podcast nervous system

The Beauty Pro Elite Podcast, hosted by Jeanne Ann Kenning, aims to help beauty business owners improve their businesses through marketing, mindset, finance, and social help. In this episode, Jeanne discusses the importance of regulating your nervous system and offers tips on how to do so. She explains the fight-or-flight response and the rest and digest state, and how our thoughts can trigger the fight-or-flight response unnecessarily. Jeanne also suggests relaxation exercises such as deep breathing, muscle tightening and relaxation, visualization, and sensory focus to help regulate the nervous system. She advises against relying on addictive substances for relaxation and emphasizes the importance of training the brain to shift away from fight-or-flight. Welcome to the Beauty Pro Elite Podcast. I'm your host Jeanne Ann Kenning and my mission is to help beauty business owners create a dynamic business they can be proud of with marketing, mindset, finance, and social help so you can start attracting those dream clients and building a brand you always wanted and deserve. If you are ready to explode your beauty biz then this is the place for you. It's time to get started. All right welcome to the Beauty Pro Elite Podcast. My name is Jeanne Ann Kenning. I think this is episode 9 or 10 something like that so welcome. I'm going to talk about something today that is really like an extension of being a business owner and that's regulating your nervous system and we're going to talk about the benefits and how to know if your nervous system's a little bit out of whack and you know what you can do to get yourself regulated because it can really throw you off and sometimes it's like a constant battle your whole life. Like I realized that my nervous system has probably been out of whack for at least 15 years so it's not something that you're going to change overnight but it definitely is something that is great, healthy. Okay I will disclaimer I'm not a doctor. I'm not a medical professional. I'm just going to give you some advice to really just help you to guide you in your business and help you to get through those hard days. Okay so if you are really struggling please seek help from a medical professional. All right so if you are not driving you are going to close your eyes and what I want you to do is put your index finger on your left nostril like put it so it's closed and then you're going to breathe through your right nostril. Inhale. Then you're going to push your index finger on your, this is really hard to do and talk at the same time, so then you're going to push your index finger on your right nostril and let go of the left and breathe out the left nostril. And you're going to do that switching alternate sides so now you're going to breathe through your left. Pinch the left and let go of the right. You're going to do that four or five times so let's do that together. Inhale through the right, exhale through the left. Inhale through the left, exhale through the right. Inhale through the right, exhale through the left. Now can you see how just the state of breathing and focusing on your breathing you feel more relaxed, you feel more you know in tune to everything and you feel better right? That is the nervous system, that is the autonomic nervous system. We're going to talk about that, we're going to talk about what it is, we're going to talk about how to regulate it. So first things first, let's talk about the two different sides of the autonomic nervous system. So number one side is the fight-or-flight response. So that's when you are, let's say, I'll give you an example. You're walking outside and your brain's automatically like, oh my god what if I see a bear? There might be a bear over there in the woods and what happens? Immediately you get this fear and you get this adrenaline pumping and your brain takes over and you're scared and you're racing hard, you feel nauseous, that is fight-or-flight. It's like danger, danger, danger, we're in danger, we need to run and hide, like we need to fight, right? The rest and digest is the other side. So in this situation and rest and digest, what's going to happen is you are going to have a more physical safe calm. So you're going to be outside, you're going to be like, it's a beautiful day, everything is great, you know, I'm not worried about anything. Maybe you'll notice how your heart's beating slower, you also may notice the sensations in your body, maybe you're hungry, right? When you're in rest and digest, your body is calm, okay? Some people are naturally just calm rest and digest people and other people tend to sit in fight-or-flight. So for me, I tend to lean into that protective mechanism. Now, how is fight-or-flight controlled? A lot of it is controlled by our mind, believe it or not. So you know how some people say to me that we like, I don't know what happened, I was anxious all day. It's your thoughts constantly thinking that something bad is going to happen or you're in danger or you know, maybe let's talk about it using it in a business sense. Maybe you wake up and you look at your calendar and you see you have no bookings. So then you're like, oh my god, I have no bookings, my business is going to go under and you're thinking that but then later, so this is all compounding towards the day but by the end of the day, you're like nauseous, your heart's beating fast, you feel dizzy. That's your fight-or-flight, it's protecting you, right? Your adrenaline is pumping. Now here's what happens and I've learned this for myself. Excuse me, I just need to have some water. Over the course of the years that I've been in the state, when you are in fight-or-flight, you sometimes