Mastering Nervous System Health: Vagus Nerve Insights and Healing Strategies
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Mastering Nervous System Health: Vagus Nerve Insights and Healing Strategies

In this episode, Matt Tack and Dr. Alfred Alessi delve into the importance of the vagus nerve and its role in nervous system regulation. They identify symptoms and signs of a dysregulated nervous system before presenting comprehensive solutions for enhancing vagal tone. The discussion covers the healing hierarchy and a three-pillar approach to nervous system healing, incorporating functional medicine strategies. Clinical evidence and regenerative tools for vagal nerve activation are explored, highlighting personalized plans available at Alessi Functional Health. The episode concludes with a call to action and closing remarks.

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(0:00) Introduction to vagus nerve and nervous system regulation (9:21) Symptoms and signs of a dysregulated nervous system (14:55) Sponsor: Authentic Nutrition (16:20) Comprehensive solutions for improving vagal tone (25:16) The healing hierarchy and three pillar approach to nervous system healing (28:48) Functional medicine strategies for nervous system health (31:44) Clinical evidence and regenerative tools for vagal nerve activation (33:14) Personalized plans at Alessi Functional Health (34:09) Call to action and closing remarks

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You can't heal in a state of threat always.

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It naturally creates inflammation.

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If your nervous system is always bracing for that impact, your body can't prioritize that

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repair, digestion, or even balance.

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Throws your thyroid, your hormones all out of balance.

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So survival first, healing last.

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Welcome to Health Decode, your number one source for real health information with your

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host, doctor Alessi and Matt Tack.

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Welcome back to another episode of Health Decoded.

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I am your host, doctor Alessi.

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And your cohost, Matt Tack.

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Matt Tack.

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Good to see you, my guy.

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Good to see you, man.

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How you doing?

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Not that I don't see you every day, but just, you know, in a little different facet here.

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Well, man, I'm excited for this one.

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This is something that I know you're a very big proponent of and something that you coach on a

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lot.

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So pumped about this this topic today and what that topic is, is the vagus nerve and why

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really vagal tone is responsible for maintaining like a a level of like calm and

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balance within the body and why resetting that is also you know important for resetting our

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nervous system immune system and all these different systems within the body.

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You know, let's let's just get right into it.

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I think we'll start for most patients is there most people like talking about what is a vagus

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nerve lot of people don't even know what it is so let's just start there.

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So you know what is something a lot of people don't even learn but the vagus nerve is really

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the most important nerve in your body.

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And it's it's your cranial nerve 10.

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So it starts basically at like at the base of your brainstem.

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And so it's the longest cranial nerve in your body.

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It originates at the medulla oblongata, which is in your brainstem, and it travels downward

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through the neck into the chest and abdomen, which then branches out to major organs,

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including your heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, and your entire digestive tract.

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And so, know, the word Vegas comes from the Latin word wandering because it literally

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wanders throughout the body.

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It's a kind of a cool statistic there.

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But it's basically the powerhouse of your parasympathetic nervous system.

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And so your nervous system, your autonomic nervous system meaning the one that's just

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always running, it's not something we can control has two parts.

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Your sympathetic which is what we know as like the fight or flight and the parasympathetic

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which is more of that rest, digest and repair system.

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And so, you know, whereas the sympathetic nervous system is preparing our body for stress

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or for you know, some type of emergency, the parasympathetic is doing the opposite and so

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the vagus nerve is able to bring it back down to calm when times of healing and recovery.

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And so if your vagus nerve isn't working properly, or if we're stuck in a sympathetic

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state, which is like chronic stress mode, we've talked about this before.

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This is where we see breakdown of systems, rise of inflammation and ultimately dysfunction and

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disease.

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And so, you know, the core functions of the vagus nerve, basically what it does is it's

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multitasking, it's doing a lot of different things in regulation.

