So much further than just, you know, cold showers. It's really like the essence of how we take care of ourselves, but also how we leave in line with our values, how we, you know, take care of our bodily states and our emotions.
00:36:35:05 - 00:37:02:01
Jessica
And the beauty of this system is that it is something we can retrain. You know, it's like if we spray now, wrinkle this swelling and this is, you know, I've come from that physiotherapy background, swollen ankle. We used to train people's propria sceptres by saying, okay, stand on something uneven with your eyes closed and that will help people tune into their brain, their body position in space that would improve over time.
00:37:02:01 - 00:37:20:11
Jessica
They'd go back to playing footy, soccer, netball, whatever it was, and we can do the same with the signals inside of our body and help this system respond accurately to what's happening today. Rather than responding to the traumatic events that have happened in our past.
00:37:20:14 - 00:37:22:21
Filly
Yeah. Wow.
00:37:22:22 - 00:37:23:20
Jessica
That's cool.
00:37:23:22 - 00:37:33:18
Filly
As you just like, wow. Okay. oh. Do you have a question? No. Okay, I do.
00:37:33:20 - 00:37:34:12
Jessica
Oh you do.
00:37:34:16 - 00:37:37:00
Chris
I haven't formulated it yet.
00:37:37:00 - 00:37:55:03
Filly
Okay. Yeah. I just when you were talking about. So when these signals are too low because I'm thinking about clients as well, and some really struggle to feed themselves or to drink water because those keys are just turned off. And, you know, obviously, we need to drink water and we need to fuel our body and nourish our body.
00:37:55:05 - 00:38:00:06
Filly
So from from that point of view, like how do you turn the signals out?
00:38:00:08 - 00:38:20:13
Jessica
So we might need to first of all lean into extra ception, cuz that's the key things outside of us to help us. And that could be okay. First of all, to get used to checking in to bodily signals, I'm going to set an alarm on my phone five times a day. You know it, get it to get used to checking into my body.
00:38:20:13 - 00:38:43:08
Jessica
Because I think for a lot of people who are in that state and are shut down and they're not feeling what's happening in their body, it's just not going to come naturally to begin with if it's been a long time. so setting an alarm and for neurodivergent individuals like we mentioned, this means we might need someone external to start to tell us, you know, to help us with that.
00:38:43:08 - 00:39:08:23
Jessica
Like we we, we might need help with, like, around when we're going to eight but also making the shift away from, okay, it's 1230, it's time for lunch to watch my hunger levels. Am I hungry? What's you know, like, if we if we have cues to remind us. What? When I would grab a drink. Can we check in with the bodily signals as well?
00:39:08:23 - 00:39:43:14
Jessica
And so one thing that we look at in research revolves around this granularity. And if we think about like people might recognise, well, I just feel bad or I just feel stressed or I just don't feel great, it's like, well, what are the bodily signals that tell you that? So for instance, if we looked at hunger, the bodily signals that tell us that we're hungry could be my stomach's growling, I feel faint, and I'm starting to feel irritable if I'm hungry, if I'm hangry.
00:39:43:14 - 00:40:08:13
Jessica
So, but we can say for anxiety, for instance, how what is what are the bodily signals that tell us that we're getting anxious? So if, if we think about for a lot of people, this might start out as a heartbeat to beat faster, well, that could be anxiety, but it could also be excitement. It could also be, you know, something joyful.
00:40:08:15 - 00:40:30:16
Jessica
So we learn to say. But then there's also tension in my shoulders and maybe my jaw is a little bit tight and I feel a bit shaky. And then we could say, it's those bodily signals that tell me that I'm anxious, and that's where we stop. So it's two or more bodily signals that make up an emotion.
00:40:30:18 - 00:41:00:13
Jessica
But so often at the level of I feel bad, I feel stressed. And so research has shown this granularity that we can have actually is psychologically protective. And it really is. Again, that essence of being able to proactively manage both our bodily state. So around food, you know, around, water when we need a break from work, like what I was saying when I was constantly overriding my limits.
00:41:00:15 - 00:41:30:08
Jessica
It's a lot younger, but also how we can proactively take care of our emotions. And if we can capture these signals early, it means we can stop ourselves from moving into dysregulation in the first place. And we learn to work on a more even keel. So, so much of that dysregulation that comes from not being able to read cues may not be because we're in highly stressful situations today.
00:41:30:10 - 00:41:36:14
Jessica
It could simply be that we're not able to read our bodily signals yet.
00:41:36:16 - 00:41:37:08
Chris
awesome.