can stay in there for years. So it's really hard to turn that autonomic nervous system off which we're going to talk about, okay? And how to do that. So what, let's break this down. Fight-or-flight, emergency, danger, stress, fear, anxiety, right? Our body's reaction, heart beats faster, our digestion slows. So a lot of people that have fight-or-flight problems will feel nauseous all the time. That was a big thing for me. I was always nauseous. Their pupils get big, they breathe faster, right? It doesn't feel comfortable. You're not calm and relaxed. Rest and digest is non-emergency, calm. Heart beats slower, digestion is normal, pupils get smaller, breathing is slower and deeper, okay? So those are the two things. So sometimes our fight-or-flight nervous system takes over and when it is not needed. Things in an environment can cause us to be scared or anxious. When this happens, our body may give us a message that we are in danger when we are really not. We can learn to change our body's response back to rest and digest through relaxation exercises which we're going to talk about. This skill is something that's been used all over the world and especially like India, the Far East for centuries. Yoga, meditation, martial arts, breath work, all that stuff is really controlling the autonomic nervous system, right? So relaxation exercises can prevent or stop the fight-or-flight response and return our body to state of rest and digest. Now we are going to talk about some addictive tendencies. Again, I am NOT a doctor. I am NOT a medical professional but I am going to say this is what happens. You're in fight-or-flight. You're very, very worked up. You are like really nervous and scared and just life is taking over. What happens? A lot of people reach for addictive things, cigarettes, alcohol, stuff like that to relax and calm them, right? But what you need to be looking for is something that's going to return your body to a rest and digest state that is going to be a natural thing, right? Because those types of things that you think are calming you down like alcohol are actually just masking the problem and you're not fixing the fight-or-flight response, okay? We're going to talk about that. So let's talk about the difference like what happens in fight-or-flight versus rest and digest. So in fight-or-flight, you're in a sympathetic state. You're stressed. So your pupils are going to expand. You're going to have fast and shallow breaths. Your heart pumps faster. Your gut's inactive. In calm, parasympathetic, your pupils are going to shrink. You're going to have slow, deep breaths. You're going to have a low heart rate. Your gut's going to be active, okay? How do you get your body into rest and digest? So deep breathing. So just like what we did, you really want to make sure when you're breathing that you're filling your lungs completely. So how to tell is your belly. Is your belly expanding? And we're going to talk about that. Deep breathing is the best way to do that. Now, we're going to talk about that because I know I've had many psychiatrists, many, many over the years that have been like, well, if you feel anxious, just stop and take five deep breaths. Well, that doesn't work for me, okay? So there are a million different breathing exercises that you can find on YouTube, on Spotify as well. So you can look at that. If one of the things that I love that works really, really well when I'm in this type of situation is I will do a meditation. But as I do the meditation, I will tighten and relax my muscles. So I start from my feet. So what you're going to do is you're going to tighten your toes, let's say. You're going to hold it for five seconds, and then you're going to release. And then you're going to do it again. And then you're going to release. And you move up your body as you're breathing. And what happens is, what's going to happen is your body is basically tricking itself to say, okay, we're safe. So now let's relax, right? Another thing is visualization. Retraining your brain to think of other things than what you are scared of at that moment. Most of the time, the thing that we are centered in anxiety and, you know, the nervous system being out of whack, it's future things that we can't control, right? So bringing it back to something thinking about riding a bike or rollerblading or riding a horse or playing with a dog, that sort of thing, right? Like visualizing. Then we can do things like looking for your senses. So if you're really super anxious, one of the best things to do is go through your senses. What do I see? Name five things that you can see. What do I smell? Name five things that I can smell. What can I touch? Name five things that I can touch. What can I taste? Name five things. And again, you're taking your brain and putting it to something else, right? You need to start to take your brain away from the fight or flight, like the automatic fight or flight and start training it into something else, okay? So how do you fix your nervous system, right? Like everybody we have. So the nervous system can be dysregulated from anxiety, OCD, PTSD, depression, mood swings, poor concentration, attention deficit disorder, poor memory, exhaustion. These can all be indicators of a dysregulated nervous system. If we have difficulty with partners and that sort of stuff, outburst, that's a dysregulated nervous system. In a second instance, we can identify what can be contributing to that, right? So how do we rebalance our nervous system? Like how do we bring it back to, you know, doing that? One is seeing your doctor and talking to that, therapy, that sort of thing. There are kind of like a bunch of different areas. One is mind-body