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So it's gonna help regulate heart rate and blood pressure, it's going to regulate

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digestive function because it actually stimulates stomach acid production and enzyme

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release.

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So anytime we're working with patients who maybe are having digestive issues and they've

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been prescribed things like Nexiums and proton pump inhibitors, I'm also like hey, yeah, let's

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focus on the digestive part but how do we balance that central nervous system as well

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because it's very critical.

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It's also important for immune regulation and inflammation control.

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You know, basically like the cholinergic anti inflammatory pathway is stimulated by the vagal

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nerve.

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And so this helps to produce certain things that are gonna fight against you know,

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infections and invaders.

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And then it's also important for mood focus and cognitive health as well.

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It can help against things like anxiety and depression if we can have you know, proper

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vagal tone.

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So then, you know, we always like to talk about like what can you experience, right?

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Like when vagal tone is low, basically meaning your vagus nerve is not functioning well.

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So, you could feel things like chronic fatigue or burnout, bloating, constipation, brain fog

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or poor concentration, again anxiety, depression, poor sleep quality.

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People often get like low HRV which is that heart rate variability and then even like

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autoimmune or inflammatory flare ups.

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Now, everything on that list we've discussed in detail for specific things in the past.

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So that's why addressing vagal tone is basically incorporated into all of our

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functional medicine and you know, total care kind of like programs where we're like, hey,

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we're addressing an internal system, but we need to focus on this as well because it's

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gonna know, it's gonna make or break whether or not this works.

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And so when the vagus tone is low, the body is gonna be stuck in fight or flight and then

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healing and recovery is is ultimately not possible.

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So things that are gonna disrupt the vagal tone, right, or vagus nerve is high stress,

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trauma, whether that's physical or you know, psychological trauma, Poor gut health, so

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things like leaky gut, which we deal with all the time.

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Pretty much everybody comes in with gut issues.

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I'm testing leaky gut and more often than not we're finding it.

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Just the amount of like stress and toxins our bodies go through.

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Things like mouth breathing, This is a little bit more kind of nuance but if we're breathing

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through our mouth, we are not activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

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So focusing on like breathing in through the nose and diaphragmatic, right?

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Using our stomach, not our chest.

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And then another one that we deal with a lot in the clinic is cervical spine dysfunction or

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even TMJ dysfunction.

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And so when there's structural misalignments in the cervical spine, that can put pressure on

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the vagus nerve and obviously lower that vagal tone.

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So there's actually a cool study 2018 in frontiers of neuroscience reviewed the effects

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of vagus nerve stimulation and found that there was some compelling evidence to improve vagal

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tone.

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It reduced inflammation, improved symptoms of autoimmune disease, supported mood and then

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enhanced digestive and metabolic health in patients.

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So that's pretty awesome.

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You know, something as simple as you know, doing some what we're going to talk about like

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breath work, cold exposure, all that to stimulate vagal tone had these profound

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effects.

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So kind of like, you know, in takeaway here, like what we always talk about is like things

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don't work in isolation, right?

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Thyroid doesn't work in isolation, gut doesn't work in isolation.

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The vagus nerve is often kind of that missing link.

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Remember, it's spread out so much and so it connects the brain, body and immune system.

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And so when we're talking about true healing, you know, this has to be a component or a piece

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of what we're doing.

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So now you know, why don't you Matt talk a little bit about like kind of signs, right?

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Like let's get a little bit more into it like that.

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Maybe someone's stuck in the fight or flight mode and what people can experience with that.

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Yeah, let's break that down.

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So the vagus nerve is why it's critical.

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Let's, you know, shift gears here a little bit and talk about something that affects more

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people than we actually realize.

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So most people are living in survival mode and don't even know it.

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Right?

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I think Doctor.

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Lussie says this over and over again, there's nothing new underneath the sun.

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And so when we come back to it, we're talking about sympathetic dominance and where body is

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stuck in fight or flight long after the danger is gone.

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And that's when the body tenses up.

