835. Regulate Your Nervous System for Less Anxiety + More Joy

36:10It's hangry, hungry, annoyed, irritated, sleepy. It's going to tell you. And it's your job to recognize what those signals mean and then to do something about it because your emotions require an action. Say more about that. So I don't I personally don't think you need to sit with you. I don't think you should sit with your emotions. I think you need to move them out because what's happening when your nervous system, is in an alarm state your cortisol rises and the most appropriate thing to do with cortisol which is your it's called the stress hormone hormone i don't love that it's your go-go think of it as your action getting you up and giving you some pep um but when you are have an emotion that the nervous system detects is an alarm your cortisol goes up and so you need to move you need to move that out you could shake you could get on the floor you could rock you know lots of primal movements you could roll I think I did both of those things with you both um but just get it out and then you will change your state because I don't believe you can think yourself out of a feeling state and I think toddlers are great because they're going to tell you no I don't want to do that I don't want to eat that do you know what I mean I'm not happy I don't like this jumper it scratches me they're going to tell you somehow if they don't have language aren't they with their physicality and their responses you're exactly the same we kind of like to think we're sophisticated we are but actually we are what we feel and how we interpret that and I think that's speaking to the point around talk therapy where it's it's helpful it's just not everything like you said in the beginning and sometimes I feel like when I'm in therapy my therapist will know when I'm kind of like talking's done like like we've kind of done enough talking in this moment and it almost because I step into a loop.

38:01Yes. So we keep talking about it and we're kind of like ruminating on the feeling, but we're actually talking about the feeling. I'm not actually feeling the feeling. And so it's been helpful. She kind of incorporates other modalities into the room, but it's just interesting to know that point at which you're like, actually talking is not going to help me any further. And I think about, you know, children and talk therapy from a young age. There are some children who do therapy from a young age for various reasons, which I think can be helpful. And also to your point of like over identifying with the feeling and just kind of like talking about it instead of moving it.

38:35It's really interesting to think about because it becomes a part of your identity. Exactly. So I can imagine some kids are like, well, I'm anxious. Exactly. I've always been a worried kid. One of my coaching clients, she's so amazing. She owns a bunch of child therapy centers and they believe that child talk therapy is like yeah wrong and so they do nervous system regulation with kids yeah they teach kids how to regulate their nervous systems yeah i probably would share that yeah yeah i just i just think that's not how children really no get rid of it and also actually it's really interesting when i was in la last year lots of parents asked me if i would teach their kids and i'm like actually i'd rather teach you because they're learning it from somewhere so it goes back to the point of if you're not regulated you're not it's kind of it puts the onus on so amazing other people oh american but yeah this child is doing something that actually is a normal childlike thing to do is there a class is there a yeah is there something that i can fix that person and they're not you can't fix a human you know response to things i think that's not a great strategy really and it's not sustainable but actually isn't it better just to go have conversations around that well why are you feeling angry okay why did you just shout at me or why did you do this I have a funny story because my house was so dysfunctional I always thought that relationships had to be volatile because that meant there was passion and it was fiery so literally all my partners for most of my life that I chose were exciting which meant that actually they were really unreliable you know they're exciting and they wanted to do stuff and I was really like yeah I'm really addicted to kind of action, action, action.

40:13And then I remember with one guy who is my husband now, who I really, really love. And we've been together forever. And we've been through such kind of real learning together. I remember just shouting in the kitchen. And halfway through while I was shouting, I was like, I don't even know why I'm shouting. I just do this all the time. It's like, I'm really sorry. I'm going to stop shouting now because I'm just going to talk to you like a proper human person. I just don't know why I'm doing this. What was his nervous system like when you he was just he was kind of just like here she goes again and then he was like got really interested and was like oh I really like that because then you've got true connection you know then you're kind of like I'm not playing this role of being angry for no reason and you know if you're angry it's because it's to do with your dysregulation isn't it um there's something that I'm lacking that isn't to do with you that I need to resolve and figure out and sort out and then I can come back into the relationship as somebody who kind of cherishes you and wants to have a proper connection with you.