therapies. So in mind-body therapies, you can look at somatic exercises, you can look at yoga, you can look at acupuncture, you can look at massage, like learning to teach your body to calm. If you are watching this on YouTube or on video, you'll see I have tacks. I'm a big proponent of acupuncture. I'm actually obsessed. So I place my own tacks on different parts of my face and my body to help keep me calm. And it really does work and I highly recommend it. Then we have psychological therapy, okay? That's talk therapy, right? So talk therapy is so amazing. If you have been through any sort of trauma, abuse, something like that, that you've packed away in your subconscious, you need to learn how to deal with that in a healthy manner. And talk therapy is a great way to do that. I highly, highly recommend that. Managing your thoughts and your feelings. This is like everything when it comes to regulating your nervous system and the parasympathetic state and getting into that calm place because we have so many thoughts and feelings going through our brain, especially when we're like owning a business and we've got family and we've got kids and we've got partners and we've got all this stuff. How do we regulate that, right? So one is meditation. So meditation is so amazing. I highly, highly recommend it. It's so funny because for 10 years, I had probably about 20 different therapists tell me to meditate every day and I thought they were crazy. And here we are. So meditation is great. Breathwork, I actually have a breathwork coach. Her name is Lauren. I will link her IG in my show notes so you can go check her out because she has a ton of free tools. Breathwork is so amazing for regulating the nervous system. I think we should have her on so we can talk about that. So I actually do breathwork with her twice a week and then I do it on my own five days a week. So I do breathwork seven days a week. It is that important to me to regulate my nervous system. And when I'm feeling like yesterday, I was feeling super anxious. All of a sudden out of the blue, I was walking my dogs down the road and all of a sudden I started to feel like almost in a panic attack state, which I hadn't been in a very long time. And I immediately came in and reached for the breathwork. So then I could bring myself down, right? Whereas the old GNAN would maybe reach for a prescription reliever like an Ativan or something like that. Or maybe I would have a drink, a glass of wine, right? And that's how I managed it. Whereas this is a healthier way. And it's teaching my body to regulate itself, right? The other thing you can look at is managing your thought patterns and beliefs. This is really, really important. Because remember, we talked about you are when you have these thoughts, like if you go into fight or flight, it's like, oh, my gosh. Okay, so for instance, let's use this as an example. Let's say that you feel nauseous, okay? You eat something and three hours later, you feel super nauseous. You feel like you're going to be sick. Just go with me. This is a weird example. So then when you're doing that, your immediate thought is, oh, my gosh, I'm going to get the stomach flu. Then you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm not gonna be able to see my clients this week. Oh, my gosh, I need to make the money, right? And all of a sudden you're feeling anxious. You've now put yourself into fight or flight because of your thoughts and your beliefs, right? But if you had just stopped it right then in the beginning and been like, I'm sure it's fine. It's nothing. If I am not well, I'll deal with it when it happens, right? But the problem is, we don't do that. We let it compound. So remember when I was saying a lot of people come to me and they're like, I don't understand. By the end of the day, I was so anxious and, you know, out of control. It's because they woke up with one thought and by the time they had, probably like me yesterday, had that instance of out of control anxiety, it was 70 thoughts that had compounded, right? And then it throwed me into a fight or flight. So this is what happens, right? You have to learn to manage your thoughts and beliefs. So how can you do that? One of them is just awareness. I talk about this a lot, a lot, a lot. Mindset is everything. And if you have awareness about what you're thinking and what's going on in your brain, you're going to really notice how you talk to yourself and you're going to be able to change, okay? Engage in the talk therapy we talked about. Moving your body. It's amazing how much of a dopamine effect that can happen and it can make you feel better. This is another big one. Manage your technology and social use. Y'all, I love me some good TikTok. I love me some Instagram, but it is not healthy for my mind. And I'm telling you that, especially in this type of day and age with being a business owner and everything, you need to monitor and manage how much you are consuming. Sleep. Okay. I talk to my private clients a lot about this. Everything funnels down from how you sleep. So if you're not getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep every night or a good healthy six hours straight, everything funnels down from that. Your thoughts, your emotions, how you feel, how you show up, everything. So if you are not feeling like you do not sleep well, you need to figure it out and you need to do that. Okay. And you need to practice. I want you to practice just being grateful. And you can have a gratitude journal. You can have a journal where you write this out. Whatever works for you. For me, I just know that accepting and being grateful for where you are at, somebody will always want to be in where you are at