Hannah Aylward (00:00.056)

You’re not addicted to the stress. You’re addicted to the chemical state that it creates, that feeling of urgency, the stimulation, the pressure, the productivity, the hyper focus. That is what becomes chemically familiar and the calm starts to feel foreign and the nervous system will always choose a familiar, hard, over and unfamiliar, possibly better situation.

Hannah Aylward (00:26.99)

Hello. Hello, my dears and welcome back to another episode of the nutrient dense podcast. Today’s episode is going to be a little different than our norm and I’m super excited for it. So at the time of this episode going live, the doors to my signature gut repairing program, HGSB are officially open for enrollment and they’ll be closing on May 7th at 1159 PM EST. We only opened the doors to this program two to three times a year and this is our second time. So if you’ve heard about the program, if you’re interested in working with us,

to get functional testing, customized protocols to address the underlying root causes of your chronic gut issues now is the time. And you can learn more about the program at the link in the show notes below this episode. But since the doors are officially open, I figured it could be fun to bring you into one of the live coaching sessions that I conduct inside of the program. inside of HGSP, we run functional labs.

We build out customized protocols. You get one-on-one support. You also get a private support community group where I’m in there answering questions each and every week. You’ll get 10 educational modules that teach you how to repair your gut health at the root cause level. And on top of that, I also conduct two live Q and A’s and four live coaching sessions. These are group sessions that we do together inside of the program. And I really cover a variety of different topics in these coaching sessions.

It can range from self-limiting beliefs that are holding you back from really healing to the gut and hormone connection and how birth control impacts gut health and gut function and what you can do to mitigate some of the negative side effects of oral birth control to nervous systems regulation and asking ourselves, are you addicted to running on stress hormones? So in today’s episode, we’ll be playing one of the recordings from a recent coaching call that I just had with this current round of HDSB clients on the topic of

the addiction to stress hormones, what’s going on inside of the body, what that looks like and how to break those habits and patterns. So without further ado, let’s dive in. I’m really excited for today’s because we’re going to be digging into the topic of stress hormones and really running on stress hormones. So when I posted about this in the group a few weeks ago, this got like a very big response and a lot of people felt like they really resonated with the

Hannah Aylward (02:42.126)

concept of running on stress hormones are really being kind of addicted to the go go go and the nonstop running on cortisol. So this is something that I personally am very familiar with and I’ve done so much work to rewire in my body and my nervous system to support my overall health and also just like my happiness and my relationships and my work and my ability to hold space for others and coach others and all of that good stuff.

So it really reaches very far and wide. So today, you know, we’re going to be going through like a mini training on kind of breaking this cycle, what it looks like to run on stress hormones and what we can do to kind of get ourselves out of the cycle of running on stress hormones. So once again, this kind of like, typically it gets a big response from everyone in this group.

When I do make that post in the HDSB group and the stress hormone piece is it’s present, right? A lot of us, this feels very present in our lives, kind of the go, go, go, the always needing to be busy, the ability to focus when things are kind of in a crisis, but inability to focus when things are, when you have more spaciousness for things. So let’s break down kind of what this can look and feel like. So it can feel like you are exhausted, but you have a hard time slowing down.

despite the exhaustion and feel like being tired all day and wired at night. This is what we will see in labs. If we ever run like a functional hormone panel or we explore like a Dutch test or a salivary cortisol panel, we will see people’s cortisol patterns flipped, right? So it should be highest in the morning when you’re waking up. It helps you get out of bed in the morning and it should be lower at night before you go to sleep. But sometimes we’ll even see that pattern flipped or in my case, previously in 2023, mine was literally just low.

It was just low after completely running on stress hormones for really what feels like my whole life, but also a really intense period of time for me where I like moved multiple times in a year and in a relationship. my, the, client load grew immensely. So it was just kind of crazy and my stress was very high. And then at that point I went from having really high cortisol, which still feels kind of good, right? Cause you’re kind of running on these stress hormones, which can actually feel very clear.

Hannah Aylward (04:54.574)

Two, that the stress hormones completely plummeting. And then I kind of had like nothing left in my tank, which I think is someone who’s experienced both, honestly even worse. Cause you can’t even, you can’t even run on cortisol anymore cause there’s nothing left. So what can happen is people can have this like, like low production of cortisol where it feels like everything is harder than it should be. There’s very low motivation to honestly taking care of yourself feels really hard in this state.

doing the things you quote-unquote know you need to do feels really hard like if you want a meal prep or go for the walk or You know take on the new project or whatever or even like take your supplements like everything feels harder in this state and I like to explain it as The juice of life is like not there as much so when I was experiencing that I felt like I don’t even I love creating I love adding new things to this program. I love my work. I love having calls I love you know teaching and teaching

And it was like, was just like, honestly, I just want to lay horizontal and watch Netflix. And the things that used to light me up weren’t lighting me up anymore. And that’s, that’s a big sign that you’re kind of in that burnout phase or that stage three of HBA access dysregulation where the cortisol levels are just kind of low. And this can happen after we’re running on stress hormones for a period of time. It’s kind of just, it’s kind of just a matter of time before the body really plummets into that state where we don’t even have the fuel anymore. So, when we’re still kind of in that.

active stress response state and the body’s actively running on stress hormones. can feel tired all day, but then wired at night. So you kind of get that second wind where you have a harder time sleeping or then you kind of like push through that a little bit as well. But during the day you’re kind of like, I don’t have the energy to get things done. You can also crash the second that life gets a little quiet. So I used to experience this where I would give presentations and it’s like you’re running on the stress hormones show so strong when you’re prepping.

for the presentation, you give the presentation and then right after it’s like you crashed. Like I would start to feel like I was getting sick or catching a cold. That’s a big sign that you’re running on the stress hormones as well. Or just when things start to settle after a really big push as well. And you can tell yourself also like I need the pressure to work better, to be more focused, to really get things done. I thrive in chaos. I’ll finally rest when things slow down. So, you know, I just need to get through this week or I just need to get through this month or I just need to get through this.

Hannah Aylward (07:15.298)

project at work or this, you hard time with my kids at school or whatever it might be. And it’s, kind of make these excuses, right? Where it’s like, when X, Y, Z happens, then I’ll finally take care of myself or I’ll finally slow down. I’ll finally unwind and, and kind of rewire, right? I’ll rest. I’ll allow myself to actually rest when things do start to slow down, but your body can become dependent and kind of just like used to.

running on these stress hormones and needing these stress hormones to actually function properly. So today we’re going to talk about what helps to, or excuse me, what happens when your nervous system kind of becomes addicted to cortisol and adrenaline and these different stress hormones and how that can also contribute to chronic gut issues, anxiety, hormone issues, the chronic fatigue, and then also ultimately just that burnout picture, right? So when I say burnout,

Cause the topic of adrenal fatigue, that term kind of gets like thrown around, right? And your adrenals don’t technically fatigue. They’re always working for you. They don’t just get tired and kind of like, you know, could put out. but what happens is we start to get this HPA axis dysregulation where your hypothalamus and your pituitary and your adrenals, the communication between these three goes a little haywire because it’s gotten, it’s gotten to the point where the cortisol is pumping so much.

that over time your body starts to then produce less cortisol because it’s like desensitized to the cortisol that’s being put out by the adrenal glands. And cortisol is kind of that main stress hormone that most of you guys in the program are probably very familiar with, right? So cortisol is not all bad. That stress response is not all bad. We need cortisol. It’s helpful when things get stressful. It’s helpful when things get go awry or they get bad, right? It’s initially very protective, just like inflammation. Initially very protective.

However, if you are used to running on cortisol or the cortisol is being secreted over and over and over and over again with no rest, then that’s when we start to run into big time health issues. So in this program, what that will look like, you’re tired, you have gut issues, right? You have really low secretory IGA, you have low stomach acid. If you got an HTMA in this program, your minerals are flattened out, right? You have low sodium, low potassium, low magnesium.