41:11Can you break that down a little bit more? Because I think someone hearing would be like, no, I'm angry at my husband. Okay. So if you're angry at someone, as you know, if anyone's shouted at you, can they get you to do what they want you to do? No, not if they're shouting, right? That wouldn't get them to, for you to kind of understand their point of view. So that's probably not the best way to do it. So if you're angry at your husband, I have lots of clients who tell me they're angry at their husband and not all of them, but that's also linked to being a perfectionist. So they're angry that their husband doesn't do the things that they do in the same way.

41:46Oh, my God, what a rod for your back. Do you know what I mean? Like not only are you not doing the task, but then you're micromanaging someone else doing the flipping task. That just seems like insanity to me. Right. So a better thing to do is pick what you know, really question what you're angry about. are you actually angry that you do everything at home and you're it's not that particular thing well then have a conversation about that and there's lots of great things useful things you can do like a whatsapp group for just talking about who's picking up who on what day and that's all you do in that group you know so kind of having practical things in place where you're not talking about all your problems on those really precious date nights or a nice family evening you know so it's not kind of being poisoned with all the yada yada yada all the kind of scheduling stuff that you have to do of kind of keeping things very separate and and kind of managing it that way yeah the perfectionism the micromanaging the control i feel like a lot of women relate to that maybe they might not admit to it but it's definitely i still don't get it though from a nervous system perspective i'm mad at my husband why is that what do i have why is that my problem so it's not that it's your problem but i would ask you to question what it is that you're mad about.

43:00And then because if you're going to be angry, if you want to get someone to do what you want them to do or to understand what it is that you want, shouting at them isn't going to get them, right? Shouting at them just means that you're very dysregulated. I don't think people shout. I think people turn it internally and hold resentment. Yeah. Okay. So then deal with that resentment first and get really clear about what is it that you are cross about. Yeah. What is it that really gets you? Yeah. And then have a proper conversation about that at another time. Yeah. And I always say to people, don't sit opposite someone looking into their eyes, talking about it.

43:34Go for a walk. Yeah, we always say that too. Go for a walk. Why go for a walk? Or in a drive, like where you're moving your body better. Drive I don't like. I don't like trapped. Yeah, I don't like that. I was thinking about that recently. I was like, I need to have a conversation. And I was like, I don't want to be trapped in the car. Yeah, that's interesting. I've had really horrible fights in cars. And isn't that weird? No, no, it's not weird. I think for some people, it's a great spot. For me, I'm like. I'm the same. And that's another thing about your nervous system. Once you understand it, you understand yourself, right?

44:07And then you can communicate much better with your partner about what you need and you can understand them and what they need. Like my husband's an introvert and so he doesn't want to go out with me all the time. And I think I'm an ambiverhood, so I like going out and I like retreating. so very early on when we got together I kind of realized that and I didn't push him it was kind of otherwise I'm nagging someone to come out with me I'm having to promise them it's going to be brilliant but I don't know will it be brilliant will it not be brilliant so the responsibility is all on me and then if they don't look happy I'm a bit snarly do you know what I mean it's just like what's the point so kind of understand yourself and then you understand other people much better including your partner and you also have a much better relationship with the world then you start thinking about as I know that you've done you know but the makeup you're wearing and your beauty regime and is it important what's the impact of that you know and so on and so on but it starts with understanding yourself yeah that is your nervous system I kind of almost think your nerve I think actually without a doubt for me your nervous system is your identity and And my work is the intersection of neuroscience movement and forming your identity.

45:21Yeah. Because that's what I'm helping people do is unpick it.