right now. Right. Like somebody is wishing to have the business that you have right now. But instead, we're always like so hard on ourselves. I want you to take a step back and be grateful. Okay. And then the other one is daily affirmations. My breathwork coach put me onto this about three weeks ago and it's helped a lot. Start doing I am statements and just have a running statement in your like notes of your phone. And when you wake up, that's how I want you to start your brain in the day. So I am beautiful. I am strong. I am brave. I am safe. You know, you could do all those right. And as you think of them, I am a millionaire. I am successful. I am balanced. I am regulated, like all those things, right? And you're saying them out loud. And you're going to do those a couple of times because you're training your brain to be in that rest and digest state. Okay. All right. So that is managing your thoughts. Now let's talk about your biochemistry. Okay, I'm not a doctor. I'm not going to talk too much about this. But I am going to tell you that a lot of times in the nervous system, there are things that are out of balance. So you can be in an inflamed state. I highly recommend getting your hormones tested, looking at your gut health, all those things. If you can afford to go see a naturopath, definitely do that. The other thing you can look into that was a lifesaver for my gut, at least, is that the anti-inflammatory diet. So you basically omit things from your diet, and then you start bringing them back in to see what brings you into an inflammatory state. Now I want to give you a stat, but I don't know how much, so I'm just going to Google it really quick. And so I can tell you because this is mind blowing, because a lot of people disregard the brain gut connection. And I want to give you a stat of how much of our, bear with me for one second as I Google it, because I'm doing this on the fly. Okay, we're going to come back to that. But basically, I think it's 90% of what goes on in our brain as far as like anxiety and stress, and all those things lives in our gut. So if our gut is not happy, right, and it's not working correctly, then it is going to affect how our mental health is, right? And a lot of people disregard that. And it's pretty crazy, like how much people disregard that feeling like I had stomach problems for like, probably 12 years. And I totally was like, well, that's just the way it is. But it's not, it's the brain gut axis and how they, okay, here we go. 70%, so I was a little off, of the body's immune cells are targeted to the digestive tract, right? So, and inflammation is also the hallmark of mental illness. So see how it all connects, like it's all in your gut, right? So those neurotransmitters, these signals to the neurons to release GABA, which is the calmness hormone, that all lives in your gut, right? So that's why it's important to have healthy bacteria and for everything to work properly. Okay, we're not going to talk too much about that, because I am not a doctor. Okay, so you are going to go and see your doctor, you're going to get some testing done, you're going to see just make sure your hormones are in check, and everything's working. Now, final tip, change your lifestyle habits. Okay? Listen, I'm not here to be your mother. I am not here to be the taskmaster. I'm just telling you that if you are serious about getting your mental health in check and getting better, these are things that work for me. Take it as you will. Okay, number one, you need to sleep better. We talked about that. Number two, exercise. Listen, I don't want you to go in and be like, I'm going to lift weights and be like, like gym rat and be like, doing all this, because you will actually do worse for your body. I'm just talking about moving your body for 30 minutes. That's it. Take your dog for a walk, walk on the treadmill. Tonight I was watching Love is Blind and walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes. That's it. Okay? Breathing. Breathe better. Breathe often. Use the power of your breath to control what is going on in your life, right? It is so, so important. We shallow breathe in our, in our chest, we need to belly breathe. If you've never tried breath work, highly, highly, highly recommend it. It will change your life. Connect with nature and natural light. Vitamin D is the one of the most vitamins that people are deficient in. And you literally can get that from five minutes of being out in the sun. Now for us Canadians, that means freezing your buns off sometimes. That's okay, right? Okay, now, here's the last part. I want you to detoxify from addictive behaviors. Listen, again, I'm not your mother. I don't, you can take this with a grain of salt how much you want. But I will tell you, um, we barely drink in this house, but I will be very, very honest, drink alcohol. I will tell you that I would reach for a drink every day at the end of the day, because it was my way to put me into rest and digest. So I would drink maybe a half a cooler, which is not a lot. But I trained my brain to go into that mode, right? Like that addictive personality to be like, I want to have a drink to bring myself down. So it wasn't healthy for me. I was not drinking a lot. I wasn't, you know, doing that. But I was using it as a coping mechanism. Okay, so I haven't had a drink. I have to think about this November, December, January, February. So four and a half months ish. Okay. Um, it's been amazing. Absolutely amazing for me. The other thing is, if you have anxiety, and you drink coffee, don't be stupid. Stop drinking coffee. Okay, I just called you out on it. I'm sorry. It's the truth. I've been off coffee for three weeks now. And I cannot