Hannah Aylward (09:28.522)

If we were to run a functional hormone panel on you, you may have low progesterone, may have low DHEA, you may have low cortisol or a dysregulated cortisol pattern. So this directly impacts your health. Not only does it impact like how you feel in your day to day and how stressed you feel, but it causes chronic health issues, which I think most of us know, but we just kind of push through it for as long as we can. It will increase, you know, reverse T3, which will slow your thyroid function down. So it’s

It’s kind of a matter of time before we are running, running, running, running, on these stress hormones. And then finally we crash and that looks like getting sick all the time. looks like chronic gut issues. looks like hormonal imbalances, thyroid, estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, right? it can look like weight gain. can look like puffiness. All of these things can kind of be looped into this, this topic here. So it’s what I want to also kind of make clear here is it’s not just really

about the stress or that all cortisol is bad, it’s more so that the body has learned to stay in this state. So we can always change things, right? And neuroplasticity shows us that, that we can rewire the brain and we can rewire these patterns that we live through in our lives and our day to day, right? All of these things are just developed. And I talked about this, how a lot of these self-limiting beliefs and these patterns and these habits, they’re really just habits. And

for me personally, that helps me kind of detach from it sometimes because when I hear like, yeah, you just need to like relax or you’re just always stressed or whatever, it can be kind of like triggering and you’re like, yeah, well, I’m doing a lot of stuff. What do you expect? I’m holding a lot, blah, blah. But it’s more so just kind of stepping back and widening the lens, detaching yourself from the story of it a little bit and just realizing that the way that you see the world and the way that you function is it’s learned.

If we’ve gotten used to functioning in this high stress state, that’s what we’ve normalized. It’s definitely what I’ve normalized. It’s what I was shown. It’s how I was raised and it’s what I normalized because at some point it kept me safe, which is at the core of it all, which we’ll talk about here too. So the body may have learned that this high alert state is safe and that more calm state is actually unsafe or dangerous because we’ve gotten so used to living in that high stress state. And I remember I had someone reflect to me.

Hannah Aylward (11:49.812)

years and years ago, like, Hannah, do you think that the stress you just have a, you have normalized a high stress load, like you have a high tolerance for stress and what may feel not super stressful to you would actually feel very stressful to someone else, but it’s so normalized in you and your brain and your body because you’ve just been doing it for so long. And I was like, yes, that, that does hit. Actually, you’re probably right.

So it’s not really that that doesn’t make you weaker or that doesn’t make you wrong or worse or anything like that. It’s more so just like we can start to normalize these things and realize that they’re kind of just habits and patterns, which once again helps me detach myself from them and go, okay, cool. Well, if it’s just a habit or a pattern, I can change that. I can shift that and I can rewire that. And that’s a choice that I get to make. If I don’t want to live my life running on these stress hormones forever. And if you really truly want to feel better,

and feel vibrant and have energy and have, you know, balanced hormones, which is kind of an overgeneralization, but you know what I mean? Like feeling good, having adequate progesterone, which is going to impact fertility and pregnancy and all of that. I mean, it goes, it goes far and wide, right? And you really truly want to repair your gut and lower the,

the possibility that these issues return, then we want to work on shifting out of this chronic stress response state. And this is like, I think it’s like life’s work for me personally, right? Cause I have just been shown, go, go told, go, go, go reaffirmed with go, go, go as well. Right? Like when I work harder, more stuff happens, why would I ever stop kind of thing? So it’s, kind of gets reaffirmed to us. Well, when I push really hard, I get what I want. So I’m going to keep doing that. And then one day, well, we can’t do that anymore.

because we’re absolutely exhausted. So we’ve got issues and we have hormone issues and we lost our period or our periods are really painful or we’re, we are dealing with breakouts or our hair is falling out or thyroid slows down, whatever it might be. So it’s, this stuff is like, this is health, right? So we, I can tie it into like lab results and protocols and supplements. We’ll talk about some of that stuff here today, but it’s like, it’s going to, when you kind of detach from running on stress hormones,

Hannah Aylward (13:58.594)

you will be happier and you’ll be, you will be at more, more at ease in your body. And also your like labs will look better because of this connection, you know, it’s all connected. So a great resource on this and in module 10 of this program, have like additional resources for you guys. If you want to keep exploring like other things about health and things that I have really impacted me and I love, and there’s a

Book recommendation in there. It’s called when the body says no and I’ve definitely brought it up to you guys before and it’s by dr Gabor mate and he really talks about this like stress epidemic and how it Impacts your health. It’s going to decrease immune function. It’s going to cause gut issues, right? So we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of that But today I want to talk just about about all of this because it hit so close to home for so many of you guys in the program

Which is not a surprise to me because a the modern day that we live in affirms this supports this. And then also you tend to attract what you are and that’s me. So I tend to attract people that are, you know, high performing and type a and perfectionist leaning and all of that, because that’s, that’s me. Right. So it all makes sense. It makes sense that it would kind of hit with hit with so many people in this program. Okay. So what does it actually mean to be addicted to stress hormones? So the physiology of it, right?

When you are addicted to stress hormones, we’re primarily talking, talking about cortisol, adrenaline or epinephrine and Nora epinephrine. So Nora epinephrine and epinephrine are kind of those first hormones, those first stress hormones. They’re more kind of like the acute ones that quick fire cortisol is that one that’s going to hang out with you longer. And your body starts to adopt or excuse me, adapt to running on these stress hormones as its primary fuel source instead of running on like good, good quality fuel.

adequate sleep, know, adequate fuel, like nutrition wise, regulated blood sugar levels, good thyroid and metabolic function, nervous system regulation, mitochondrial health. So we start to survive off of this like urgency and it’s a, it’s a false fuel, you know, it’s not going to get us very far, but the body is pretty resilient. So it’ll hang out there for you, like with you for a little bit until one day it doesn’t. And for a lot of you guys kind of like that could be why you’re even in this program in the first place, right? That’s a big pattern that we see.

Hannah Aylward (16:08.61)

So instead of running on these stress hormones, we want to be running on like good, real energy, not just kind of survival and urgency energy, which is this false, false kind of energy. And your system becomes conditioned to the chronic stress, right? So it starts to feel safer in a state of dysregulation than it does in a calm state. And for many of you guys, when I, when I asked you in that previous post, it was like,

Do have a hard time relaxing? Do you have a hard time settling? Is your mind always racing? Are you always thinking of the next thing to do? You’re always thinking 10 steps ahead. You’re waiting for that other shoe to drop, you know? This is the kind of stuff where we’re running on the stress hormones versus just like dealing with the issue that’s at hand right in front of us, pausing, resting, and then getting ready for that next thing. And I actually had my therapist said to me, because I’ve done so much work around this and continue to,

a couple of years ago, she was just like, Hannah, if, it’s the end of the world and there’s like the apocalypse and you know, and this is, this is a silly example, but it really clicked for me. And she’s like, you know, that the zombies are coming for you and you’re in the bunker, but you know that when they get close and they’re outside, the alarm’s going to go off to let you know that they’re there. Are you going to stay up all night waiting to see if you hear them and kind of being on guard or are you going to know that the alarm’s going to go off once they’re outside? So you’re going to rest now.

and then jump into gear when the alarm goes off. And I was like, I would be up all night. I would probably be up all night waiting for these things, which is then going to lead me to be exhausted by the time they get there. I’m not even going to have the energy to fight these things or run from these things. Right. So it’s kind of a silly example, but to me, it really clicked. It was like, yeah, I mean, if the alarm’s going to go off, if the stressful situation is going to happen, if the, you know, unexpected bill is going to come in the mail, if the, if,

whatever it is, you know, the flight gets canceled or whatever, if that’s going to happen, it’s like, what can I just, can I just rest while it’s not happening? And then when it does happen, then I can trust myself to kick into gear. know how to handle those things. I’ve been handling stressors my whole life. Doesn’t make it easy, but I’ve already proven to myself that I can, you know? So it’s like, let, let me rise to the occasion when it’s needed and when it’s not.