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48:53I'll come back to that, but I have another question around just the plasticity of our nervous system. So neuroplasticity is kind of like a hot topic where we're talking about like, okay, the, at certain ages or stages, it's easier to, you know, create a different groove in our brain a different pattern than say others but it is still possible yes later in life so can we talk about the nervous system and you know can my 67 year old dad retrain his nervous system or reset his nervous system um our kids are we able to work on their nervous system like i guess just kind of give us a lay of the land in terms of how malleable or plus plastic they are yeah sure so if you go back to that analogy of your brain sitting in a black box and it knowing nothing yeah so that everything that you everything that however you form everything that you tell yourself or you want to be starts with the brain starts with you feeding the right experiences so it's a bit like manifesting why does that work because you're thinking about something other than your anxiety or gloom and doom or your stress or your current situation you're kind of thinking future thinking aren't you kind of placing yourself in the future having bigger dreams you are introducing a new experience to your nervous system what if my life wasn't here what if i can visualize myself over there so it's like that so you do that right i'm guessing you both do that yeah um so that's quite popular isn't it well it's exactly the same if you want to um get out of any kind of loop of information of loop of behavior you introduce a new behavior so you can't unlearn stuff you bury it with new stuff yeah and that's really interesting actually and that it reminded me of um i always used to bite my fingernails and then i had a very fancy job in a technology um company earned tons of money hated it but you know i was there and tons of money so i was there for a bit longer than i wanted to be and then my bitten nails really let me down and it was the the gels had come over from the US and I was like right I'm getting my nails done so I got them done and my nails weren't any great job done that was all sorted and I was like hurrah I've shifted from being the person that bit my nails to now kind of being really together and then George Floyd was killed it was COVID and I started biting my fingernails so there was this ancient pattern and it went when I needed safety isn't that interesting so but anyone you're absolutely right when you're younger it's much easier for your brain to be plastic because you're not paying a mortgage are you all you're doing is learning new stuff and playing you know and studying that's what you that's your job right to study go to school play with your friends um so much easier and of course much more pliable and malleable you get older you get more and more stuck in your ways if you think about what you do as you get older you're doing the same thing every day your your motor skills get really limited your um what you're thinking about gets really limited right the books you're reading the friends you're hanging out with perhaps you know the job that you're doing maybe that's kind of same same so the way to make yourself more plastic is to introduce something new um could be you know a new skill it could be a new language maybe you go away a lot and you allow yourself to um be open to other people's cultures like you know i've just realized I don't live in London anymore I'm from London but I've just moved to the sea about four years ago and it's so lovely and peaceful it's slow every now and then you think I need some action so I pop into London and coming to New York for a few days has just been great charged you right yeah charged me right different people different conversations I am the loony that walks through Central Park going hi good morning how are you talking to dogs do you know what I mean and people are up for it don't they do you know what I mean it's a Saturday so people are up for it they want to stop and they talk to you I've got an English accent you know that makes it really curious I had a very cute dress on as well on Saturday and got loads of comments so it was really good that kind of expanded me from being this person who works in my garden studio with my three dogs it's all very nice I can walk down to the beach don't get me wrong I love it but it's quite samey every day you know i see the same i see different clients every day but i'm kind of helping them you know through with their nervous system and it's quite same i'm thinking about them and i'm not doing it and studying and so on so having a shot of something new just kind of goes whoa new experience i'm able to travel by myself i haven't lost that i i'm not shy of talking to people i haven't lost that you know and that's how you expand your experience of things and that's what keeps you plastic you know plastic yes I love that I'm learning to roller skate as well oh I love that I know do you know what I mean just kind of yeah I love the beginner's mindset like having that introduced it like really I think when I was younger I remember being so like I want to learn this new thing I don't want to have a teacher telling me what to do or whatever like that kind of feeling yeah of this is a drag yeah and now as an adult I'm like yeah I know it's so true feels so good like I want to do all I would love to go to college again yes like not in my college but like yeah literally but just like to learn the class like yeah with the mind that I have now and the interest that I have now it's so different the way that you feel I know do you know what I kind of feel a bit sad for children because I feel like schooling really dampens their curiosity you know and really it's about being curious isn't it and being curious your whole life and actually there's some schools in um england i'm sure there are here but um they encourage that you know the kids don't sit down at all when they go into the forest and all the rest of it and it's kind of like almost like wow there's like no rules that's crazy but they learn they're still learning they have some sort of some kind of um routine and some sort of schedule but it's much looser and each of the students are allowed to from a very early age decide what they're interested in you know it almost kind of triggers me because I'm like oh my god that just feels like too much freedom but I would love that I would love that you know and it can change like there's an evolution of that yeah boys learn best through movement like for a certain age range I believe so you know when they're like asked to sit in a circle and sit still or sit at a desk it's really not beneficial to their learning I'm