If I could say one thing that has changed my whole entire life, it is breath work. I think it's one of the most underrated things that you could do in your day to completely shift you from one state to another.
I'm Raley W.
Kiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw and fielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry. Today, I wanted to talk about our nervous system because I don't know about you, but it's getting to the end of the year and I still feel really high strung and what I need to
do is calm my nervous system. And I think it's really easy to go through our days, weeks, years of being overstimulated and having our nervous system in fight or flight without it coming back down to feeling in a safe mode. And it's really normal because of the type of life that we all live, the overstimulation that we have. But I do know that there are so many incredible ways to help us to regulate and a state of our nervous system in the morning really dictates how the
rest of our day unfolds. And look, I definitely think that there are incredible supplements out there like magnesium and ushwa ganda or doing red light therapy, all of that does work. One of my favorite supplements right now for soothing my nerves is terror Origins Healthy stress relief.
It contains lots.
Of adaptagens like ushwaganda and rodeola and elthenine, a herb cortious chandra, and all of these are incredible ingredients used to help the body better manage stress and helps to reduce tension and just support the balance of your nervous system. And so I do use that as a little extra
care for my nerves. But I also want to remind you that your body was designed to regulate itself long before supplements or devices ever existed, and so of course these are really helpful in this environment that we're living in to reduce stress that we weren't expecting in our body.
You know, if you think about all the people who just.
Lived with nature, they probably didn't need all these supplements because they weren't as high strong as we are in this environment. That we now live in, and so it's definitely useful to have a little top up. But Ioveda has shown us for thousands of years how possible it is to help regulate our nervous system with so many tools and techniques that are completely free. So in this episode, I want to take you through nine things that I do before nine am to help reset and regulate my
nervous system for the day. They are all free, they're all simple, and they are genuinely effective, and I have been doing some of these for years and years.
You can do them all in the morning, or.
If you don't have time for that, you can kind of sprinkle them throughout your day. You can also pick and choose which ones feel right for you, because we're all so different and different things are going to help heal our system. I've had many many health and hormone experts on my podcast, and so some of these recommendations are things that I put into practice after hearing their advice that is based on clinical studies, and other things are just tools that I have learned from Aravada and
ancient healing practices have existed for thousands of years. So the first thing I want to remind you of is that your nervous system is not broken, It is just overloaded. And we have to realize and recognize how overstimulating modern life is. Whether it's the constant notifications, whether it's looking at screens before our brain even wakes up, rushing from thing to thing, loud environments, all the emotional overload, caffeine, lack of sunlight, lack of real rest, you name it.
We are putting our bodies through it. And your nervous system is not malfunctioning. It's doing exactly what it was built to do respond to all of this input. We just need to give it counter signals of safety to help reregulate it. So before we get into the tools, I want to quickly explain these three basic states that your nervous system moved through in the most simplest possible way to help you to understand your body a little bit better. So the first state is our sympathetic state.
This is our fight or flight, which is what many of us live in. This is the go go ghost state. It turns on when you are rushing, when you're stressed, when you're scroll or overwhelmed, or when you're running high on caffeine. Your heart rate goes up, your mind speeds up, and your body gets ready to react. The second state is your dorsal vagel or this is your free state.
This is full.
Shut down mode. You're not anxious, you're not exhausted. You just feel numb, checked out, and unmotivated, or like your brain is just wrapped in a cloud. This is your nervous system saying that was way too much and I need to shut down to protect myself. That's when you know you have gone way past over stimulation and all the way to my body cannot handle this. And the third state is ventral vaguel. You don't need to remember these names, but just know that this is your safe
and connected zone. This is your body being in its regulated state. It's calm, it's clear, it's grounded, it's steady. You might, like me, be sitting here thinking, God, I don't even know what that feels like, haven't felt in a really long time. But it's when you feel like yourself again. You can think properly, you breathe properly, and you respond instead of reacting. How lovely does that sound?
What a dream? So let's make this happen, shall we?
This is relevant here because all the tools that I'm about to share help you move back into this regulated, safe state, and hopefully the more that you do them, the more regulated you feel and the easier it is to get back into that state. Your nervous system is going to move in and out of stress all day.
That is normal.