Hannah Aylward (18:26.798)

trust that the rest is actually gonna allow me to rise to the occasion when needed even better because I’m not going to be absolutely exhausted. So hopefully that clicks for some of you. It really clicked for me. I was like, yeah, no wonder. So it’s like these things are happening in my life, whether it’s an argument with a friend or a, or whatever, you know, the relationship, whatever it might be. It’s like, if I’m humming along on these chronic stress hormones, when the thing happens, I’m not even in my body to handle these things. I’m exhausted and I’m burnt out. So

That’s it’s a good way of kind of like looking at it. Right. So can we, can we access the safety in the body now on the day to day on the regular basis? So when the, the stressful event does happen because it will happen because we’re all living lives full, very full lives and we can’t completely avoid stress, but can we stay in that safety spot and that regulated spot now and then trust that when the thing happens and we need to pull up the bootstraps and push forward, we will, you know,

but it’s not always, always, always necessary. And if you’re feeling like it’s literally always necessary, something else is going on there, right? Even these little tiny pockets of safety and regulation. And we’re going to talk about what those can look like and incorporating those into your lives. So essentially like your body has learned that a high, high alert equal safety. And that when things slow down, your system can even perceive that as a threat, which is why you may be able to like lay down on your couch for 10 minutes. And then you’re like, my gosh, well,

I could do this. I could do this. I could do this or I could do this or you go to meditate and you can’t even you can’t even settle the brain can’t even settle the thoughts won’t stop at all. They’re they’re incestant and they they won’t quit and then people say well I don’t need meditation or it doesn’t work for me or whatever because the brain is like running the show like we can’t we don’t even have control over the thoughts this can happen when we’re like trying to go to bed or

If you ever wake up in the middle of the night, you know, the thoughts go like crazy and you’re like, this isn’t even making sense. And I’m worrying about crazy things. haven’t even thought about forever. Um, that’s, know, we want, we want to access the safety in the body. So the calm can actually become more normalized and the stress response is the stress response, but the baseline is over here, you know? So that’s kind of the biggest, the biggest difference, but the body is so smart and your nervous system is so smart and it’s always trying to keep you safe and it’s just adapting for survival. So

Hannah Aylward (20:46.062)

When we really peel back the layers, if this is resonating with you, at some point you learned that if you push harder, if you always stay on alert, if you try to be perfect, whatever is kind of driving that stress response, then you’ll be safe. You know? So for me, it’s like, cool, if I accomplish and I’m always on guard, had, I had a household when I was a little girl that was very egg shelly. I was always walking on eggshells, trying not to upset someone or else, you know, things would like, it would go, it would not be good. And I would literally be unsafe.

So that’s, then I started to learn. Cool. If I people, please, if I don’t push over here, if I Excel and get support and then I get claps, that keeps me safer over here. If I stay busy, you know, these kinds of things, it’s like, I’m just trying to survive. And then when you’re a little girl or you’re a child, you’re just trying to stay safe. So if that looked like getting straight A’s or it looked like

What’s another example of it? Always doing the right thing, being the good girl, whatever it is. It’s like, you’re just trying to protect yourself and stay safe. And then also anything that your parents believe is kind of just passed on to you. So however they, they’re, they learn to stay safe is then usually just handed handed on to you. And sometimes it’s really not supportive and sometimes it’s great, you know? So we just become adults and we, if we don’t audit it, then we have no idea. Then we’re just working with this like framework and guidebook that isn’t even ours. It was just passed on to us.

When the reality is that other possibilities exist for us, there is another way of being. We can live with more ease. it’s not always easy all the time, right? But that possibility does exist for us. And it’s like, even when there’s this quote that goes, I might butcher it right now, cause it’s not my notes, but it’s like, you can do it. Like you can do it like it’s a heavy weight or you can do it like it’s all part of the dance.

And I try my best to just do it like it’s all part of the dance, you know? So when things get stressful in my life, I can, hear my dad being like, honey, you chose a big life. You’re going for it. You run a business, you do all this stuff. Like you are helping all these people. Like you chose a lot of responsibility and this is kind of what comes with it. So just kind of like, you know, regulate on that now because it’s not going anywhere unless I chose something else, you know? So

Hannah Aylward (22:57.676)

That feels helpful to me, which is why I share it with you. It’s like, you can do it. Like it’s kind of just par for the course. It’s part of the dance. Sometimes it gets hard. Sometimes you, miss steps. Sometimes you fall over or you can do it. Like it’s just a huge burden on you. And that’s really a choice, you know, and that’s not to like, to diminish anyone’s like real feelings of pain and frustration and, and stuff is hard, right? That’s all real. it’s like, acknowledge that it’s real. Things are intense jobs, health relationships.

family members, all that stuff. mean, that’s, that’s real stress. So it’s like, okay, I’m not going to just bypass these real feelings of like, wow, I feel like I’m drowning right now. And also how can I support myself and moving through this and just helping my body feel safe in this state right now? So the, the awareness of the fact that it’s kind of just like a pattern that we’re used to existing in can kind of help remove some of the shame that we may feel about it. Cause sometimes for me, I know when I, you know,

Get really deep into these like sessions with my therapist. I’ve done a lot of EMDR. I found very helpful, highly recommend. start to get really like sad. I’m like, wow, Hannah, you’ve really had yourself on like a leash for a long time. You know, it’s like, it’s like drop the whip that you’re whipping yourself with kind of energy. It’s like, where is this baseline stress and worry stemming from kind of me? I’m kind of creating it for myself at this point.

So it’s like, can kind of surface a lot of like emotion, know, like lots of tears and like, my gosh, I hate that I’ve done this to myself for so long. So it’s really, it can be helpful to understand that it’s just kind of a pattern and you can break a pattern and you can take back your power and you can choose a bit differently. And when you know better, you do better, you know, and also realizing that it’s really just a survival mechanism. Like it’s your body’s trying to just protect you and like, thank you body for always, always, always trying to protect me. And

sometimes knowing better than I even know, and sometimes giving me gut issues so I can finally go, hey, something’s not working anymore. This isn’t working anymore. This stress level isn’t working anymore. This relationship, this job, this out of alignment in my life, it’s not working for me anymore. My body’s communicating that to me. So body’s so resilient, always trying to protect you and communicate with you. So just to recap some signs that you’re running on stress hormones.

Hannah Aylward (25:12.236)

Number one, you feel more energized when you’re stressed, right? So you get more energy when you have a deadline, when you feel overwhelmed, when you’re really busy. Like I, people will say, like, I just do better when I’m really busy. Well, you’re just running on stress hormones. there’s always something to solve. You’re looking for the next thing to do. You’re looking for the next project to start. It’s like, go, go, go energy. And sometimes on the weekends, you can just crash. So it’s like, have the deadlines are hitting and the work is hitting and all of that. And then once you finally get the space, you crash, maybe go on vacation and you crash.

or you get a little free time and you crash. another big sign is you’re tired, but you just can’t relax. So this is probably gonna resonate with a lot of you feel exhausted all day. You get that second wind at night. you’re wired, wired and tired before bed. So you can kind of feel like you’re like, know I’m exhausted, but I’m like, my mind is racing right now. the racing thoughts waking up between two and 4am is a big sign as well. This is kind of that classic cortisol dysregulation pattern that I mentioned at the beginning.

The third thing is you rely on caffeine to feel normal. Hopefully we’ve decreased the caffeine in this program a little bit, but, um, coffee before food, multiple cups of coffee a day, needing caffeine to function, crashing without it. It’s just false energy. You’re really running on caffeine, not like actual energy. The, another thing could be, you feel anxious when things are calm. So the stillness feels unsteady. feels unsafe. It feels even a little triggering at times.

So you just unconsciously create the busy-ness, the overthinking, the urgency, the productivity addiction, the seeking, right? The stimulation seeking as well, the scrolling of the phone, the whatever it might be. Is there a nervous system just kind of conditioned to this chaos? This is a big one for me personally. Like life, my life is good, you know? And then if things ever slow down, I’m like, what’s going on? Is it all falling apart? What does this mean? But really it’s fine.

And the funniest thing that I’ll do is I will actually like call in and I’m like, wow, I really, I really need like a week or two of just like a little less. You know, my schedule’s packed. I’ve got like tons of calls all the time and I really need like a quieter week and then it’ll happen because I’ll manifest that. And then when it happens, I’m like maybe even more stressed and I’m like, my gosh, I don’t even know what to do. I don’t have 27 calls on my calendar. What am going to do? You know, and then I have to really like step back and be like, Hannah, hey, you wanted this.

Hannah Aylward (27:34.176)

And B, girl, you are too, it just, it, you just get used to it, right? So if there’s ever a week where I have two calls instead of 20, I’m like, I can’t even believe it. I can’t, I don’t know what to do with that. And I start to feel even more unsteady. So that’s a big sign. Not sure if that resonates with anyone. This is something I’m working on now. It’s like trust. It’s all good. You literally wanted this and asked for it and, and the universe delivered. Then another thing that can happen is you over exercise you.