gonna question that i think it's because girls are more obedient oh i do not agree more i think we are all dynamic moving organisms and that's how we regulate our brain so your brain developed a quite a big theory um which is gaining traction is that your brain developed not for thought but for complex movement and social organization when we were hunter-gatherers yeah so that if that is the case then it makes so much sense doesn't it that movement makes you feel better yes and that can be a formal run but you're not going to be able to run if you're at your desk feeling really stressed so you have to kind of tap into other that's going to be my number one question when looking at schools yes how are we moving how often are we moving are we outside i think that's great i think they're great questions yeah and the mix of people that your child is with is really important because that gives them a huge range of experiences of the other and empathy of people who are not like you so i'm staying with friends of mine who are very wealthy and um they their son who's my godson he's had such a great upbringing so he was born in london they went and moved to amsterdam he's always been the outsider and he's kind of stepped in and now he's in here in quite uh he's in a boys school now um and he travels to south africa where his mother's from and stays there for most of the summer wow do you know what I mean so he's just having such I mean he might look it might seem strange to his peers you know because when kids are young anything different is weird isn't it um but it's going to really set him up to be able to get on with a huge range of people and to be able to have empathy because he's kind of playing football with young black kids in South Africa and you know what I mean and he and when you talk to him actually he's very sophisticated and you have to remember he's only 12 because he's quite tall as well you kind of think he's a lot older than that he's a lot more sophisticated he's an understanding of things so I think I think I would definitely look for can they is there a lot of movement are they learning a language from an early age um are the people in the school from different kind of you know stratus of society I think that's quite useful definitely I remembered what I was going ask you before and it was around um i'll say women in particular but it's just because it's my experience i'm sure men experience this too but comparison and just how much we're seeing other people's lives now with our access to them online and it obviously it's only a portion of people's lives however i do feel like sometimes there are those heightened emotions like anger and resentment that often builds or are felt because we are not in tune with how what we really desire but we're comparing to what other people have and what we don't have does that make sense it does make sense and actually to counter that i see lots of people who are um what used to be influences i don't know what they're called anymore um so i see lots of people who who are that and who have real anxiety and panic attacks there's somebody of the most i know because they're having they're having to present something that isn't true under a magnifying glass literally addicted to their phones yeah on a steady stream of dopamine yeah all of the time like it's so crazy it is the one client of mine came to see me she hadn't slept for three weeks what hadn't slept for three weeks what do you mean she just would grab a few hours every now and then but she was just on her phone and her sleep wasn't a good sleep at all because you need that deep sleep yeah um and actually when she came to see me I kind of took a deep you know intake of breath thinking well I don't know this is really serious you know I got her to see a doctor to make sure she was okay um but we worked together and after after the first session she slept after three sessions she stopped having multiple panic attacks a day so even if you think that you're so way out there you know you can kind of bring your nervous system back into some sort of resilience again and so to your thing about comparison well I think what's so interesting about that is that you're taking we're looking at people's lives out of context aren't we and we're having an emotion out of context based on something that's not true so really the way to counter that is just to stop looking just don't follow the people that make you feel envious or angry or whatever I've stopped following people that aren't useful for me or nourishing for me because I'm because I actually don't love the messages they're sending it's not it's not in my world my whole world is about embodying the full human condition and being really honest about that as both of you are having really vulnerable conversations and being human you know because then you make other people feel less alone and if we can't be that I don't understand what the connection is because I'm I'm not being funny do you really want to follow people who just tell you to buy more shit i mean i know that's so uninteresting like literally anyone could do that right and is that what we're going to do with our lives buy more shit and then what you know i know i know it's there's got to be more so i think that's probably a youngster's game isn't it yeah and i think you just have to let those people go let those kind of influencers go on your life i think so much of you know a lot of the conversation the influencers are having or that's online is about self-care like do more self-care self-care why is that not always the answer so I think we've been groomed to mistrust our feelings and we've been groomed by years and years of marketing because if you are if you mistrust your feelings you're unsure you might be fearful you're really easy to sell things to and to manipulate and I think look at where we are right um and so sorry what was the question why is more self-care not always the answer because the self-care i think that we're being sold is a real product of the systems that we live in because it's all about buying more or doing more i mean everything's about more isn't it all the time and you just think if it's more doing how's that helping you know it's not being you know we are human beings after all so um i think right at the beginning actually there's lots of people like green juices drink lots of juices and you just be like okay let's break that down what are you getting from that juice you know why should you drink more juice you're not really taking it in your system you're not chewing so actually nothing's being registered i it was just a crazy kind of response to i was kind of there at the beginning of that whole clean eating movement Do you remember all the ways we've been through?