00:41:37:08 - 00:42:08:04
Filly
That's so, so interesting to, I've been talking with some clients recently about like, these bodily signals, especially with anxiety and overwhelm and that, you know, the body produces these signals to try and protect us from a threat. But then the bodily sensations, when you're not aware of them and you don't really know how to communicate and like, calm the system down becomes the threat against the threat rather than the defence.
00:42:08:04 - 00:42:15:22
Filly
Like, you know, your whole system kind of gets confused about what's going on here. And then the threat becomes how your body feels.
00:42:16:00 - 00:42:46:10
Jessica
Absolutely. That's 100% right. If we look at the concept of what we call new reception, which is how we move between our different states, so that is really how we detect outside of conscious awareness, if people, places or, situations are safe, dangerous or life threatening, what informs that process are the signals inside our body and our receptors.
00:42:46:10 - 00:43:14:17
Jessica
So what we see here, taste or smell that all of those things. So if we start to feel inside our body like our gut tells awful, we have chronic pain, those things themselves can be the threat. So it can come from inside our body not feeling great. And so this is why again, it's really important that we have these skills to manage our bodily states and our emotions.
00:43:14:17 - 00:43:40:15
Jessica
Not that we can always do that. Like I want to speak to, you know, a lot of people have persistent pain and, that can be a daily challenge for them. But when we can learn to recognise the aspects of those that we can control, including our thoughts around what might be happening in our nervous system or our body, that's when we really start to take back that sense of control.
00:43:40:15 - 00:43:44:17
Jessica
And we're back in the driver's seat. Sorry. Good.
00:43:44:19 - 00:44:09:10
Chris
I was, I was just going to say like I'm thinking existentially and floating up. another fear could be, I'm afraid I don't even know who I am. More. I've lost my, my sense of identity. I'm not sure I can't do the things, but I do the things. So if I can't do the things that I do, who am I anymore?
00:44:09:12 - 00:44:29:09
Chris
And so that that would still be. Maybe it not might, might not be a physical place that they're afraid like it's a it's an emotional it's a, it's, existential. It's kind of the, the same sort of thing will happen, right? They'll they'll, is that it's kind of like, I'm not sure what ception that that would be.
00:44:29:09 - 00:44:30:02
Chris
I'm not.
00:44:30:04 - 00:44:31:09
Filly
But which might.
00:44:31:09 - 00:44:59:03
Jessica
Sense. Very scared, I think. I think what you're saying relates really beautifully to the sense of self and when we think about what we're trying to do here, it's to protect the sense of self. And we've been really exploring this with social media, for instance, because I think it's the perfect place to say this in action. But a few things you said, Chris, I think it's so great to to to pull apart there.
00:44:59:05 - 00:45:30:12
Jessica
And there's research that's shown with physical pain, you know, like a violinist, let's say a professional person who plays a violin and they get a paper card. They're going to experience that pain higher than somebody who's not a professional musician because of the threat around. Well, what does this mean for my income? What does it mean for my identity and my sense of self if I can't, be that person that I become?
00:45:30:14 - 00:46:08:02
Jessica
And I really say that when we put the labels on ourselves because of our nervous system responses, you know, like if we're anxious all the time, it's like, oh, I'm so needy and sensitive and I'm so co-dependent because I have to reach out to people for support. It just amplifies what is already a struggle. You know, we're adding a second layer of struggle on top of the first, and when we look at that sense of self as to who we are, it's there is no fixed sense of who we are.
00:46:08:05 - 00:46:41:07
Jessica
It's a dynamic process that's happening. But the way our body and brain communicate that we are trying to protect something, and that's the beauty of our nervous system. But if we think about when we're in that hyper arousal, we might be more of like the protector. You know, I'm going to protect myself, this sense of self. But when we drop down into that dose of able sense, we might feel more as though, you know, we need to be protected.
00:46:41:07 - 00:47:11:12
Jessica
It's a little bit more of that, real vulnerability there. So I love that you bring that in because pain, physical pain and the way that our nervous system responds, you know, there's not this black and white linear way of responding. It's all of these complex intricacies around identity, around values, around our history, genetics. And and that's what makes it so interesting.
00:47:11:14 - 00:47:36:01
Jessica
But I think as well, it's helpful for us to have an understanding that goes beyond, I've caught my finger, therefore I'll have this much pain or I went through this event, therefore it's traumatic or it's not traumatic because what we're saying is we can't use that as a framework of understanding. It's highly subjective based on each individual person.
00:47:36:03 - 00:47:36:13
Chris
wow.