Are you under eat a lot? So a lot of the hit training, the CrossFit, the really intense stuff. This used to be a big pattern of mine. It would help me. It would help pull me out of the fatigue, the cortisol and the adrenaline that came with a really intense exercise, which I felt good doing. And then it would crash after. So it felt I would like push to do it. I would feel really good doing it. I feel really good for like a few hours after. And then I would just absolutely crash. And ironically enough, that leads to like more weight gain, more cravings, poor like

poor thyroid function, dysregulated cortisol. It’s like you’re working so hard at this exercise and it’s just kind of having the opposite effect. You’re honestly better off going for a 20 minute walk depending on your goals, right? But when you’re so stressed, it’s like it’s having cortisol is, is going to like lead to muscle wasting. Like it’s going to atrophy your muscles. You can’t even build muscle when you’re chronically stressed. So there’s so much that goes into that, but that’s kind of another pattern that it can express through these all really reinforce that cortisol dependency.

And then another thing is just that your gut symptoms really flare when you’re under stress, right? So we know, as we’ve discussed in this program already, stress hormones are going to directly impact. when you’re in that chronic fight or flight state or that chronic stressed out state, the sympathetic dominant nervous system state, stomach acid is going to be suppressed, bioflow is going to be suppressed, your gut motility is going to be altered, and that will lead to changes in your microbiome, like dysbiosis and fungal overgrowth and these things that we’re seeing on your test results.

It can lead to intestinal permeability. Cortisol is going to wear away at that mucosal barrier of the gut lining. So it’s going to lead to that leaky gut picture, which will then trigger that systemic inflammation, which can look like brain fog, skin breakouts, bloating, all of that kind of stuff. So that’s it’s for, for basically everyone in this program, it’s not just stress. That’s why you’re here. And the stress is a huge piece. Also doing the deeper work.

Hannah Aylward (29:49.868)

that the stress actually caused like addressing the microbial issues and the stomach acid and all of that equally as important because the stress led to physical shifts. Right? So a lot of people will say, my God, issues, just stress. And I’m like, well, if they’ve been consistent for awhile, then probably not. If you’re like giving a presentation and you have to run in the bathroom and then it normalizes and it evens out and you’re fine, then yeah, sure. It’s probably stress.

However, if you’re in this program, it’s probably been happening for a while. So at this point, it’s not just stress because the stress has caused low stomach acid, low bile flow, intestinal permeability, microbial imbalances, that kind of thing. So they work together, right? All of this work works together. We want to take the supplements and do the protocols and eat the healthy food and the targeted nutrition and all of that. And we want to work on accessing more safety in the body and learning how to self-regulate because the stress

We can of course take things off our plate. Yes. Sometimes we’re just straight up doing too much and we got to just peel it back. Right. And also for most of us, we work jobs, we raised kids, we have family members that we take care of, whatever it is, the stress is not just vanishing. Right. So how can we a shift the perspective and see it as part of the dance versus a heavy weight. And then also tone things down a little bit where we can. Right. And then also support the body and being more resilient.

to the stress, to the stressors that we will encounter and learn how to self-regulate when the stressors arrive because they will. It will happen, you know? So cortisol is going to affect everything, right? It affects your gut, it affects your hormones, it can worsen PMS, it will lower progesterone over time, it will lead to estrogen dominance, that will lead to histamine issues, it will increase insulin resistance, it will worsen thyroid hormone conversion, it will increase that reverse T3 that we’ll check for a lot, and a lot of people with like full thyroid panels.

And your nervous system just starts to stay stuck in this fight or flight or freeze mode instead of that rest and digest and repair mode. And in this, in this mode, like you really just can’t, you just can’t heal. It’s not conducive to healing. So the body can’t repair in that chronically stressed out state. Don’t let that stress you out and go, my gosh, I’m way too stressed. can’t, I can’t repair. It’s not going to work. Right. Witness those thoughts. No, no, no. That’s what we’re talking about here. But it’s like, cool. I really need to,

Hannah Aylward (32:14.508)

take this seriously, you know, especially if I want to start to feel better. So you, you’re not addicted to the stress. You’re addicted to the chemical state that it creates that feeling of urgency, the stimulation, the pressure, the productivity, the hyper-focus that is what becomes chemically familiar and the calm starts to feel foreign and the nervous system will always choose a familiar hard over an unfamiliar.

possibly better situation. So and this goes for everything and anything. It’s really important to learn this and witness this when it shows up in your own patterns of like, wow, I really told myself I was going to start to do this thing and I haven’t done this thing. Why haven’t I done this thing? Well, even when you want.

you know, logically you want to start going for the 20 minute walk as an example, or you want to start meal prepping as an example, but you never, but you don’t do it. It’s going to take more effort. Do I really need to do it? We start to make excuses. We all do this because it’s different. We have, takes more effort upfront to shift it and then way less effort to maintain it once you are just in the swing of it. And it just feels unfamiliar. And the nervous system is always wanting to follow the familiar because that’s what it thinks is safe.

Um, which is once again, just very helpful to remember because this will show up in everything, your relationships, your health, your patterns, your sleep habits, what you eat, right? Changing what you eat can be an effort for people. And then once you do it, it’s just kind of like part of who you are, but that initial hump can feel hard and strenuous because you’re not used to it, you know? So this can happen with job opportunities or what you think your career could be or who you think you can be in a relationship with whatever.

It’s like you can only see what you can only see and anything outside of that is seen as unsafe. So we won’t do it. So it’s like whenever we’re on the verge of a big life change or something happening or we need to make a big decision, access safety in the body. How do I access safety in the body? Same thing goes for just in this program in the day to day as we kind of like wean our way through these stressors that do come our way. How can we access safety in the body? The key to

Hannah Aylward (34:24.616)

kind of breaking the cycle of running on these stress hormones is rewiring the safety that you can feel in your body. Not just simply like getting rid of all of your stress or reducing stress, which sometimes when we’re, when we’re so used to the stress can feel like triggering, you know, you’re like, what, you just want me to stop doing everything that I’m doing? Like it’s not gonna work. I don’t have that option, Hannah. I have my job. I have my bills. have this, I have that, right? Which makes sense. Same, you know? So it’s like, can we just access the safety in the body? Which so

That then allows us to kind of hold this other stuff with a bit more ease as well. Are you dealing with chronic bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, food sensitivities, and stomach pain? The doors to my signature Healin’ Guts + Shakin’ Butts program are currently open for enrollment. HGSB is my 16-week gut repairing program that repairs the gut at the root cause level.

We use functional testing, targeted nutrition, customized supplement protocols, and lifestyle strategies to look under the hood and address the why behind your digestive issues. And then we naturally repair from there. Inside of the program, we’ll walk you through our entire step-by-step gut repairing process, and you’ll get full support for four months. You’ll be paired with a functional practitioner on my team to review your test results, identify the deeper root causes of your chronic digestive issues, and walk through your customized protocol.

Inside of HDSB, we also have live group coaching with me and live Q &A sessions. So no question goes unanswered. The doors close on May 30th at 1159 PM Eastern Standard Time. If you’re ready to finally overcome your chronic digestive issues with expert guidance and no more guesswork, we’d love to help you. You can find more details and the link to sign up and join us inside of the program in the show notes below. And now I want to get into like, how do we break this pattern?

If this is resonating with you, know, have this pattern, you’re like, this is hitting, but what do I do about it? I want you to remember that that phrase, right? How do I access safety in the body? And I’ve said this to you guys before in the program, in the coaching sessions and all of that. How can I help to access safety in my body? And that’s, that’s going to look different on a day to day basis, but we’ll talk about some like very simple things that we can add in, um, into our routines. But the first thing is that we have to stop glorifying survival mode.