The goal isn't to live in a complete zence state, even though that sounds like a wonderful place to be. The goal is to recover faster, to come back to calm more easily, to not stay stuck in stress or shut down for too long. So that is what we are aiming for. Once you finish this podcast, try and put these into practice and see how different it makes your body and mindful. First, I'm going to give you a little iravadic perspective, because you know I have to.
I talk about doses a lot, but if you're new to it. In our vader, just like we have these different blood types, we also have different doses. It is our natural mind body type. They are the qualities that we're born with and the patterns that shape how we think, feel and move through the world. This regulation doesn't necessarily look this for everyone. We all look different our minds act differently, so of course the way that we regulate ourselves.
Will be different.
We don't all break down in the same way, we don't react to overwhelm in the same way, and therefore we don't all always need the exact same tools. So understanding your dosha helps to tell you why your stress looks the way that it does, why certain tools will instantly calm you, and why other tools just don't work on you at all, and what your body is really
asking for when you feel off. So I'm going to go through some of these disregulation modes of different doses, and as you hear them, simply just notice which one you feel you fit into the most. So Vata dysregulation looks like anxiety, restlessness, overthinking. This is when your mind is sprinting, your body is buzzing, and you just cannot switch it off, Like your mind is just racing over and over again no matter how much you try. Your
thoughts feel really scattered and all over the place. So if you are someone who hears this and you're like, oh, that really sounds like me. Your nervous system can't through warmth and routine stillness and lots of grounding practices. Cold showers, fasting, or intense morning workouts may actually make you feel far worse. But warm breakfast, breath work, long exhales, and grounding rituals
they are incredible for you. Pitter dysregulation looks like irritation, anger, urgency, that kind of feeling of everything is urgent and everyone is annoying me right now. You know the term hot headed, That's basically how you get when you're disregulated. Your heat is rising mentally and emotionally. So if you're hearing this and you're like, this is definitely me. I feel snappy, I feel annoyed. I just want to punch everyone in the face. You need cooling, you need softening, and.
You need space.
So competitive workouts, hot environments and rushing around will definitely inflame you even more. But having soft morning lights, slow walks, cooling breaths, and a little bit of silence can instantly regulate you. Kafa dysregulation looks like freeze, that zone that we spoke about earlier where you feel heavy and numb, the feeling of I'm stark and foggy and unmotivated, and I feel really low in my mood and my energy. So if you had that, and you're thinking, oh, I
felt like that for a little bit. Your calm comes from actually moving, stimulation, warmth and gentle activation. Stillness and coziness might actually make you feel a little bit more stuck, and so you need invigorating breathworks. You need brisk walk, sunlight and warmth that can re anchor you. So I'm now going to share the things that I do in the morning. And like I said, all of these practices work for me, but that you may have to test and trial these to see which ones benefit you the
most and helps to soothe your nervous system best. So the first one, which I've been doing four years is hot water. Now you can add a little bit of spices in there. You know. I love my CCFT, corry undercumin and fennelcy. It's great for digestion. Recently, I've been putting apple side vinegar in my hot water in the morning to help with my digestifier because it's winter at the moment and it needs a little bit of help. Warm water helps to soothe and calm the digestifier and
the mind in the morning. If you think about it, warm water equals warm body and a warm mind. And usually a warm mind feels more comforted. It signals to the nervous system that we're safe, we're not rushing, and we are starting today off slow. If you think about it, it makes sense. So when do you feel comforted, you get into a snugly little blanket, you put your comfory clothes on, and so a little bit of warmth in the body and the mind can really help to make
it feel comfortable and relaxed. The second thing that I do first thing when I make up in the morning, I brush my teeth. And while I brush my teeth, I stand on a murrama mat. This is basically an acupressure mat. It has these little spikes in it and you just walk up and down. It helps to massage your pressure points. Your marma points or these pressure points are energy junctions where your mind and your body meet.