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Right?

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The central nervous system is tense, and you just feel rigid.

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Right?

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This isn't just a feeling.

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It's a psychological state that directly impacts your brain hormones, your digestion,

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inflammation, and let's be real, your overall quality of life.

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So, as we go into the fight or flight, the sympathetic nervous system is designed to

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respond to acute threats.

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Right?

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So like running from a predator or swerving around to avoid a crash, it increases your

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heart rate, pumps your blood to your muscles, and releases adrenaline and cortisol to help

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you survive.

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We do this intentionally a lot as an example of hopping into a cold plunge.

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Right?

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That's your sympathetic nervous system arising.

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So but here's the problem when it's unintentional.

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Right?

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When you're constantly going through these states of chronic stress, means that the

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response never shuts off.

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So you're constantly in that state.

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So most of us are being hit with these micro threats all day long.

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Right?

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Deadlines, traffic, phone, notifications, blood sugar levels, emotional pressure, past trauma,

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poor sleep, toxins, all of which your brain is staying on this high, high alert.

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So when is it an overdrive?

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Right?

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These are the symptoms of dysregulated nervous systems that we see all the time in our

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practice at Alessi Functional Health, and we're gonna get later into, alright, what do we need

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to do to bring in the parasympathetic?

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Right?

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So sleep issues.

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Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, major concern.

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Right?

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Anxiety or irritability throughout the day.

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That happens.

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Right?

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A lot of us a book that I'm currently reading and I forget the name of the author, but it's

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the anxious society that we live in.

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Right?

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So it's more so adolescence, but right.

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The anxious society that like the social spheres and past trauma automatically give us.

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Right?

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Digestive problem, cold hands and feet, that neuropathy, brain fog or memory lapses.

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Now we're not talking about, Hey, I lost my keys or, Hey, I just forgot what I was doing

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ten minutes ago.

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It's one of those things where it's the consistent nature of can you recall things,

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right?

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Can you recall what you did this past weekend or what you did previous weekends?

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Those are some of the things that you you really wanna make sure, like, hey.

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Is this just a common occurrence, or is this happening consistently?

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Right?

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Muscle tension, racing hearts, raise your racing heartbeat or have palpitations, fatigue

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that just doesn't go away.

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Right?

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So you're wired but tired at the same time.

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Your nervous system can't just shift into a downshift.

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And then you just have a low stress tolerance.

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Even small issues seem just super overwhelming to you.

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And if you feel like you're always bracing for impact, you're always stepping on the brakes,

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your nervous system probably thinks that danger is real even when it's not.

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So how do we create something that we can, you know, step off the gas?

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Right?

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And maybe even sometimes put on a little bit gas where we know when to shift from that

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breaking mechanism to put on the gas.

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So you can have the perfect supplement stack.

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You can eat organic.

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You can even meditate once a week.

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But if your nervous system is dysregulated, none of it works the way it should.

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Right?

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You want it all in sequence.

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This is why the silent bottleneck this is the silent bottleneck healing to healing.

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You can't out supplement a nervous system that thinks it's in danger zone twenty four seven.

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So here's what science says.

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A landmark 2020 review in the neuroendocrinology analyzed how vagal

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suppression get that?

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Vagal suppression.

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Right?

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So your poor vagus nerve tone has effects on long term health.

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So they found that chronic low vagal tone, meaning a suppressed or, overstressed vagal

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nerve, increased cortisol levels.

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So you constantly have quiet cortisol levels.

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You wanna have and so diving into that what cortisol is actually leveled, there's a cadence

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to which your cortisol levels ebbs and flow.

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Right?

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It should peak right after that morning wake up.

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It's slowly rising.

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Right?

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It should peak midmorning to afternoon and slowly make its way down where you're catering

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it towards bedtime.

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Right?

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That's the way things that's what we look at when we take your blood work.

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Right?

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Is, hey.

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Do you have proper cortisol cadence?

