[00:00:38] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna. I'm gonna talk about is a dysregulated nervous system holding you back in business.
[00:00:46] There is a lot of talk about a dysregulated nervous system, and there's a lot of that messaging targeted to business owners, and it can really be to anyone, right? It doesn't matter. It's just that business owners are really more, uh, skewed to be high performing and be really productive and get the best results.
[00:01:02] And so that's why this. conversation that I'm gonna have today is centered around that, but it really can be for anybody. with family who have a lot of responsibilities carrying a load and are noticing that they're just not where they used to be. And often this can feel like, oh, I just can't handle this anymore.
[00:01:19] I don't have it in me to handle this, when that's really not true. So what does it mean when people talk about a dysregulated nervous system?
[00:01:27] So the symptoms look like you are productive, but everything feels like an effort. Your mind is really busy. You can never switch off. You might find yourself more reactive to your moods, like you're snapping really easily. Little things are bothering you that they weren't before. And you know, come evening time.
[00:01:45] You don't switch off. Your mind is really active and busy, even when there's not a lot of stress going on. Everything feels urgent. There's a lot of pressure on things to get things done, even though perhaps there isn't a major deadline.
[00:01:57] You wake up tired. You feel tired throughout the [00:02:00] day. Some women say to me, I just feel extreme exhaustion, you find that you get things done, but you don't have that drive anymore. Everything feels dull and lifeness like you're going through the motions. You have to get the stuff done, but there isn't that drive and that passion anymore.
[00:02:15] So those are the common symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system. And I guess the other one that I should mention is the anxiety. So when the system's overactive, we can feel very anxious. We can get stuck in that place. So we become very anxious about a lot of things, which maybe you notice that you weren't before.
[00:02:30] So why does this matter for productivity, for decision making and for business growth? Business sustainability, it really matters because you are the key part of your business. And so if you are exhausted. You don't have mental bandwidth. You're not able to make clear decisions. You're not really as productive as you used to be, right?
[00:02:50] So you may find yourself very busy during the day, but you're not getting as much done as you would've say, you know, a year or two before losing kind of bandwidth and having a dysregulated nervous system. So busyness doesn't always equal productivity. Decision making can be harder because you're second guessing yourself.
[00:03:09] You're delaying making decisions because you actually don't have the mental capacity to actually process that decision making process, better. Right? So you're not clear, very clear on the decisions because you don't have the mental capacity there.
[00:03:25] It also impacts how you show up in your business, to your team, to your clients, to your customers, right? Because there is that emotional reactivity. You're not as patient. You're not as warm, okay? You're probably a little bit harsher and probably. a bit more rushed in the things that you do, and so it doesn't create that connection.
[00:03:44] So overall it can really cost you in business sustainability and potential growth. So I see a lot of women in this phase and they will say to me. “I can't continue maintaining what I've built.” Right? And so forget about growth. They're not thinking [00:04:00] about growth. They, they're just like, I just wanna be able to keep doing what I'm doing, right?
[00:04:02] Keep my business. And, and I'm gonna explain more about this because it really comes down to your internal capacity, right? Your business can continue to grow, and you can sustain that growth as long as you are thriving. Right, so you can thrive in that situation. You can thrive in any situation. And so it's really about increasing, the energy, the bandwidth, the capacity in order for you to grow your business, maintain your business, sustain it, and you know, have a happy work culture as well.
[00:04:32] So most nervous system advice is a little bit backwards. And look, I agree with, or whatever you can do in the moment to reduce your stress, whether it's something somatic, yawning, or doing, moving, doing something with your body. That's all great. Maybe you try positive thinking and reframing. The problem with that is that you are trying to address the stress after the fact.
[00:04:53] So I like using this example. It's kind of like. If I've got a headache, I'm gonna take, well, I'm not going to, but you know, say for example, if I've got a headache and I take a paracetamol right, to relieve the headache, and that just, okay, my headache's gone, and so the next time I get a headache, I take another paracetamol and I keep doing that, right?
[00:05:10] So I get headaches every day. I take a paracetamol every day. Doesn't make sense, right? I would want to address why I'm getting the headache to begin with. And so that's why I say that a lot of that advice is backwards because yes, it's, it's great to get out of that stress response when it happens, but let's.
[00:05:25] Prevent getting into such a dysregulated nervous system. Let's prevent all the stress and anxiety and that whole overstress situation that the body goes through. Let's prevent that, right? Let's nip it in the bud.
[00:05:39] So then we have to look at, well, what's really driving? The stress, right? So a lot of this information is about environment, right? The people that you interact with, your boundaries that you have, and how much you've got on your plate and in your, and you know what you've got on your calendar and how many financial stresses and whatever, and that that is.
[00:05:58] A part of it, right? But it's not the [00:06:00] whole story because when you look at what activates a nervous system, the nervous system is regulated. So we've got the sympathetic nervous system, we've got the parasympathetic nervous system. So this is the one in high alert mode, and this is the Relaxation response.
[00:06:13] And so often when we're in high stress, we're always in this sympathetic dominance. Now, what is triggering that? So what triggers a nervous system is the brain and a part of the brain called the amygdala. Now the amygdala is a tiny little part of the brain, which is always detecting threats in our environment.
[00:06:33] So it's a very much a lifesaving. System, right? But we don't have a lot of threat in our environment. We're not living in the jungle or in the bush or in a war zone, right? We are just surviving our day. So then what is tripping up the amygdala to activate that fight or flight response to activate the nervous system.
[00:06:49] And a lot of that activation is coming from our thinking.