00:47:36:18 - 00:48:09:16
Filly
Yeah. From a physical point of view. So, people struggling with body burnout, running busy, overwhelmed patterns often shot with energy, mood, gut issues and definitely chronic pain. What's the I mean, yeah, we have been talking about the connection between the body and the mind and the pain. I guess my question actually would be why do you feel like nervous system dysregulation is often the main reason why someone's not responding to physical protocols?
00:48:09:18 - 00:48:11:20
Jessica
It's such a great question.
00:48:11:22 - 00:48:16:08
Filly
that's a very black and white question, wasn't it? Like there might be some grey in that. Yeah.
00:48:16:12 - 00:48:49:07
Jessica
I just I'm running through my head of all the patients and scenarios as we talk. But if somebody has had, I'm going to say months of, an ongoing condition like, you know, looking at gut issues, physical pain, insomnia, and it's not getting better. And there's been, you know, been to X amount of health professionals, had some, assessments done, but it's still persisting.
00:48:49:09 - 00:49:18:12
Jessica
We have to consider the nervous system as a root cause. We have to consider that there's been a shift in the nervous system away from the baseline that's created these changes through the process of neuroplasticity. And I think it's helpful for us to, have that understanding. I think it's really empowering for people. But I think we also need to look at like, look at the acute to look at the organic issues as well.
00:49:18:14 - 00:49:51:07
Jessica
But if we look at the hallmarks of health of the nervous system, it's the gap, it's inflammation. So therefore pain, but also, you know, that can show up in skin conditions and things like that. and it's also our sleep. And so if we're looking at things as a cluster of symptoms, you know, like I've got, I'm anxious, I can't sleep and I've got gut issues, it can help us to start to see those patterns, particularly if we're going through difficult periods in our loss.
00:49:51:11 - 00:50:18:15
Jessica
So yes, I think it's is something where we say, well, we need to we can't rule it out. And for me, that was very much the pattern of the patients I saw because I was working with a demographic who had experienced or had PTSD. So I think it's, really helpful. But, you know, we don't have to have had a big trauma to necessarily have dysregulation.
00:50:18:17 - 00:50:39:06
Jessica
Chronic stress can do the side. So if we're looking at these acute stress like we talked about before, where we see the sympathetic energy come up and the vagus nerve drops down, what that looks like is that we have a change in the way some of our systems work. And one of the best places we see this is in the gut.
00:50:39:08 - 00:51:12:17
Jessica
So the vagus nerve is responsible for maintaining motility of the gut or the movement of food through the gut, which we know will influence in turn, how it will influence our microbiome. It will influence if we have constipation or not. all of those things, then can lead to flow on effects into other things. And I mean, if you look at irritable bowel syndrome now, which we used to talk about so much as I just need to not eat dairy or I just need to not eat gluten.
00:51:12:19 - 00:51:47:18
Jessica
But now it's been reclassified as a disorder of brain interaction. So there are some things like IBS that we certainly want to look at through a nervous system lens. and, and also with persistent pain because pain it is a response to threat. So if our nervous system is picking up on this threat, it is highly likely that, there there will be changes in how that is being interpreted through both the body and the brain, creating this persistent pain.
00:51:47:18 - 00:52:02:21
Jessica
So there's some where we really see that it's, nervous system dysregulation is the underlying part of it, but it's also really helpful for us, as I said, to look at ruling out anything organic as well.
00:52:03:03 - 00:52:37:01
Filly
Yeah, yeah. When you mentioned dairy intolerance, I had a dairy actually does an allergy. Even the tiniest amount of milk solids would cause a lot of inflammatory type symptoms. definitely doing gut work like the physical protocol helped, but it wasn't until I did this more mind body. Looking at it like this actually isn't a dangerous food and really changing my perception of the food, however it started, it doesn't really matter, but it was just this interconnection between the body and mind that just was not happy when I was eating dairy.
00:52:37:01 - 00:52:51:18
Filly
So it's it's so powerful. We're so such powerful beings. And the research around neuroplasticity, plasticity is just amazing because literally we can recreate whatever we want to recreate in our bodies.
00:52:51:20 - 00:52:53:04
Jessica
Yeah. It's amazing.
00:52:53:06 - 00:53:02:14
Filly
Yeah. Last question. I'm curious, are there any mistakes that people make when they start to regulate their nervous system?
00:53:02:16 - 00:53:03:06
Jessica
Yeah.
00:53:03:06 - 00:53:04:11
Filly
So I guess.
00:53:04:13 - 00:53:25:10
Jessica
I've probably touched on this a little bit, with my wingers and my bugbears. But yeah, I think the biggest one comes down to the principles of neuroplasticity. Is that specificity that I spoke about. So, you know, if we if we look at creating change in the nervous system, what we do needs to be specific to a state we're in.