Hannah Aylward (36:40.746)

I know that I did this for a very long time and it still creeps its way in, right? If I’m not constantly busy, am I doing enough? If I’m not shooting for the stars, like, am I lazy? Right? Like it’s wild what these brains do. And then at the same time, I can be wanting to like, you know, double the business or whatever, but at the same time I’m tired and I’m like, but that’s not really what I need right now. So it’s like, we need to break

the glorification of the grind of the perfection of the people pleasing of the no boundaries of being super busy all the time and just super high functioning without adequate rest. And I, when, when people used to talk to me about this, I was like, I don’t think you understand. Like I can’t just stop doing these things. Like that all sounds great, but it’s not going to happen. That’s what would come up for me first. Like that all sounds cool, but

It’s not going to happen. I have a lot to do and I and I want to do big things. So what do want me to do? That’s kind of how I would start to feel at the beginning and it’s less about not doing things or being quote unquote lazy. It’s more about choosing what’s really going to move the needle towards whatever you want to do. Whatever new needle you’re moving, whether it’s your relationships or your career or whatever, and then also doing it in a more regulated state, you can still.

travel the world and build the career and raise the kids in a more regulated state versus just like a total like frantic cortisol driven state. It’s not that you just stop doing things, right? It’s more so like, cool, can we shift the perspective and can we do it in a while we access safety in the body more so than just pushing, pushing through that survival mode. Most of us are just way over functioning too. You know, we don’t have enough time off. We maybe skip time off. We don’t take enough vacation and

All of that kind of stuff. We work long hours, especially like women as well who have menstrual cycles. Like we’re not meant to be producing the same, the same level of output every single day. Ludial phase hits hard, menstrual phase. We need more rest. We need to eat more, but we don’t and we just keep running, you know? So it’s like we have to, we have to learn that it’s just not supportive for us and, really make the choice to shift things without any shame or guilt.

Hannah Aylward (38:57.484)

And more so just like a beautiful like remembrance of what it is we really truly need. And many people are just praised for being totally dysregulated, right? Like super high performing and go, go and training for big things and all of that and never stopping. And especially with it comes up a lot in like motherhood, cause it’s like moms just put everyone before themselves. Women tend to do this, but mothers definitely do this. They put everyone before themselves to the point where, you know,

They can’t, they’re not putting their oxygen mask on first. They’re putting someone else’s oxygen mask on first. And we’re told to do the opposite. Like we can’t take care of the people around us if we’re not well taken care of. And we can know that kind of logically, but it doesn’t mean we’ll do it. So we, have to stop kind of glorifying that survival mode. That’s just masking like gut issues and fatigue and anxiety and burnout and hormone issues. These are all the body waving the red flags, right?

And it’s important to, kind of identify these stress addiction patterns because they’re going to show up differently for everyone here. So I want you to kind of reflect on this a little bit. Is it the constant busyness? Is it the inability to rest? Is it like, I finished this one thing I pick up my phone, I scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, There’s like news, there’s crazy things happening. There’s this, there’s that. It’s like false dopamine hits over and over and over again. Before we know it, it’s in 30 minutes. We don’t even know what we’ve just watched. Right.

That like kind of addiction to the cycle. It’s like these chemicals are firing off in your brain. It is so addicting. It doesn’t make you weak for falling, falling into this. Right. But it’s like, if we put one thing down, we pick this thing up. Then we put this thing down. We put that thing up. There’s no space in between any of this, right? There’s no space to rest. We can even feel like we have the inability to rest. If we are overworking, if that’s a pattern for us, if we are over exercising,

When I first started to turn my exercising down, it was actually like very difficult for me because my body was so used to the five hit classes a week that it was like, I’m going to walk and I’m going to do 20 minutes here and there. I had, I, it was like a year of like rewiring, right? And now that’s my normal, thank goodness. And if I jumped into hit, I would feel exhausted probably. As it’s not what my body needs. Um, the doom scrolling, that’s a big one here too, right? It’s like where the brain gets so hooked on this. There’s amazing research coming out now. That’s like.

Hannah Aylward (41:11.854)

Petrifying and horrible, but very validating, right? Because it’s like we just get addicted to the scroll, the scroll, the scroll, and then the checking, the checking of the email, the checking of Facebook, checking of Instagram, then we have TikTok, then we have Twitter, then we have, I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. We used to not even have that. We didn’t even have that option before. was like you close your computer, works away. This is a way. And like you’re watching a TV show and even a TV show doesn’t have that same type of dopamine hit because it’s just slower. When we have all of these really short videos,

It’s like we get so looped into it, which is it’s crazy. That could be like a whole other conversation and talk, but it’s the patterns that I want you guys to really recognize and pick up on, right? Whatever those are for you trouble sitting still, right? This kind of stuff. So when we can gain awareness to what our unique patterns are, we can then start to shift them. The first step is really awareness and understanding what they are. So then some tools for this, right? We’re working on a lot of stuff in the program. Surprise, surprise.

We’re already doing a lot of this, which is amazing. So the first thing you want to do is really stabilize blood sugar, which we’re doing in this program. So you want to eat adequate protein at every single meal. We’re aiming for like at least 30 grams of protein per meal, at least 25, I would say 30 is great. If you can get a snack with another 10 grams in, that’s great. Your practitioner may have given you a more specific recommendation. We like to say on average, a hundred grams of protein a day.

for most people, for most women, of course, your activity levels, how much you’re training, all of that is gonna impact how much protein you do need. Making sure you’re eating adequate carbohydrates. There’s a saying in the functional health space, it’s like, do you have low progesterone and high cortisol or are you just not eating enough carbs? The body needs carbs, right? So this is going to give you that energy and be used for your body to create energy. So making sure you’re getting in protein and fiber, carbohydrates.

fats at every single meal that you are eating, eating these balanced meals, not going six hours between meals, trying to go like three to four hours between meals, making sure you have enough space to rest your digestive system and for your migrating motor complex to do its job there, but also not going, you know, a six, seven hour stretch in between meals where your blood sugar is going to crash. And when your blood sugar crashes, your body’s going to secret cortisol because it’s not safe to have a blood sugar crash. You could faint, right? You pass out. So the body’s going to start running on stress hormones.

Hannah Aylward (43:35.042)

So balancing blood sugar is like, it’s a non-negotiable and it’s way that we support the body’s like the body physically, like our biology, not just like the to-do list and the, and the mental and emotional stressors, but it’s like what, how can the body have what it needs? So it’s more resilient to the stress. Well, let’s take off the stressors that we can. So let’s take off the gut issues and the gut infections. Let’s take off the erratic blood sugar levels. Let’s get our body the adequate, the nutrients that it needs, the mineral cocktails that we have in this program.

All of that kind of stuff is kind of helping to build that stress resilience. So you’re just more, you can just kind of hold a little bit more at baseline as well. this kind of physical spot space, right? So really working to stabilize your blood sugar here, not skipping meals, not relying on caffeine too much eating consistently. This is why we don’t like intermittent fasting, a 12 hour fast overnight. Amazing. But like pushing 16 hours, it’s just going to stress you out. It’s going to put your body in a stress response more often than it’s not.

People usually feel really good on it until one day they don’t. And then they can’t sleep through the night and they have anxiety and their period goes missing. So it’s, very helpful until it’s not, cause you’re running on stress hormones, can oddly enough feel very like clear because you’re the cortisol helps you kind of focus it and lock in. So it feels really good until eventually it does it, you know, and then you don’t really have anything left in the tank. I have, I have been through both of those things, which yeah.

So, so you’re not alone in any of this. I like to ride these waves myself. It’s a constant, constant learning, right? The other thing that you want to do here. So we want to like give the body when it needs physically balancing blood sugar, sleeping enough, getting in eight hours of sleep, really trying to get to bed before midnight for the mom’s Harry or probably like girl, I’m asleep at eight o’clock. for other people, it may be later. Everyone’s living different lives, right? But ideally getting to bed before midnight.

The earlier the better, honestly, you’re better off going to bed earlier and waking up earlier than going to bed later and waking up later. Same thing goes for eating. You’re better waking up earlier and eating an earlier breakfast than pushing out later, then pushing breakfast later. So let me clarify that you’re better off eating breakfast earlier and eating dinner earlier in the evening than pushing breakfast later and eating dinner later for your bodies like natural biology and circadian rhythm. So if you’re going to

Hannah Aylward (45:53.208)

kind of like tighten your eating window. It’s better to eat first thing in the morning and then end your last meal at like six than it is to push breakfast till 12 and then end your last meal at six or like eight or something like that. The mineral cocktails, right? They contain sodium, potassium, vitamin C. A lot of you guys are also on magnesium. These are all some of these like key nutrients that the body needs to support adrenal function and to…

build better resistance to stress. So some of you guys have probably already felt this. You’re like, I already have more energy. I’m already feeling a bit better just from the mineral cocktail alone, which is, which is great. And then of course the blood sugar regulation. This is also why people tend to get pregnant in this program. This is why people’s periods start to normalize in this program as well, because we’re doing all of this work and it’s all connected. The next thing that I want you to focus on is really learning how to kind of micro dose feeling safe in the body. So this can look like,

For many of us that are used to running on stress hormones, simply jumping into a 30 minute meditation twice, twice a day, it’s just not going to happen or it’s going to feel super, super, super uncomfortable. And it’s not going to last. It’s just not going to last and nothing’s going to work if you don’t do it consistently. You can meditate twice a day for a week. And then if you give it up, it’s not making any difference. I would rather you build in these small moments during your day. I mean, if you can do the three 30 minute or the two 30 minute meditations, then do it.