even begin to tell you how much of a difference it has made in my body. Like it is night and day. It affects your hormones. It affects your palpitations with your heart. It affects your anxiety. It affects so many things in your day to day. There are other ways to get a boost, you could have matcha, you could have a low caffeine tea, you could, you know, look at alternatives to as well. So, you know, really look at your what you're using for an addiction, dietary changes, salt, sweets, that sort of thing. Right? I'm not asking you to go in and like, get rid of everything. But they do find that people who are impulsive, have depressive tendencies, that sort of thing, lean towards a lifestyle coping mechanism more, right. But we need to learn how to, like regulate ourselves healthy, right. So obviously, if you need, you know, assistance with addiction and that sort of thing, there are tons of ways that you can get help, I will tell you in my, you know, early 20s, I did have an addiction problem. I'm, you know, not ashamed to say that I can tell you that I did get help during that time. And it was the best thing I've ever done. So if you need help, don't be afraid to reach out to a medical professional and get the help you need. Okay, correct your nutrition, meditate, practice relaxation techniques, practice mind body therapy. So just like we talked about the breath work, I do my breath work at night, some people do it in the morning, you can do whatever works for you. Exercise, sleep better, find your spirituality, I don't care what spiritual guidance you need. But believing in something and using it as a guide for you and finding your community and purpose is really important. Connect with nature, manage your technology. Yes, breathe better. Can we just talk about that? Breathing deeply and for a longer period of time, 10 to 15 minutes, can calm your nervous system and ground you, bringing greater hormone, neurotransmitter balance, gut function, which can help with withdrawal and detoxification. Furthermore, better breathing causes physiological changes, which can help support the body's detoxification of organs, and increase a healthy alkaline balance. What? And so I'm going to give you like, kind of like what I do just to right now to regulate my nervous system on a day to day basis. So when I wake up, first things first is I read the IM statements. I read them for probably a couple of minutes, so to speak, then you are going to either journal, gratitude, that sort of thing. If you only have 10 minutes, do 10 minutes. Okay. One of my biggest pieces of advice for any sort of nervous system regulation is if you can get up before your children, even if it's a half an hour, I highly suggest that because there's nothing worse than being woken up by children and you hit the ground running, that is not going to put yourself into rest and digest. You are definitely like fight or flight, like chaos, right? So then throughout the day, practice your breathing. If you feel like you are getting anxious, there are so many breathing exercises on YouTube that you can do for five minutes. Remove yourself from the situation. Manage what you are putting in your body. Caffeine, sugars, because sugars give you that spike and then you crash. Your nutrition, right? Then I like to do all my like workout, breath work, all that stuff at the end of the day. A lot of people like doing in the beginning of the day, you do you, boo, whatever works for you. So I just walk for 30 minutes every single day. And then I do a recorded breath work from my coach for it's 22 minutes, I think, as well. And then when I get into bed, I actually do another meditation, which is a muscle tensing meditation for 10 minutes before I go to sleep. Seems like a lot, right? But let me tell you this. What is the alternative? That I live in an anxious state, that I can't control my thoughts, that I'm all over the place, that I'm short, I'm angry, I'm not kind, like, right? What are the choices? So taking control of your nervous system, and really working on that will help you to show up in your business, in your family, in your relationships as a better person. So like I said, I will drop Lauren's Instagram, she has tons of freebies that you can tap into and try breath work, and see if it's for you, you will love it. Trust me, it's amazing. And just start small. If you do breath work twice a week, I guarantee you'll notice a big thing. And what it does is it's hypnobreath work. So it taps into your subconscious and things come up. We could talk about that for another episode. So I will probably I will try she's nine months pregnant. So I'm going to try to get her in next week's episode. If she doesn't pop her baby out soon. And then we can take that even further. So go regulate your nervous system, pop in a five minute meditation, do something for you today, look at your habits, see how you can become healthier and a better version of yourself. And you will see everything else will come into flow from there. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully you enjoyed this episode, and I will see you next week. Take care. Hey, thanks so much for tuning in today. It means everything to me to have your support. My mission is to help 1000s of beauty business owners grow as big as they possibly can. So if you found today's episode valuable, the best way to share the love is to screenshot this episode, share to your socials, or even better, share with another business owner. Perhaps you could leave me a review. However, you're listening to this podcast. And if you are looking for additional support, please reach out to me at beauty defined coach on Instagram. Can't wait to see you next week.