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Leads to insulin resistance, which is that blood sugar instability.

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Right?

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That usually comes out of poor sleep and high cortisol levels and promotes immune

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dysregulation, meaning maybe you get a lot of colds throughout the year.

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You have you get sick more often than not.

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Right?

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Every time the weather changes or something like that.

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Right?

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Making inflammation harder to control.

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So this creates a perfect storm effect for chronic disease, especially autoimmune issues,

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cardiovascular problems, and neurodegenerative decline.

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So if you're wondering why your fatigue won't lift, your gut won't heal.

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Your anxiety won't ease up, and you have to look upstream.

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You gotta look at your nervous system.

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So here's what I want you what I'll leave you with.

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Right?

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You can't heal in a state of threat always.

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It naturally creates inflammation.

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If your nervous system is always bracing for that impact, your body can't prioritize that

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repair, digestion, or even balance.

00:13:44
Right?

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Throws your thyroid, your hormones all out of balance.

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So survival first, healing last.

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That's why we always say nervous system first.

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Affixate your nervous system, whether through breathing mechanisms or other focused efforts.

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I personally choose a cold plunge therapy with Asana.

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I love the contrast therapy.

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Fix that, but those are intentional ways to do it.

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So fix that foundation and everything else then becomes possible.

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Right?

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We had a group outing, last week, and that's one of the things we talked about was how we're

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intentional about how we operate within our nervous system.

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So those are some of the things that you just wanna be cognizant of and even speaking to

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yourself.

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Right?

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Speaking in ways that are positive, elevate and deescalate scenarios, where you can where you

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can have that vagal toning, that proper vagal toning.

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So, now in our next segment, so let's get into how we can improve that vagal vagus tone with

00:14:50
practice over time.

00:14:51
But before we do that, here's a quick word from our sponsors.

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00:16:14
Now back to the episode.

00:16:18
Awesome.

00:16:19
Welcome back.

00:16:20
Man.

00:16:20
That was really good stuff.

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You know things that people deal with all the time and like most people are like brushing

00:16:26
off.

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They're like, I just feel tired like I'm stressed all the time.

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It's like that is going to eventually lead to issues and we see it all the time.

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People brush things off.

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Then they end up in the clinic and they're like, Okay, now we're now we're repairing it.

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So, you know, by improving your vagal tone and resetting the nervous system, you get ahead of

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a lot of these issues before they become issues.

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So, you know, say we're in a state of chronic stress and fight or flight and we want to reset

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the vagal tone.

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This is how we do it.

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Let's talk about some of these solutions.

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And obviously, you just explained kind of what it feels like to be stuck in that sympathetic

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overdrive.

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And so, know, if somebody listening right now is is experiencing that or has experienced that

00:17:07
or know somebody, then you know, pay attention because these are some things you can do, some

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action items to to be able to kind of reverse that.

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So basically, your nervous system is plastic.

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The term we use plastic meaning it can rewire, it can rebalance, it can heal.

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You just have to give it the right input.

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So again, vagal tone, we kept saying that it's basically a measure of how well your vagus

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nerve is functioning.

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The ability for your body to switch from sympathetic into parasympathetic.

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That is essentially the tone, right?

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And so that's where those things like cold plunge that you talk about is because yeah,

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you're spiking your sympathetic real quick with that Oh my gosh!

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Kind of things are freezing, right?

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But then when you get out, how quickly can you reset that with some breath work?

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So, it's a very strong practice.

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It's almost like resilience practice, if you will.

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So, you know, vagal tone, you're going to have faster recovery, better digestion, stronger

00:18:02
immune balance, and you'll be more resilient, better energy.

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If you have lower vagal tone, you know, you're going to be honestly chronically stressing your

00:18:10
physiology, poor recovery, inflamed, probably mood swings and then digestive dysfunction,

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obviously.

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So, let's talk about some things and I've got a list here and you know, I'll go through them

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and if you want to add anything man, obviously jump in.