So standing on a murrama mat, it helps to stimulate the nerve endings on your feet and it sends grounding signals up the vagus nerve, which is, by the way, the nerve that helps to calm your body. It instantly shifts you mental to physical presence, not because of the pain, because it can be a little bit painful, especially if you're not used to doing it, but it really just allows your body to feel. You suddenly realize you're in your body your mind doesn't one day. It brings you
back into the moment. If you don't have a mat, it's okay. You just can use your thumbs and you can press into different parts of your feet, even if you do it for ten to twenty seconds on each foot. The third thing that I do in the morning is breath work. Oh my goodness, if I could say one thing that has changed my whole entire life, it is breath work. I think it's one of the most underrated things that you could do in your day to completely shift you from one state to another. Your breath is
literally like a remote control for your nervous system. It is the bridge between your mind and your body. It is the best tool to bring you back into presence and the fastest way for you to shift from fight or flight to feeling like you are safe. The first breath work you could do is so easy. It's a sigh. You do a tiny in hell and a long excel
in one breath. You'll notice such a difference I just did and I didn't do it properly, it instantly reduces your cortisol and there's actually science behind why these longer exhales are calming. So when you're doing breath work, and especially if you're trying to calm your body, do a shorter inhale and a longer exhale. When you inhale, your heart rate goes up, and when you exhale it actually falls.
So when you make your exhale longer than you're inhale, you are basically telling your body, we are safe and you can slow down now. The long exhale helps to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is a part of your brain that is responsible for calming, grounding, and healing. Another great breath work is either box breathwork or four seven eight. You breathe in for four counts, hold for seven, and breathe out for eight.
Again.
This helps us slow the heart rate, and sometimes counting can feel easier to get through the breath work than just trying to breathe in and out with no direction. The next thing that I've been doing a lot lately, and it's something that I realized was helpful actually when I was getting tattoos done and my body felt inclined to start humming, and I started noticing that whenever I was in painful, physical painful situations, humming felt like a
very soothing practice to do for my body. Whether it was getting skincare treatments done, or getting tattoos done, or anything that made me feel physically uncomfortable, humming helped me so much. Or if I would feel scared on a flight, whenever there's turbulence, I just start humming, and it really helps. I cannot like, until you try it, you won't really get it, but I cannot tell you how much it soothes my nervous system. It makes me feel safe in
my own body. And then I looked at it. I was like, there must be a scientific reason for this, So I looked it up and I found out that when you hum, your sinuses produced fifteen times more nitric oxide than normal. And at first I thought it was nitric oxide not bad for you, but apparently it's not. Nitric Oxide helps to relax your blood vessels, improve oxygen flow, reduce inflammation, and helps your body shift out of fight
or flight. So this is why I felt, and other people feel clearer and calmer and more grounded after humming for even thirty seconds, Isn't that amazing? A simple practice like humming can do so much for your body, and even scientifically, it's proven humming gives your brain something rhythmic and repetitive to focus on. It interrupts these spiraling thoughts, and it brings your attention out of your head and
into your body. And this is also why chanting. Like so many traditions have chanting is part of their morning practice, where it's part of their spiritual practices. It's something that I practice every morning, and that's why it feels so soothing. It's literally built on this mechanism of repetition of sound vibration through the body, and so even one minute can change the state of your body.
So give that a go.
The next time you feeling anxious or unregulated or scared on a fly, do a little bit of humming. Oh the other day, I was in a skin treatment that was a little bit painful, and I started humming Christmas songs made me feel great. Okay, this next one is something that I'm really trying hard to do, but I struggle with it so much because I'm not an early eater. But it's not working out on an empty stomach. And this was something that every female hormone expert that has
come on the podcast has told me. And it's the one that I've been resisting the most because I struggle to eat too early in the morning and I work out early and I don't feel like breaking my fast at that time.
I just don't after sleeping. I want to eat when I'm hungry.
But they keep saying that your hormones get so disrupted when you work out on an empty stomach. And apparently, when we sleep, especially as women, our cortsolt is already really high in the morning. It's also what helps us to wake up in the morning, and so it definitely has its benefit. But because it's already high, when you have fasted intense workouts without fueling yourself, it spikes are
even higher. So you have more stress, more anxiety, more cravings, and more hormonal disruption, and so you're kind of setting yourself up for failure right from the star. So I mean, it's something that I'm still working on. And it can be something small. A banana, a half a banana, a
small carb is enough. It doesn't have to be a big meal, but it's amazing to think that just by missing, just by not eating when you're working out, it can make you start your full day in a stress state, which is the opposite of what you want your workout to be doing. I usually work out to feel less anxious, not more, and so give that a go. Something I'm still working on, but it's definitely an important one.
This one, you know.
I'm sure you've heard it so many times, and so have I, and I keep telling myself to do this, and I've really managed to do it until I get through part of my meditation. At least I'm still working on making through my full meditation. I take a little break, go to the bathroom, and then I'm scrolling through my phone.