00:53:25:12 - 00:53:52:07
Jessica
I would say, you know, we often hear just use a long, slow exhalation to regulate your nervous system. But if I'm in that dorsal vaguely state, we spoke about, I already have my heart rate slowed right down and I already have my blood pressure really low. I'm going to say too low. So if I then just use this generic approach of okay, I'll use long, slow, deep breathing, I could feel worse.
00:53:52:07 - 00:54:15:04
Jessica
And when I was talking back to you about the burnout state and I was spending time in the dorsal vagal state, I went to a yin yoga class on one particular day, and I felt so much worse afterwards because I dropped down more and more and more, and I felt so, down in this impending sense of doom.
00:54:15:04 - 00:54:35:05
Jessica
After doing that. But wow. So yeah, I love doing yoga. I absolutely love it. But at that particular time, there was so much focus on that dropping down, down, down, down, down that it wasn't the right thing for me. I should have done something that was going to upregulate. So that would be the biggest thing that I would say as a as a mistake.
00:54:35:05 - 00:54:40:16
Jessica
But, you know, again, we can learn from that too and say next. Yeah.
00:54:40:18 - 00:54:48:13
Filly
What what would be an example of up regulating if someone was in that deep exhaustion, depression state?
00:54:48:17 - 00:55:22:05
Jessica
For a lot of people, the best thing because that dorsal vagal state for a lot of people that will say it feels like I'm in a cold, dark room alone and the best thing we can do is connect with other people. And it doesn't have to be, you know, we put so much focus around what we say and how we talk about things, but it could be as simple as going to get a coffee and you get a smile and a moment of connection with the barista, and you feel like this walked in your heart that says, oh yeah, I've got this sense of belonging in my community that can be enough to shift.
00:55:22:05 - 00:56:02:04
Jessica
You know, it can be going to a location where people are. It doesn't need to be. I think people shy away from reaching out when they feel in this state, because they think, I've got to talk about everything, and that has its place. But from this day it's mostly about connection and being with other people. and also, if we speak back to that brain body communication where signals are too quiet in that state, we want to use movement, we want to connect with our body in ways that turn the volume back up on bodily signals.
00:56:02:06 - 00:56:34:03
Jessica
which for, you know, some people that can be, well, I'm going to lay on the ground and I'm going to practice rocking my knees side to side. We're going to do some really gentle, up regulating movement. And even like the isometric contractions where I might push my feet down into the ground and feel the muscles contracting in my body, and that can turn the volume back up on the signals travelling up to the brain via the vagus nerve, which can help to bring enough integration that we come back in towards regulation.
00:56:34:05 - 00:56:35:08
Jessica
00:56:35:10 - 00:56:40:13
Filly
So much good information is just like oh, so much more stuff.
00:56:40:15 - 00:56:41:23
Jessica
I love it.
00:56:42:01 - 00:57:00:11
Filly
Oh thank you so much. I know that all our listeners are going to get so much more insight into how to listen to your body essentially as well. And some things that you can do. So if anyone wants to find out more about you, how can they find you? Do you have any resources that you'd like to share?
00:57:00:13 - 00:57:18:20
Jessica
Yes. Well, we've got loads of free resources on, our website. So you can either go to Jessica mcguire.com or Nervous Systems dotcom. You're probably where I'm the most active is Instagram. And my handle there is repairing underscore the underscore underscore system.
00:57:18:22 - 00:57:22:16
Filly
Awesome. Thank you so much. It's been awesome having you on.
00:57:22:18 - 00:57:24:05
Chris
Thanks Jessica.
00:57:24:07 - 00:57:25:10
Jessica
Thank you.
00:57:25:12 - 00:57:30:03
Chris
All righty. Well we'll catch you later and look forward to connecting again.
00:57:30:05 - 00:57:34:09
Jessica
Thanks so much guys. That was so fun. Thank you. Bye.
00:57:34:11 - 00:57:35:21
Filly
Sofia.
00:57:35:23 - 00:57:39:17
Jessica
Yeah.
00:57:39:19 - 00:57:49:21
Filly
Thank you so much for listening. We so appreciate you. If you'd like to give us extra smiles, drop us a review and spread the love by sharing this episode.
00:57:49:23 - 00:58:15:21
Chris
You can also write your own state of burnout and the root cause contributors by taking our Ending Body Burnout assessment on our website and if you're interested in learning about our group or one on one ending buddy burnout programs, shoot us a DM via Instagram or Facebook. Have the best day ever.
00:58:15:23 - 00:58:16:12
Chris
For.