00:18:25
But number one, the best thing you can do and it's again, this is free is breath work.

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So what we call diaphragmatic breathing.

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So basically like slow deep belly breathing, you know, drawing in through the nose,

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expanding like your stomach versus like your rib cage or your chest.

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Want to breathe with your diaphragm.

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And so this is one of the fastest ways to activate the vagus nerve.

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A couple of methods.

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One is called a four seven eight.

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So basically it's a four second inhale, a seven second hold and then an eight second exhale.

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And so when you have a longer exhale, you're actually like saturating your blood with carbon

00:19:01
dioxide, it's gonna build up and that can kind of put you into that parasympathetic.

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And then box breathing is a great one too.

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Basically, inhale four seconds, hold four seconds, exhale four seconds, hold four

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seconds.

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People are always like, but does it have to be four seconds?

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If it's five seconds, it's not the end of the world, right?

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Like I say, the concept is to have a cadence and control.

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You're controlling your breathing.

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So how often are we going through our day thinking about our breathing?

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We're not.

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We're kind of just like automatically doing stuff and you know, we're going to breathe in

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kind of like a dysregulated way.

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And so, there's a study in frontiers in psychology found that slow paced breathing

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actually significantly increased the vagal activity and heart rate variability, which HRV

00:19:46
is a key measure for recovery and how our nervous system is functioning.

00:19:51
The next one, and this is something I mean, this is your thing man, cold exposure.

00:19:55
You're the cold guy.

00:19:58
So like cold showers, cold plunges, or even like you see a lot of people nowadays just

00:20:02
doing like that stimulating that diving reflex by putting their face in cold water.

00:20:07
Right?

00:20:07
It's the same concept.

00:20:09
It's it's stimulating a bit of sympathetic to then get you back into the parasympathetic.

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And so there was a 2020 study that showed cold exposure directly increases parasympathetic

00:20:20
activity, improves mood by triggering these vagal pathways.

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And we all know you get out of cold and it's like, okay, in the moment it sucked, but you

00:20:28
get out of there and you've got like this heightened energy.

00:20:30
You feel like you're on caffeine or something.

00:20:32
And that's directly kind of that response that we're talking about.

00:20:37
Another one, gargling or singing or humming, right?

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These things can stimulate the vagus tone because again, the vagus nerve runs down the

00:20:46
back of the throat.

00:20:47
And so when we're doing these things, we are stimulating that nerve in a way.

00:20:53
Jake, who is our, you know, massage therapist works at our clinic does the electrons plus,

00:20:58
and he'll get his fingers right on the vagus nerve.

00:21:00
And he'll put it on there and it feels funky because he's you know, directly stimulating it,

00:21:05
but you definitely feel afterwards like this calming effect.

00:21:08
So that's a pretty cool one as well.

00:21:11
And then something we do in our clinic, obviously chiropractic spinal alignment.

00:21:15
So especially like the upper cervical C1 C2 because your brainstem, the lower part, the

00:21:21
medulla lives in there.

00:21:22
It's right inside that C1 which is your Atlas.

00:21:24
Basically, the Atlas like a little ring around that that brainstem and when there's even I

00:21:29
mean a millimeter to two millimeters of misalignment, it will cause pressure which will

00:21:34
then down regulate that vagus nerve.

00:21:38
Focusing on like gut repair, right?

00:21:40
So fixing the gut because the gut and the brain are connected.

00:21:44
We say all the time that the gut is a second brain.

00:21:47
Honestly, probably the first brain.

00:21:48
It has more nervous activity than really, know, going on.

00:21:52
And so, know, about 80 to 90% of the vagus nerve fibers go from the gut to the brain.

00:21:58
And so, you know, gut inflammation, leaky gut, dysbiosis, these are going to directly

00:22:03
influence vagal tone.