1:02:26The cleanses. The green juices. People would pick up the cleanses in those bags. I know. I remember I would get like a huge styrofoam container of frozen juices. And it would be like frozen pineapple juice, frozen beet juice, frozen beet juice. 30 grams of sugar. Easily 200 grams of sugar a day. I know. And I was like, dude, I mean, I'm super sensitive to sugar. Yeah. And I would crash. Like I just would be like, I'd be like, I'm cleansing about to pass out. But yeah, it was a very unconscious thing. Yeah. So I think things go in waves. So the self-care thing is what, what do we mean by that? So if it's just, if it, if it's again, that clip on thing, like here I am self-caring, look at me self-caring, then what's the point of that?

1:03:18I used to have yoga and fitness studios in central London and I ran them for 13 years. And that kind of taught me a lot about the world that I'm in, because you'd have people doing a yoga session and then they elbow someone to put their yoga mat away. And you're like, wait, and it's just it's just, you know, a symptom of being in London. And there's lots of people around. It's very busy. And they're having to go back to their very busy, stressed jobs, which is actually the root of the problem. Right. that's the thing you have to deal with um and so it kind of made me laugh and i you know i know so many people who are not very nice people who do yoga you know totally doesn't really mean anything they're not nice to waiters or they're not nice to their mom or whatever and you just like how people practice it's like how does the self-care actually come into practice in your everyday absolutely so it's it's the how can your words align with your actions that's really important and actually I have to say I think it's probably in that disconnection where my clients are that's who I see it's kind of they're seemingly doing all the right things yeah but their heart is yearning for connection they're yearning for real something real and the things that they're seemingly to you know looking like all the right things that they're doing isn't it it's not fixing stuff because actually they're exhausted and they've got more stuff to do I did my three pilates classes and then my yoga and then i went out for a run and then i did cryogenics and da da da da and it's just like wow no wonder you're exhausted where's the space to just figure out who you are to self-reflect for awareness and all that stuff that's actually the juice of being human surely also it's not a lot of it now isn't self-care it's like performance optimization yeah absolutely because i was even thinking about like the red light mask thing and i have one and it's great.