But screen free mornings what a game changer.
No TV, no music, no podcasts, no screens, just and even minimal talking get used to silent. So stimulation free mornings are so important. The nervous system actually regulates through absence. So when you wake up and you immediately take in noise and screens and you're feeding your sympathetic nervous system like you're feeding this fight or flight mode. It sounds dramatic, but it's actually the most biologically normal thing for your nervous system. We forget that for thousands of years, even
though this was very unnatural to us now. But for thousands of years, humans woke up to absolutely nothing. Maybe the sounds of the birds, maybe the sound of something boiling, you know, maybe like a nice tea, But they definitely didn't wake up to all the trending sounds on TikTok. They woke up to nature, and as unfamiliar as that might feel to us now, softness and quiet and slowness, natural light, the sounds of your own breath. This is
what heals and soothes our nervous system. The flood of simulation that hits your nervous system before your brain even has a chance to arrive in your body, it can put you from a calm sleep state to being super high strung within minutes. Silence is how your body recalibrates. It is the absence of input that actually gives your nervous system space to settle. So if there's one nutrient that we're all deficient in is definitely silence. Honestly, just
five to ten minutes of quiet in the morning. It has so much and if it yea lowers your heart rate, lows your breath, balances your cortisol, grounds your mind, and improves your focus for the rest of the day, and it actually helps you to feel like yourself before you take in the world. You know, I think most of us don't even think of silence as being useful. It feels like something that's so passive, but it's actually active regulation, Like our body needs silence to regulate our nervous system.
The next thing is something if you know me, you know I'm obsessed with nature and the power of nature to be able to heal us in so many ways that we do not even realize. Whether it's the sun, whether it's the earth, whether it's water. Nature literally has the ability to heal us in so many ways. It is so magical, and I think it's something that people take for granted and don't realize the magical power. But we're so disconnected from nature. We're so disconnected from its
ability to it. We're so disconnected from the fact that we're connected to nature. Every single day. Our sarcadian rhythm is connect to the rhythm and the cycle of the sun rising and the sunsetting. So imagine how much more of our body is regulated by that the moon affects the water in the world and affects the water in
our own body. And so I think if you are able to venture into the world and notice the effect of nature on your body, I guarantee you you're going to have a transformative experience.
I definitely have.
I've fallen in love with nature, and whenever I feel overwhelmed or whenever I feel like my body is just not happy, the first thing I think about is going outside, having fresh air, looking out into the distance, seeing the green nature around me, and there is just something so soothing about it. If you think about when you go to a beach, or you're in the woods, or you know, it may not be something you notice, but start noticing, start noticing when you're out in nature how your body feels.
I think we often don't even take time to notice that. But actually I guarantee you if you start knowing noticing it, there is not going to be a time where you're in nature and you don't feel that way. Before technology, before supplements, before wellness practices, we had sunlight, we had earth, and we had open space. And your body is still biologically wide to respond to these three things instantly, no matter how much we have trained it out of it.
So the first thing is morning light. We can all experience it, we can all receive it. Morning light isn't just a nice thing to have. It's not just a nice wellness thing. It literally programs your hormones for the entire day. It regulates your quarters alt, it improves your sleep, it stabilizes your mood. Honestly, two minutes outside. I usually go outside when the sun is rising. It feels my heart in weighs nothing, and nobody else can like. It's
just phenomenal. You do not need to go outside for a twenty minute some bathing session. Just step outside, look at the general direction of where the sky is. Maybe shut your eyes if you want to, or just look into the distance and let natural light do its job. Just look into the sky. That's all you have to do. The second thing is grounding. Oh my goodness, go barefoot. I know we will have this thing about feet, seeing your own feet, seeing other people's feet, But you know what,
Our feet get us around places. They do magnificent things. And your feet are meant to feel the soil and the earth that it walks on. We don't need to wear shoes and socks all the time. What we need is to feel the incredible energy of the earth going through our body. And I know it sounds really woo woo. And when you think of grounding, you imagine like a hippie with long hair standing in close to no clothes with their feet in the ground. But actually science has
backed this up finally, and the science is simple. Your body holds electrical charge. The earth holds electrical charge, so when your skin touches the ground, your body equalizes. It's literally like plugging into a charger. I usually do it when I land places, like especially when I go back home to London and my body clock is off. I'll go outside no matter how cold it is, and I will touch my feet to the soil and I just feel so connected. I feel so much better instantly. You
can ground in a few different ways. You can stand barefoot on soil or grass. You can sit on the ground. You can touch a tree trunk or even hug it. Or you can just place your palms on the earth too. Sometimes I just go outside and lay on the ground look up at the sky, so I can do a few of these things in one go. But yeah, they're really simple and so easy to do wherever you are. The next thing is looking out into the horizon. When you are anxious and stressed or overwhelmed, your eyes naturally
actually narrow. Your vision becomes tunneled, and this is your brain just preparing for threat. It is a survival response. But when you look at the horizon, your eyes widen, your peripheral vision expands, and your brain interprets this as there is no threat nearby. Because you're opening your eyes out, you're looking around. If you think about it, when you're scared, your whole body tenses, your eyes tense, your shoulders tense.