[00:06:52] So we perceive threats in our environment. So if something happens at work and we can catastrophize things, we can anticipate problems that could happen, we can replay events that have happened in the past. We're always. Scanning our environment and making stuff up, but that is activating the amygdala and the amygdala doesn't know the difference between, you know, here's a bear coming towards me.
[00:07:17] I need to survive. I'm in mortal danger compared to. I wonder if I'm gonna have enough, I don't know enough money for next month for the bills, whatever it is, right? I wonder how my business is gonna survive this transition period. Whatever it is, right? There's no difference. And so the sympathetic nervous system is activated.
[00:07:33] And if we carrying those thoughts day in and day out, which is a lot of what happens where our mind, it's not even just the content of the thinking, it's the level of overthinking that keeps that nervous system switched on. Right and eventually causes that dysregulation where we stay stuck on this sympathetic so we're always in high alert mode, draining our system, changing our hormones, affecting the neurotransmitters in our brain, and keeping our system in high alert [00:08:00] mode all the time.
[00:08:00] So having a busy mind is going to keep that nervous system activated all the time. It's going to reduce your bandwidth, it's going to change your body on a physical level, on a physiological level. So you're not gonna have the same energy. You're not gonna be able to regulate your moods or regulate or adapt to stress, right?
[00:08:20] You're just gonna be overactive.
[00:08:22] So while all of those, you know, exercises and post-stress treatments are amazing, right? Until you go further upstream to address the real problem, which begins here, right? So those exercises are great, but then we have to at some point look at what does real nervous system regulation look like? Regulating the nervous system is not about removing stress, okay? It's about increasing capacity. It's about being. Able to thrive in any situation, right? So you will look at a workplace and some people are stressed, very stressed, and some people are kind of taking it in their stride. Same environment, right?
[00:09:00] I like to use this example of, um, master Chef, you know, like when they give people the recipes, like all the ingredients, like, here's six ingredients, go make something right? And you'll see some people. They just see the list and they see the timer and how much they've got to go, and they, they just lose it, right?
[00:09:15] They just go to pieces. They're all over the place. They're stressed. You can see them running around. They're burning things, doing things wrong, right? So they don't have the capacity anymore, they've lost their bandwidth, whereas the other people in the same environment, in the same situation, the same pressure, the same task, are actually going through it quite methodically.
[00:09:36] And getting the job done without looking like they fall into pieces, right? I'm sure they're inside, they've got a different experience maybe, but they're actually able to perform really well under pressure. So what is the difference there, right? Same scenario, same situation, same pressure. But what's the difference?
[00:09:52] And the difference is that internal capacity. And the way that we increase that capacity or that bandwidth. You know, I talk about capacity like on a whole [00:10:00] level, and then I look at mental and emotional bandwidth because when you have more bandwidth, you have more tolerance to stress, things don't bother you as much.
[00:10:08] You can make decisions more easily, you're available to higher level thinking. So it makes a huge difference for business and you know, financial decisions. So when we look at increasing capacity and bandwidth, the first thing that we look at is self-care. Right, because how you sleep, what you put into your body, how your glucose levels are regulated, are all going to make a huge impact to your bandwidth, right?
[00:10:31] So you go too long between meals, you snack on too many carbohydrates, not enough protein. Your sugar levels are all over the place. That will create more stress on a physical level, right? You don't have enough sleep. Your brain doesn't reset itself, doesn't process all the emotions from the night before.
[00:10:45] You're gonna wake up with a backlog in there. And you're already gonna feel full. You're gonna feel like zero capacity for the day. Right. And then nutrition, we know that if you don't have enough nutrition, your nervous system literally cannot stay regulated. Okay? Our body is using nutrition and nutrients like B vitamins and magnesium to keep it self regulated.
[00:11:05] So when you become deficient in that due to poor diet and chronic stress, those nutrients drop, which means that. You are gonna react to everything. That's just because there's nothing there to keep it calm, right? So taking care of our physical health and our self-care is a huge part of increasing bandwidth and capacity, and tolerating stress, or doing really well under pressure and stressful situations.
[00:11:30] then the next part is the mental load, the overthinking, the constant thinking, the analyzing, the catastrophizing, right? All of this is going to shrink your mental bandwidth. Remember how I said it's less about, the contents of your thinking? Like you could be worried about an email or. The future of your business or what's happening with AI or the economy or whatever, it's right.
[00:11:52] But it's the fact that there's way too much busyness, too much mental noise in there that there's just no room for higher [00:12:00] level thinking. There's just no room to adapt to stress. Right. And so reducing that mental load, being aware of how much mental load that you are actually carrying. Right? Because one thing that's really important to see, and I've talked about this in other podcasts, is that.
[00:12:14] Over analyzing and worrying. It's not where you get the solutions to your problems, Our solutions come from mental clarity and insight to completely opposite ends of the spectrum. So when we're in this state of worry and sympathetic dominance, we have less access to solutions. And when we have a clearer mind and we're able to create more space in there by not worrying and over catastrophizing and not having to think about things, we will be provided the solution.
[00:12:44] Right? So polar opposite. So once you actually see that play out for you, doesn't make sense to keep overthinking over catastrophizing, over planning overanalyzing, right? So the real goal here is to increase bandwidth. Which increases your calm, which changes your hormones downstream, right? Your hormones start to reset themselves.
[00:13:04] Your nervous system resets itself for the long haul, right? So not in a short term, we're talking, this is where your nervous system stays regulated for the long haul, okay? And it increases your capacity to handle whatever you have on and to thrive in any situation. I hope that's helpful. I'd love to hear your comments.
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