Please be my guest. Like I would, I would love that for you. But for most of us that won’t do that because we know that we won’t. Where can we bring in the five to 10 minutes and where can we bring that in every single day versus the 30 minute meditation once, once a week. So this can look like literally just moving slower, noticing how you’re moving throughout your day. Are you, are you frantically washing the dishes? Are you brushing your teeth as fast as you can? Are you doing six other things while you’re brushing your teeth? Do you have the coffee pot?

boiling and you also have this thing going. You’re also scrolling your phone, right? Can we just decrease the amount of input and can we just literally slow everything down? Like even brushing your teeth, drinking your water, eating your meals, everything that we do, just get shifting the body’s physical state from like push and go as fast as we can to taking a step back, walking slower. My dad used to always tell me like Hannah, you’re a fast walker. You just like walk so fast.

Hannah Aylward (48:12.462)

Cause I’m trying to get there. I’m trying to get there, you know, and I don’t even notice it. And then I’m like, Oh yeah. Okay. Here we go. Like I’m just like, I’m like, go, go, go, go, go. So it’s like really just like pulling back on some of these things, simply noticing things around you going outside for a walk, a 10 minute walk with no, no simulation. Bring your phone for safety. If that, if that helps you feel better or you feel like you need that, but like, don’t look at it. Don’t turn it on. I will go for a walk and I’ll have my phone in my pocket on airplane mode.

And I’ll put my headphones in and then I will turn nothing on and I’ll just like la dee da dee da. And it’s amazing. The 20 minutes of that is like amazing. It’s amazing what it can do to help kind of the body just sink back into the regulated state. And especially after my days where I have a lot of calls and I’m very client facing a lot of the time, right? So it’s like, I’m on, I’m on, I’m on. It’s a really nice reset for me at the end of the, at the end of the day to kind of go, okay, Hannah, it’s time to shift out of.

the produce, produce, produce and into the it’s time to rest and recover now. So these little kind of micro micro moments where we’re helping the body to access safety. other things are like the going back to the morning routine. I know it’s in module one. If you’ve fallen off of it, revisit, do it now. You must, you have to do it now. This is your homework. Can you build in an extra 10 minutes in the morning, five minutes in the morning? Don’t look at your phone. Don’t pick up the phone, put it down.

You know, drink your water slowly, drink it in silence, put on shocker balancing music or whatever jazz. I love like jazz music. had this, there’s this playlist on Spotify that’s literally called warm blanket. If I listen to that, it’s a very like soothing. It’s like light jazz and it really supports my nervous system. Never did I think I would be listening to that, but these little tiny things, right? So I’ll put that on in the morning and I’ll make my, I’ll make my mineral cocktail. I’ll make my water.

and then I’ll step outside and I’ll get sunlight in my eyes. Even this like 10 minutes built into my day helps the body slowly wake up. You know, the sun is going to increase cortisol slowly as it should. We want it higher in the evening, will help it drop lower or excuse me, higher in the morning, which will help it drop lower in the evening and kind of just building, building out these little safety states. We’re really working on building the capacity for, for calm and safety in the body.

Hannah Aylward (50:30.926)

Not just like forcing you to relax. So it’s more so the more consistently you do something the more you get used to it It’s the simplest way of putting it So the more that you don’t pick up your phone the easier it’ll be to not pick up your phone The more you prioritize eight hours of sleep the easier It’ll be to prioritize eight hours of sleep the more you get in that five minute meditation in the morning or breathwork practice in the morning the easier it will be to access that state of calm when Shit does hit the fan around you. You know what I mean? So it’s it’s

these practices help us better manage the other things that do happen in our life that do feel stressful because they are stressful, you know? So, but the more that we can access that state of regulation and common safety in the body, the easier we can access that, that same state when, when we’re actually, when we actually are stressed. So it’s like, how can we get our bodies out of the chronic stress all the time? And then how can we learn the

how to access the safety in the body so we can then feel that way when things are stressful, but the to-do list is long and we can get a step away from that and go, okay, the end of the day, it’s going to get done. You know what I mean? We’ll find a way. We’ll figure it out. Do it as part of the dance. Not, not like it’s a heavyweight, that kind of thing. Right. which leads me to the next, my next point here, really learning how to regulate through the body. So I’ve said this to you guys before, but I had Jessica McGuire on my podcast months ago at this point last year, I think, and,

She said something that really resonated with me she said, your story reflects your state. So the story that you’re telling yourself in that moment, cause it’s all just, we’re all telling ourselves our own stories all day. I don’t have enough time for this. This is, isn’t going to work. I can’t do this. Blah, blah, blah. This is going to be too difficult, et cetera, et cetera. It’s reflecting your state. So when you start to witness those thoughts, when you start to witness the thoughts that are, never have enough time, this isn’t working. Nothing ever works for me. I have to try harder than everyone else.

Whatever the story might be. We all have these stories in our own ways. Remember that your story is just reflecting your nervous system state. So instead of shifting your thoughts to change your nervous system, I want you to shift the body, change your state to then shift your thoughts is kind of the what works better for me at least. And I think is shown to work a bit better for a lot of people. So what that can look like is when those thoughts start to arise of

Hannah Aylward (52:51.566)

the this, this, go, go, go. I never have enough time. I’m not going to get this done. What if I dropped this ball? This thing’s going to happen to me, whatever it might be. How can we get back into the body? How can we get out of our head and into our body and breathe and re-regulate? So then our story starts to shift because we all know that state when you’re just like in it and you’re freaking out and you’re worried, worried, worried. And then a couple of days pass, you got a little bit of sleep. You’ve gotten a little bit of space from it and you’re like, it sucks, but at end of the day, it’s gonna be fine. You know what I mean?

And so it’s like, how can we get you there quicker? How can we decrease the amount of time that you’re in the freak out state, which is not a technical term, but I think it resonates and bring you back into that more regulated state. And we can do that by accessing safety in the body. So things that we can do for this, right? Breathwork, meditation. I’m very into somatic somatic movement. So just like shaking, like literally shaking your hands. I will just jump up and down. I’ll get up.

And I’ll just kind of shake and I’ll jump up and down. Maybe I’ll put on a little song and I’ll just, I’ll literally just bounce around. So it’s nothing, it’s nothing special, but it’s like helping the energy move out of my body. So doesn’t get stuck in my belly and then give me gut issues or stuck in my head. You know, when you start to think, think, think, think, you feel like your head’s going to like explode. So how can we diffuse that energy and move through it? Cause emotions are just energy in motion. Energy is just like trying to get out of you, right? It’s it has to go somewhere.

So can we move it through the body? Can we go for a 10 minute walk? Can we do 10 squats in the living room? Can we put on our favorite song and just dance around and shake and sigh and groan or scream into a pillow or whatever? It’s like we have to discharge this energy. So the somatics I find very, very helpful because I have a lot of energy in this body and this brain personally. There’s a lot going on in here. So it’s like for me.

I have to get out of my head and into my body so that I can re-regulate. And this is why movement and exercise is like so, it’s like a drug for me, not in the way that it hypes, like hypes me up, but in a way that it forces me to connect with my body and get out of my head, which then makes everything better. I’m happier. I’m clearer. I feel safer. I feel stronger. I can actually think of solutions versus just worrying about the problems, you know? So,

Hannah Aylward (55:07.192)

How can we help you get out of your head and into your body to access that safety? So breath work is a great, is a great tool for this too, which is, you know, it’s more commonplace now. When I was first teaching this stuff years ago, people aren’t really talking about it as much, but there’s very simple breath work exercises that you can do. This is like one of my tools in my toolbox that I use all the time. So there’s something that’s called a VU breath. It’s a very simple, you know, like 10 rounds of it.