00:22:04
So, know, we we recommend things like probiotics, collagen, glutamine, anti

00:22:09
inflammatory diet, but you can't just start taking a bunch of stuff.

00:22:13
You obviously have to have a plan, right?

00:22:14
If you have some type of dysfunction, you don't just start throwing things onto it, you could

00:22:19
make the problem worse.

00:22:20
So obviously getting some testing done is important.

00:22:24
Other things are like movement and lymphatic flow.

00:22:27
So you know, bouncing on like a mini trampoline or rebounder, dry brushing or the like the

00:22:33
vibration power plates we have in the office, stimulate that autonomic nervous system.

00:22:38
HRV training and biofeedback.

00:22:40
So, you know, using using these tools or like these feedback mechanisms, the whoop band or

00:22:46
the Oura Ring telling you or like even like my Garmin watch gives me like an HRV score, right?

00:22:51
So I can kind of tell when I'm like pushing it because it'll be lower.

00:22:55
And I'm like, okay, I need to maybe dial back or like focus a little bit more on some of

00:23:00
these things we're talking about.

00:23:02
And so, you know, we definitely focus in our clinic when have a patient going through a

00:23:09
protocol is like again, the whole picture approach and so the nervous system reset is

00:23:14
really important.

00:23:15
We're often going to integrate like a combination of things, the chiropractic

00:23:19
biophysics, breath work training, using adaptogenic herbs and nutraceuticals, and then

00:23:25
even like cool like peptides and stuff like Celinek and Cemax.

00:23:30
These are ones that they're intranasal sprays that help to kind of stimulate the vagal tone

00:23:34
or down regulate it.

00:23:36
And then obviously, we already know like functional lab testing to identify, know, is

00:23:41
the stress coming from infections, blood sugar imbalances, toxins, right?

00:23:47
Or is it more emotional like daily stress?

00:23:51
Because if we understand, I always say this to patients, I'm like, if we understand why, like

00:23:56
then we know what we can do to fix it, right?

00:23:59
And so, again, you're not gonna out meditate your way out of a toxic like thing, like if you

00:24:05
have overload of toxins and you're not gonna detox your way out of like chronic stress from

00:24:10
work, right?

00:24:10
So it's like there needs to be a multi pronged approach.

00:24:14
So, you know, I think in overall, right?

00:24:19
The vagus nerve we talked about is basically like it's pivotal for so many different things

00:24:24
and that's why we incorporate it into pretty much everything we do.

00:24:31
Yeah.

00:24:32
The nervous system is the at the end of the day is like the foundation for healing.

00:24:36
So as everything you aforementioned, let's go ahead and land the land the plane here.

00:24:43
We talked about the vagus nerve and how the dysfunction shows up and how to improve tone

00:24:48
and reset the system.

00:24:50
But it's time to zoom out a little bit because this isn't just about, like, relaxation and

00:24:55
meditation.

00:24:57
It's about why the nervous system regulation is the foundation for all of healing, throughout

00:25:04
the entire body.

00:25:05
So here we break down the healing hierarchy.

00:25:07
And here's the truth.

00:25:08
Right?

00:25:09
You can't heal your you out heal your hormones if your body thinks it's being chased by a

00:25:14
freaking tiger every day.

00:25:16
Right?

00:25:16
Yeah.

00:25:17
You can't digest food if you're in fight or flight constantly, and you definitely can't

00:25:22
recover from chronic illness if your nervous system is locked in survival mode.

00:25:27
So get that.

00:25:28
Why do why are why is everyone pre diabetic?

00:25:31
Why is everyone potentially getting cancer?

00:25:33
Right?

00:25:35
And, you know, we do blame it on food a lot of times of what we put in and food has to do a

00:25:40
lot with it, but it's also the chronic stress that is impacting our central nervous system,

00:25:46
where we are constantly in fight or flight.

00:25:48
So our body is naturally going to inflamed regardless of the food that we put in,

00:25:53
regardless of the supplementation, right?

