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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

You wake up tired.

You feel tired throughout the 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 about growth.

They, they're just like, I just wanna be able to keep

doing what I'm doing, right?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

A part of it, right?

But it's not the 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.

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.

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.

And a lot of that activation is coming from our thinking.

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.

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.

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 mode all the time.

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?

You're just gonna be overactive.

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?

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?

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.

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?

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.