1:05:09But I'm like, oh, that's actually my intention with it is to be more beautiful and have better skin. It's not necessarily caring for myself. You know, like there is a care element where I'm like, I care for you and I want to feel good. But so much of it is really like if I was to do cryotherapy, yes, it feels good inflammation wise. It feels good on your joints. But it really is like to perform better and to be better and to like, there's an optimization to do more. exactly it's an external thing isn't it it's all about your external body it's not about your internal yeah yeah and actually that's really something interesting about that because your brain naturally toggles between external sensory processing and internal reflection yeah it's doing that all the time it's doing that all of the time yeah but what are we doing we're out there we're making externally process all the time and there's very little time to self-reflect and a bit like you I have a far infrared mask as well and I really love it but I've made a real point of when I want to do some really contemplative work I'm not going to put it on it's like stop trying to do everything yeah don't have it stack it's kind of really be in your contemplative space that's a really good one I do have to say though when maybe it's because I'm at like a different point in my life and I don't get the self-care time that I used to, or I'm not making the time.

1:06:31Yeah. When I do do it with a child, all my clients with kids hats off to you. If you do anything, I'm like, bravo. But when I do do it, I think it's at this point that I actually, it actually does, whether it's working on my skin or if it's not actually doing it is the part of the self-care where it's like, oh, I actually made that promise to myself, I sat down and I did it or I sat down and I meditated or I took that walk that I told myself I was going to take because it was going to feel good. So it's like that, I think is kind of like the in-between of like, who knows if this shit is working.

1:07:08But I think the commitment to self is kind of what I've realized is really working where I'm like, oh, you can trust yourself to do that. And then there's a really beautiful point actually you where it becomes this willpower thing yes and then it turns into like yeah totally yeah i've given out too much and i need to retract yeah you know what i mean and that's the beauty it's kind of really being in the beauty of the process of living right of where you're not rushing and you're not making yourself do stuff so it's really good and i do the same do you know what i mean like certain days i'm on my pilates reformer and i'm doing this and i'm doing this but then the contemplative stuff.

1:07:49Like I've got a, I've got a break. Didn't expect it. Instead of filling it with more doing, I'm like, I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to just take myself and I never take my phone on the walk. I'm going to take myself for a walk. I'm going to go down to the beach.

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1:11:15So contemplative time, you know, if someone was listening and I would even speak for myself. So I didn't have my phone for two weeks and have social media for two weeks, not on purpose, but it just ended up happening. And I, so I had tons of time to contemplate. Like I would go on walks and I was working out without anything. And it was interesting because normally I love my internal dialogue. Like I'm just like, we're just doing our thing. But it was interesting because I did notice it created more. It was almost like I had to move through the debris and there was a lot of anxious thoughts. Like I was like, oh, wow, this is interesting loops that I'm noticing in my thing.

1:11:49So a lot of people, when they hear contemplation, they think of anxiety and they think of thinking. How can people, what is the difference and how can people get out of, because if I was, if you were to tell a lot of people go contemplate, they're like, cool. Then my mind comes in and it takes over And that's really painful place. So great question. That's exactly where my work comes in, because actually, I think that sitting still is an impossibility in our culture because we go from really busy, overstimulated to then being expected to sit still and think nice thoughts or think no thoughts, you know, and their anxiety to not come in.

1:12:28and actually if you do a little bit of movement to get rid of the tension in your body first then you're in a much better place to be able to breathe or meditate and so rocking on the floor is great for that and rocking is so good is because it's very primal you would have done it when you were a baby somebody would have done it to you it's very soothing your cells are kind of contracting and retracting and it's kind of bringing back that sort of cellular level activity to the whole body it recalibrates your bones um and when your bones are recalibrated so they all slot back into place then all the soft tissue around it can release because normally when you're sitting on a laptop your soft tissue is keeping you in place because your bones aren't stacked up right it's kind of going ah overworking here to try and keep this really heavy skull up um whereas if you get on the floor and rock for a bit i mean i rock in between clients i rock all the time.

1:13:23I hear some bad news. I'm on the floor and I'm rocking. You can also shake when you're standing up. But it just helps to get rid of muscular tension in the body. And when your muscular tension in the body is gone, you can't have an anxious mind. You can't have an anxious mind and a relaxed body. And you can't have a tense body and a relaxed mind. The two are the same thing, right? But deal with your body first. It's easy. And in fact, I have a theory that You know, meditation is quite hard for people in our busy culture, because if you think about where it came from, it came from communities of men in monasteries who live together, cook together, clean together.