And it really helps to regulate your nervous system and bring you out of that chronic fight or flight state. So it’s as simple as breathing in through your nose and on the exhale, you’re going to purse your lips and you’re going to make a VU sound. So I’ll do it, do it for you now. So you’ll just take an inhale in through the nose and then you’ll go VU.

Hannah Aylward (56:01.122)

And you’ll just keep letting all of that air out and you can do that. Put on a timer for three minutes, even do 10 rounds of it. Like count one, two, three. Sometimes the counting helps like focus the mind a little bit, but just that simple exercise. It’s helping to activate the vagus nerve. That sound, that audible sound that you make helps you activate the vagus nerve.

which connects from the bottom of the brain stem all the way into the belly, which directly influences your gut function, your gut motility, your digestion, your stomach acid, your bio full, all of it. We can take supplements for all of this, but your body’s natural like tools for this are right here, you know? So you can do that. Boo breath exercise. And I kid you not give it three minutes and you’re going to feel better. Like it’s, it’s that to me feels one of the most impactful ones. I love breath work.

I preferred over meditation probably because my mind does run a million miles a minute and the meditation sometimes feels like I have to calm my brain down. Like I don’t have time for that. That’s like literally the first thought. Meanwhile, I need the time for that, but I’m just being honest. The breath work I feel like way less resistance to I think because it’s just a bit more active. I don’t know, take it or leave it. But for me, since my brain runs very fast, it’s easier for me to kind of do these practices, like get into my body, shake around, do 10 jumping jacks.

literally bounce up and down, get the, get the limb flowing. you know, twist side to side like this, inhale arms up, exhale, let it all out. Do that three times. Inhale arms up, exhale, let it all out. If you do three rounds of that and then you do 10 rounds of the breath, you will feel like a different person. So you can try it, try it on for size. I would, I would lead us through it, but I don’t want to go too over, over time for you guys, but

I also have the breath work exercises for you in module six. There are also playlists of additional recommendations and tools for you guys. Please use them and don’t let it overwhelm you. Pick one and you don’t have to like do the most productive one or do the perfect one that you need on that day. I, for me, I find when I have too many options, I choose nothing and I just make an excuse. So it’s like, can we simplify it instead of getting you all of these different practices that you could do? It’s like just commit to three minutes of, of VU breath.

Hannah Aylward (58:17.216)

every morning or three days a week and just like see what change that makes like keep it really, really small. And what we’re doing is we’re helping you shift, shift out of that sympathetic dominant state. And we’re also helping you build the neuroplasticity of I feel safe in my body. I can go from the stress out state to a less stressful state in just a couple of minutes with a couple of breaths. It starts to become a new baseline. That’s like the easiest way that I can explain it is my baseline has shifted. I’m like,

my stress state, the explosions, the reactions, the anger, I used to be so angry. The, the intensity, like my baseline has literally just shifted with some of this work. I can hold a lot more. could have never held all the things that I hold today previously in my life, which is kind of just how it unfolds. Right? It’s like when you become a mom for all of the moms here, it’s like you didn’t think you could, and then you, and then you had to, and then you did, you know, it’s like your baseline shifts. So the same thing can be done here. Other breath work exercises.

Once again, please go look at module six. Another one that’s really great is called the physiological sigh. This is the one that like if you’re familiar with Andrew Huberman, he talks about he did some research on it. I don’t know if we like needed that research, however, it’s great when we have it. All it is is you inhale it through your nose. At the top, you take one more breath in, like getting a little bit more air and then and you sigh it all out and you can do that as many times as you need.

There’s really no excuse for this stuff. Like it’s 60 seconds. I’m talking 60 seconds. If you don’t have 60 seconds, we got bigger conversations to have, right? Like you do have the time. It’s just, it’s just, instead of picking up your phone, it’s doing this for, for 99 % of people. of course there are times when you like literally don’t have a moment, but you can also do this when you’re brushing your teeth. You can do this when you’re letting the conditioner say in your hair, you can do this when you’re driving to the appointment. Like there’s

There is space for this. It’s just actually leaning on these tools. And in order to lean on these tools, if they’re new to you, we need to keep it as simple as possible. So you know exactly what to do, which can be as simple. Just pick one of these physiological sigh or the voo breath and just do it. And then tell me, tell me how you feel when you, when you do it. Other things that you can do as well are like legs up the wall before bed. That really helps to kind of like,

Hannah Aylward (01:00:34.602)

settle the nervous system a little bit and activate that parasympathetic state. All you do is literally land your back and put your legs up. It’s great for blood flow. It’s great for lymphatic drainage. It also helps to, like I said, settle that nervous system a little bit. You can do this for two minutes, 10 minutes. Doesn’t really matter. Very easy. No effort. You just kind of have to do it. another thing is anything with vagal nerve simulation. And we have a whole list for you guys in the program. I think it’s an also in module six that would make the most sense.

All of these different exercises to stimulate the vagus nerve that the vagus nerve is kind of that How can I phrase it like the conductor of the of the parasympathetic nervous system? So we need to strengthen that vagal tone in order to feel less stressed and more regulated How can we do that? There’s a whole list of exercises for you in the program humming singing the VU breath chanting slow nasal breathing all of these things help to activate that gargling

right after you brush your teeth, putting water in your mouth and just gargling really hard for like 30 seconds. All of these things help to activate the nerve nervous system or excuse me, the vagal nerve. So then you can enter that parasympathetic state a bit easier than the nerve just gets stronger. It’s more tonified. So once again, my favorite way to do that is the VU breath. It just like, it really hits. I don’t know what else to say. I just love it. It’s very simple and it consistently helps me feel better. If I’m like really, really, really like freaking out.

I’ll need to do it a little bit longer, but if I’m just kind of on a normal day, you know, a couple, 10 rounds of that. I’m like, there I am. I’m back in my body. A walk in nature is also great for this. anything that gets you in your body, like sometimes even doing a plank for 30 seconds, cause it forces you, it forces you to get back into your body. Another thing that you can do as well. That’s used a lot in like the somatic spaces and more traditional therapy spaces is like noticing things around you. So if you take a second.

to sit and you’re like, cool, let me name one thing I can see one thing I can hear one thing I can smell one thing I can taste you start to attune to your senses which helps to the helps the body access a more safe response. So that can be really easy as well or is simply like looking in front of you looking behind you looking to the side looking to the side like reorienting yourself in a space.

Hannah Aylward (01:02:56.738)

because we’re always like this. And especially when that brain starts to run, we’re really like dialed in, right? So simply like looking around can also help to reorient you into a space, which can help the body feel safe as well and kind of settle that nervous system. So those are some of the like tools that I have for you, right? Blood sugar regulation, getting adequate sleep, morning sunlight exposure. We’re doing all of this in the program already. Mineral cocktails. These are all helpful. And then

And then the harder work and then the vagal nerve exercises as well in the breath work, right? These are all like really easy things that you can do or simple things that you can do. Not always easy, right? But simple. They’re very simple that you can things that you can do and implement for like very little cost and, and big payoff, you know, then the harder work is going to be rewiring the patterns and the beliefs that you have around always needing to go. Cause at some point, as I mentioned earlier,

staying alert or go, go, or being a perfectionist or being type a or always excelling or, or always being on guard or waiting for that shoe to drop the other shoe to drop or the rug to be pulled out from under you. It’s it, you’ve just been conditioned to kind of live this way because at some point it helps you feel safe. Always having to be on guard and peeling for, you know, danger. So that kind of work and shifting how you see the world and shifting that state in the nervous system.

is obviously the harder work. think most of us are like doing it for our whole lives, but these little itty bitty practices that I mentioned help you access that safety in the body just more frequently. So the baseline gets a little bit easier, right? We start to shift that baseline once again, that the baseline safety in the body becomes more frequent than unfrequent or infrequent. So it helps to kind of reinforce the state in you. and then of course we want to like diminish the

inputs of the stress, right? So the excess caffeine, the hit training, the lack of sleep, going to bed too late, like packing your schedule full of way too much stuff. mean, I got to the place where I was just kind of like, I think I’m straight up just trying to do too much. Like I think I can get all this in one day and I just can’t. And maybe I need six, like big three things. So I will put on my, I’m like a post-it girl, even though my team does not want me to be a post-it girl. We have all these systems set up in the backend and the tech stuff. I’m like, but I’m like,

Hannah Aylward (01:05:13.07)

Three biggest things on the post-it, maybe four biggest things on the post-it. Like what are the things that I really need to get done today and everything else can wait until tomorrow. And I will get more done when I do four things than when I have a list of 10 things. And then I’m so stressed out about the 10 things that I get one thing done. You know I mean? So it’s like simplifying and then also getting a few things done helps the nervous system like settle a little bit if you run this way as well. Me.