Everything is just one track vision of saving yourself. Whereas if you are someone that's looking around calmly, softly, it's obviously telling your brain that, hey, we're actually here as a tourist. We're just looking around, we're having fun, we're enjoying the space around, and so looking far away physically opens your field of view. This is a safety queue for the brain. We're really similar to animals actually in that way. It literally softens your whole system. Number eight
is a regulation anchor. It's one ritual that tells your body we are safe, and you can choose one to be consistent with every single morning. It's just a lovely signal of safety to your nervous system. And this can be anything from journaling to prayer to gratitude. That hot cup of water in the morning, one minute of stillness are younger, This beautiful practice of self massage with oil, chanting or humming. This just becomes your baseline ritual and
your nervous system loves patterns. It relaxes when things feel familiar, rhythmic and safe. This is actually iradus concept of the nacharia, the idea of small, repeated actions that help to regulate your entire system. Number nine is hot showers with eucalyptus. Oh my gosh, I look forward to my hot showers with eucalypses every single day. Have this eucalyp dispray of it pure essential oil, and I follow it with a little oil massage when I come out of the shower.
All both of these practices are calming and grounding.
Warm water relaxes your muscles and dialects your blood vessels, which reduce its tension, lowers the stress that's in the body, and again it signals safety to the brain. Most of the time when we're in this fire or flight mode. It's basically we don't feel safe in our own body. So imagine feeling that over and over and over again, day and day out. This hot shower in the morning, it's like telling your body, we are not rushing, we're
warming up slowly. And it is perfect for the mornings you wake up anxious, tense, you're overthinking, or even those cold giatree mornings that we're experiencing at the moment, and this are younger or oil body massage, Oh my goodness, it is my favorite thing that I do every morning and evening. I jump out of the shower, even if I have one minute. I'll do my legs, my feet, my upper body, just my shoulders, and I have this beautiful smelling oil that just feels like I'm doing a
luxurious treatment on myself. And I do that at night as well. And you could just do it on your feet, you can do it just on your upper body. But there's something about soothing oils or even your own touch to your body, even giving yourself a hug, like just having your own touch to your body, especially with oils, it helps to soothe your nervous system deeply and oils actually help to lubricate your nervous system. So that is
a big part of the practices I do. I do a lot of oils, whether it's on my face, on my body, and it says that when it absorbs into your body, it helps to actually lubricate and kind of wrap around your nervous system, giving it a big hug. So those are the nine things that I do before nine am. They are simple, they're free, they are ancient and science factors that genuinely change the way that my
nervous system feels every single day. And look, there are times that some of these work and some of them don't. And there are times that I wake up super stress and other times that I fate wake up super relaxed. That is just part and parcel of being a human and living in this human experience. But I really hope that this episode helps you to create a morning that feels nourishing, a grounding, and stead because we really need
that in our life. And the more we feel that, the more we can share that energy with other people. And so instead of being someone who is bouncing off the walls, you get to be the calm in someone else's life. You get to be someone who brings presents and not panic into somebody else's life, and then you can move through your day from a place of clarity and not chaos. How lovely does that sound. I just want you to remember you do not need a perfect routine.
You just need a few simple steps, a few moments, and they tell your system we are okay, or we can slow down and we can breathe. That's all our body really wants. So sending all so much love. I hope that you find this episode helpful, and I'd love to hear all your feedback. I really appreciate reading all your messages and sending all so much love.