1:14:02They had no children. They didn't, you know, they didn't have Amazon and Netflix and all the rest of it. They didn't have, you know, all the busyness of the world. And they had time to sit and and actually contemplate and meditate because that was what they were doing for most of the day. in between kind of looking after the community and they would have moved a lot throughout the day so they would have dealt with all of their aches and pains and their tensions you know what I mean so by the time they come to sit down they're much more mobile and much more looser than we are sitting in our chairs driving our cars and so on so actually don't beat yourself up if your anxious thoughts come around because no surprise your body's still tense from your habitual patterns of doing whatever you did.

1:14:46So it's letting go of that first. I mean, it's kind of a layer underneath language when I do. I think the beauty of it is that you can take the most distressed person and psychotherapists refer their clients to me. We're talking therapies no longer. You know, it's reached its natural conclusion. But I also see people, you know, traders who are, you know, fast, fast, fast. They've got no time, you know, and they'll even tell me, though I send them often but not always but they'll tell me at the beginning like is this going to work I haven't got any time well it requires you to take up your watch get on the floor let's give it a go because it's completely experiential and once your muscles release you can't help but feel better and when you feel better you're going to have clearer thoughts calmer thoughts maybe not the same thoughts it's quite incredible and also really obvious at the same time, right?

1:15:43For someone who, someone who would pick up your book, someone who, if I'm thinking of like kind of a, an archetype here in the city, you know, a high achieving female, say in like finance or advertising or something, you know, where they're just go, go, go, they are ambitious and they're also so focused on getting to the next level of their success at the price of, you know, maybe just messages from their body, you know, things going on, but they don't have time to deal with them. What's something that they can do in a moment or today where they could either tune into their body or nervous system or just feel a little bit better and or clearer?

1:16:31Sure. So first of all, being attuned to your body doesn't make you unambitious. It actually makes you really, really clear about your ambitions as you both know. Probably the very first thing I would say is breathe in and out for six seconds. It's kind of the optimal pace of breathing, anything between five and seven breaths per minute. The breathing in and out for six seconds in, six seconds out, times that by five is your 60 seconds. yeah so it's five breaths per minute it's a beaut it will calm down your brain it tells your whole nervous system that you're safe that you're getting oxygen at a regular pace and it allows your whole internal system to start regulating at the same frequency that's probably the main thing but i'd really want to get hold of this woman and look at their tight kind of whole musculature because what i'm looking at is the movement through your bones you know the transmission of forces and if they're not moving well or if you if something's not moving as well on one side for instance that tells me about your contractions and your muscular system and I'd want to look at that yeah totally um and then how you breathe through the whole self yeah but you know the breathing it's a it's a good it's a good step in I totally agree with you as soon as people feel better then they um start to get curious about it and the way that I teach breathing isn't you sitting there and focusing on your breathing you know you might touch your collarbones close your eyes breathe in and out and notice the sensations of the movement of your skin and your bones and it takes you somewhere else again it's not willpower trying to quieten the mind but the mind you're actually sensing the movement through these very busy parts of you so you're quietening your hands that's going to get your brain very interested back into introducing new experiences to the brain then you're feeling your collarbones moving and you're feeling them moving in multi dimensions but then turns into taking much kind of multi-dimensional breaths yeah so you're actually sensing your breathing rather than doing absolutely absolutely what is one thing people can do today to feel better get on the floor and rock i haven't met anybody even the most distressed of people i I see people with quite a lot of trauma issues who doesn't feel better getting on the floor and rocking.