00:25:55
You have to get to the point where your body is willing to accept it, right?

00:26:00
The healthy food that you're putting into your body, the healthy supplementation.

00:26:05
And you're not going to do that unless you're educated and trained, which is why we do this,

00:26:09
right?

00:26:09
So that's why at LSE functional health, the nervous system regulation isn't a bonus.

00:26:15
It's built in every part of our care model, right?

00:26:18
So physical medicine, functional medicine, and regenerative medicine all fall in line with how

00:26:25
we're operating within the family of our central nervous system.

00:26:29
So let's be honest, our culture glorifies stress, work constantly, get up, keep working,

00:26:38
Don't go to sleep until freaking three in the morning and keep working.

00:26:41
Right?

00:26:42
Hustle without recovery breaks the body down, period.

00:26:45
So your body needs breaks and recovery.

00:26:50
So that's why people who feel the most stuck are often the ones who do everything right,

00:26:55
clean eating, working out, taking supplements, but missing the one foundational piece.

00:27:02
Right.

00:27:02
And I was one of those people just work it out, outwork it.

00:27:06
Right.

00:27:06
You can't out supplement a nervous system that never feels safe.

00:27:10
And that's why your body is one of the most protective things that you need to have.

00:27:15
And so here's our three pillar approach to our nervous system healing.

00:27:21
And it's something that's so pivotal and paramount to a lessee functional health, and

00:27:25
how we support the nervous system healing from every single angle.

00:27:29
So number one, physical medicine.

00:27:32
So the chiropractic biophysics for spinal alignment and brainstem decompression, right?

00:27:38
That vagal toning is a big part of that, as Doctor.

00:27:41
Alessi forementioned, right?

00:27:43
Softwave therapy for pain relief and vagal activation.

00:27:47
You can do this in a number of ways, but what we do with spinal injuries or where people have

00:27:52
spinal compressions is we try to eliminate that so we can bring stem cells to activate to

00:27:58
reduce the amount of inflammation, the stress you have specifically on your spinal column,

00:28:03
right?

00:28:04
So that's a big thing.

00:28:06
And then structural mobility exercises to free locked patterns.

00:28:11
Core exercises are a big component of that.

00:28:14
And so we do that.

00:28:15
We have that built within our protocol, right?

00:28:17
It's part of our pain free future protocol where you need to be working on structural

00:28:22
mobility exercises.

00:28:23
It's pivotal in getting everything involved, everything activated, and just, you know,

00:28:31
taking your body from parasympathetic to the sympathetic and and back and forth.

00:28:36
Right?

00:28:36
Because that is part of the process.

00:28:38
You don't want your body always to be a parasympathetic mode.

00:28:42
You do to want sometimes it to be in sympathetic too as well.

00:28:46
So they go hand in hand.

00:28:48
Right?

00:28:49
Functional medicine piece number two.

00:28:51
So we remove the hidden stressors like the gut pathogens, mold toxins, and blood sugar

00:28:57
crashes.

00:28:59
So this is part of getting, like, proper blood work done.

00:29:03
And then going through our detox protocol.

00:29:05
I was actually talking with a guy last night, and I recommended, hey, You probably should get

00:29:10
that liver activated again.

00:29:12
Right?

00:29:12
Because there's times where I do it on a quarterly basis.

00:29:16
I think that you need to build that into your protocol, whether it's not a maybe a monthly

00:29:22
thing, but maybe a quarterly thing for you, or maybe it is a monthly thing for you.

00:29:26
You need to really understand the cadence of your body and where you're at.

00:29:30
Right?

00:29:30
Support deficiencies with adaptogens, minerals and mitochondrial nutrients, whether it be

00:29:36
through micronutrients where you're getting it through supplementation or whole food sources.

00:29:41
Right.

00:29:41
And then, as I said, use a lab data to drive that precise interventions.

00:29:47
This was me two years ago where I was taken through the functional med process of really

00:29:53
understanding my blood work and really wanting to dive in what the micronutrients were.

00:29:58
How do I vagal tone, properly so my body isn't constantly in distress mode?

00:30:05
And then number three is the regenerative tools.

00:30:07
Right?

00:30:08
Some people are what we call too far along.

00:30:11
Right?

00:30:12
And they need aided assistance or they needed aided help.

00:30:16
And, you know, I'll be honest.

00:30:18
I don't think anyone's not too far along.

00:30:21
There always can be some level of help.

00:30:24
And so the regenerative tools allow that, and specifically peptide therapy.

00:30:30
Doctor.

00:30:31
Alessi, aforementioned the Celinek and the Cmax, which those are some good tools, to

00:30:38
retain, to restraint retrain, the stress response to the body.

00:30:42
But then there's also the regenerative tools like BBC 157, SSF 31.

00:30:49
There's other ipamorelin.

00:30:50
There's there's other peptide therapies that we have within our repertoire of protocols that

00:30:55
we've built out, that are extremely helpful in the regenerative response.

00:31:00
So another one is HRV monitoring to guide the progress along.

00:31:05
So we all love those biofeedback tools to create that daily awareness.

00:31:10
I think data is a big key.

00:31:12
And then the stem cells, stem cell replacement.

00:31:15
So if you're doing it regionally or intravenous, those are those are some main

00:31:20
tools that you can utilize from a regenerative standpoint that we offer at our clinic.

00:31:25
If you need that, again, that aided recovery.

00:31:29
So we cover the full blanket in our three measures.

00:31:34
But I don't don't take my word for it.

00:31:36
I'm not expecting you to.

00:31:38
I want, we always have like other published sources in here, right?

00:31:44
So a 2121 journal in the clinical of Journal of Clinical Medicine concluded that vagal nerve

00:31:52
activation improves clinical outcomes in a wide range of chronic disorders, including

00:31:58
depression, IBS, hypertension, and PTSD by modulating inflammatory pathways,

00:32:04
neuroplasticity, and stress response.

00:32:07
So basically what that's saying is like anything you do to aid the vagal nerve

00:32:13
activation or that vagal toning is going to improve your body's overall response for an

00:32:19
anti inflammatory response.

00:32:21
Right?

00:32:21
So that is basically what it does.

00:32:24
But I wanna leave you with this thought.

00:32:25
Right?

00:32:25
Whether you're dealing with brain fog, autoimmunity disease, anxiety, or chronic just

00:32:32
natural fatigue that you might have, it starts with the nervous system.

00:32:36
It starts with the nervous system.

00:32:38
And when you learn to shift your body into healing mode, everything else starts to follow.

00:32:45
So I definitely want you to just to retain that because that's the work and that's why we do

00:32:50
what we do.

00:32:52
Man, that was so good.

00:32:53
I love the way you broke all that down with the three pillars as well.

00:32:57
And, you know, the three pillars really is, again, man, it's all about systems.

00:33:01
And when you have systems dialed in, we get fantastic results because there's no stone

00:33:06
unturned.

00:33:07
We are hitting everything that that someone might need to heal their body, fix their pain,

00:33:12
dysfunction, disease, whatever it might be.

00:33:14
So, you know, if you want to learn more about how we help diagnose, reverse and heal chronic

00:33:20
disease within our functional medicine programs, go to alessifunctionalhealth.com,

00:33:25
schedule a consultation with either me or one of our other providers and let's create a

00:33:30
personalized plan for that lifelong health.

00:33:33
If you're a listener of this podcast, you're always gonna get exclusive discounts and price

00:33:37
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00:33:41
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00:33:44
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00:33:50
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00:33:53
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00:33:56
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00:34:00
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00:34:05
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00:34:09
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00:34:14
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00:34:18
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00:34:23
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00:34:27
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00:34:43
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00:35:10
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