1:18:50Can you describe rocking? I can. Yeah. So you're on the floor. You're going to rock through your heels. You press your heels into the floor and you rock your toes forwards and backwards. So you're going up and down the body, not side to side. On the spinal cord. Yeah. You're on your back. Yep. So you rock your heels forwards and backwards until your head nods as well. And you have to pick up the speed first of all, and then you finesse it. I don't love stretching because what are you stretching? Your muscles are attached to the end of the bones. You can't stretch a bone. So where are you going?

1:19:21You could go into the belly of the muscle, but no one does that. They go to the ends. Yeah. The tendons that are joined to the bone. And then when you start to have looser connections to your bone, that makes those joints a bit more unstable. Yeah. And when you, and people stretch, when they stretch, because I used to see it all the time, they stretch. and it's only when they feel something really intense they're like oh that's really good but actually when you feel something very intense you've probably done a little bit of damage yeah and then what happens you go back and it contracts again because your habitual patterning is the same you haven't changed your lifestyle at all so you're doing the same thing yeah and then you can't figure out why you're in pain so you go back in and you stretch again and on and it goes so what i do is i'm using movement but at the beginning of the process so i work with movement about the beginning of the process which is your brain sending signals to the muscle to lengthen or contract or even better just to get curious about whatever new thing I've given you to do yeah so it's not set in a pattern it's kind of acting intelligently as it should yeah does that make sense so in this work and in the rocking as well you will let go of your habitual contraction That's why it's such a brilliant thing to do.

1:20:37And actually what it means is you're kind of going in and out of your habit. Yeah. Your contractions and your lengthening, your contractions and lengthening. Your brain just goes, don't know what she's doing, but she's safe. She's on the floor. Let's just throw contraction and release into the muscles. Let's just throw those messages in. So you're discombobulating your nervous system. So you're going for a global release. I want the whole system to release a little bit even if it's only a tomato pit's worth of release in every single joint space and then that makes up the whole and it means that you're moving from a much better organized kind of space yeah where the whole body participates i think as ever it's a little bit like the self-care self-care question we kind of over we learn this one thing and we just go right that's the thing it was fascia you know once upon a time and then it's it's um you know nervous system is very very popular now and not often people ask me if i do um you know is it about the vagal vagus nerve it's like the vagus nerve has a part in it but deal with the whole which is a nervous system the master system once you deal with that the whole you know system will organize itself and you you want to be self-organizing really you don't really want to be reliant on someone forever do you not on the biohacking yeah biohack our way there yeah this has been great so so interesting so helpful and just like a very different perspective on the nervous system that i feel like our audience yeah and super helpful they got their tip they got anything else you want to leave our audience with today as we wrap well i think think about being being really good relationship with yourself we haven't got that long you know yeah we haven't got that long we've got this one precious life get really connected with who you are what makes you tick what excites you what gives you joy because that's the stuff of life really you know it's the beauty of the process so i just really urge people to get connected with themselves because that that is life i stand by that come into this world with yourself and then you leave with yourself you know it's like you kind of forget that you are the one wow like you're the one but there's no way i talk lindsey come on yeah there's nothing else and i i have clients you know i teach people from 20s to their 80s yeah and you can see that whole lifespan you can see what people are interested in what they're spending the time with their regrets that they have I'm really close to it um and you and it teaches me a lot you know I'm kind of like reminder I've got to get back connected with my people with what that gives me joy thank you thank you thank you all for listening we'll see you next time we'll see you soon bye thank you so much Nahid for coming on almost 30 in person especially she flew in from London.

1:23:38It was so beautiful. The book is Soothe. And you can find more information about her at thehumanmethod.co.uk. All right. Thank you all so much for being here. Make sure you're following Almost 30 on Instagram, on TikTok, at Almost 30 Podcast on both. And if you want to learn more about just the world of Almost 30, go to almost30.com. We also have our book out. It came out in June. We're so proud. We're so thankful for everyone who has supported and gotten the book and gifted the book. It is doing its thing out in the world. So if you haven't gotten it yet, you can get it anywhere. Books are sold.

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