So these little strategies, right, can be really helpful, but trying not to reinforce these inputs and also like prioritizing fun and prioritizing joy and prioritizing rest. I had to really again, continue to have to like really reinforce in my brain, Hannah, resting makes you better at your job. Like being well rested, being well resourced and nourished makes me better at my job.

I’m quicker with test results. I’m quicker with answering questions. can, my brain just thinks better. You guys want me to, for my brain to be on, right? When I’m looking at your complex health cases, if I’m exhausted, I mean, I’m working on low fuel and that goes for all of us, you know? So I can be a better girlfriend. I can be a better sister, a better daughter, a better coach, a better boss to everyone on my team when I’m well resourced. So it’s like, the rest is productive.

It’s when I’m well rested, I can get like 10 things done. Then when I’m not, I’ll get like one thing done, you know? And it’s like we, it’s like, we know that and we don’t believe it or we just keep pushing through it anyway. But it’s like when I’m all rested and I’m well resourced, like I can knock out things and it also feels easier. They’re done with more ease, which is like what, what I desire so much, you know, I don’t want to feel like I’m pushing a boulder up a hill.

Every single day. I don’t want to live my life like that. I wanna I wanna accomplish my dreams and live the life that I want with ease and and with joy not just like struggle, you know, Prioritizing taking care of yourself prioritizing laughter and community and fun and being silly You know, these things are just as important as like balancing your blood sugar like creating the space for the rest and creating the space for the community and to feel seen and feel loved

Hannah Aylward (01:07:22.752)

in community with your people, your friends, your family, your partners, whatever, is also super, super important here, right? And kind of not overpacking our schedule. So we have a little bit of time for this. And when I first got into my coaching career a long time ago, you know, I would ask clients like, what do you do for you? What do you do for you throughout the day? Like what’s a little touch point for you? What, what do you like doing? What brings you joy? What makes you happy? And a lot of them didn’t know how to answer that. They had just because life just

You know, we just are told and it’s reinforced us that we just have to keep pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And we do have a lot of responsibility. A lot of us hold a ton of responsibility, you know? And when we’re kids, we just like have fun and run around and like, how joyous are we? And we don’t have gut issues, you know? So it’s like, it’s, it’s learning these things that, that help you feel happy, that bring you joy. What are those things and how do we prioritize those things along with rest just as much as we prioritize the rest of the stuff. So it could be as simple as walking in nature.

It doesn’t need to be this like crazy fancy thing. If it is by all means go do it. But like for me, it’s like driving around, go going to drive to get a coffee and like singing at the top of my lungs with my windows down. I mean, it doesn’t, it doesn’t take much, you know, it really doesn’t take much or like going for a walk with my sister. I mean, it’s very simple things or, know, going to dinner with my friends or whatever it might be watching something funny. I mean, these things like they don’t have to be these crazy, amazing things like huge trips and stuff. Those are awesome.

But they can be really small little things, you know, and I remember talking to this one client once again, like 10 years ago at this point. And she was like, I actually really love going to the grocery store. And I, since I have, since I married, I have my kid, like, I don’t really have that space for myself anymore because I’m always rushing and, my kids with me and they’re, you know, they’re distracting. And she’s like, so I think I’m just going to go to the grocery store, like by myself. And I was like, heck yeah, girl. And take the time, walk the aisles, read, have the time to read the back of the things, you know, the ingredients and

Who made it and all of that kind of stuff. Like it doesn’t need to be fancy. That one probably resonates with a of us in this program too. Like put your podcast in or better yet, don’t, don’t put any stimulation in and just like take, take a little bit of time for you. That is what also helps the shift the body from the fight or flight state and it helps the body feel safe doing the things that we, that we want, not just kind of like the pushing. Right? So all of these things can be introduced little by little, and we’re already doing a lot of it in this program.

Hannah Aylward (01:09:47.66)

which is typically why people start to feel better, like full spectrum in this program and sometimes even quit their jobs and sometimes even quit, you know, and the relationships and things like that, because things start to become more clear when you are well resourced and when you do have the energy and you are feeling better, you know, so we want to going back to my original thought here, just just reduce the inputs of all the crazy stuff and create the time for us in our lives. You know, sometimes I say that to me, I’m like, Hannah, where are you in your life?

You know, like this is your life. Like where are you? And that’s not selfish. I, I, I’m, show up for other people all the time, but it’s like, where’s the space for me and my life is my life running me or am I running my life? You know, sometimes my life is running me, but it’s my choice. have choice in that and it doesn’t, it won’t be perfect and it won’t be, I can’t just quit my job, you know, but it’s like, I have some choice in this and I can show up a little differently.

to make things a little easier for myself here. And we also need to really like, you know, this is the deeper work is really starting to rewire the identity that we have created around productivity, our self worth, feeling lazy, slowing down, right? Cause a lot of us equate productivity to self-worth. Like when I’m really productive, I’m enough. When I accomplish this, I’m good enough. This is hard to break. It’s hard to break for me.

as someone who’s like hyper high performing and has been my whole life, you know, so whatever that means, but I’m sure it resonates with a lot of us here, you know? So it’s like when I do, do I get, get, get, if I don’t do this, I’m not as good. And sometimes the body just breaks down to show us you’re enough. Even when you don’t have the energy to do that, you know, you weren’t listening to me before when you were starting to feel tired or you were starting to break out or your hair was starting to shed. So now.

We’re going to hit you hard so you don’t have any other choice but to slow down, you know, and that’s that may sound a little woo woo or something, but Dr. Gabar, Mate talks a lot about this in his book. It’s like the body can only push so hard and sometimes we’re not hearing what it’s trying to communicate with us because we keep just running forward and pushing forward. But oftentimes it’s showing us these little signs, sending us these little signs and we just are.

Hannah Aylward (01:12:10.03)

Listening to them, you know, oh, I’m feeling more tired. Oh my period was heavier Oh my bags and my eyes are worse or whatever it might be So it’s like sometimes we kind of get stopped in our tracks a little bit like smacked in the face I tend to get smacked in the face a lot my life when I when I keep doing something I know I shouldn’t be or not even know I shouldn’t be but like I know it’s not working for Anymore, I’ll get a little slapped in the face and I’m like, oh my gosh. Okay, I hear you I have to change now and I’m like, well I should have like seen that sooner. You know, I really should have like made that change sooner

for myself. So learning to really rewire that rest is not lazy. Rest can actually be very productive. As I said earlier, like we all know what it feels like to try to push through projects when we’re exhausted versus like having the energy. And you know, I can knock out so much in like a, like a well rested focus for hours more than, than 10 hours of just like dilly dallying. Cause I can’t even focus cause I’m too tired, you know? So rest does not equal laziness or lack of

of productivity. if you need to take that new belief with you to actually implement some of this, then take that with you. But rest is productive for healing. It’s necessary for healing. You don’t need to earn rest. You can even flip that script and ask yourself, have I have I rested enough and nourished enough to earn pushing, you know, which is why when it comes to like hit classes and things like that, it’s like, I don’t want you waking up at four a.m.

to, to like stack in a hit class. It’s like, have to kind of earn this intense exercise. Have you slept enough? Have you fooled enough? How is your stress doing? But instead we’re told to, we’re taught to just like push through it and then maybe eventually we’ll earn the rest and the, and the abilities to relax when really it’s like, we nourished and, and resourced enough to actually go through a big push in our lives, whether that’s at work or physically or whatever it might be. So it’s just kind of rewiring some of these patterns. I literally have a post-it note on my

bathroom mirror that says like the taking care of myself. When I take care of myself, everything else flows better from that work flows better from that. My relationships were better from that the way that I feel my body, my own self confidence flows better from that. Like taking care of myself is the most important thing that I could possibly do because of how I can then show up for everything else in my life versus like being like snippy and tired and like reactive, you know, like no one wants that. No one wants to experience me in that way. So

Hannah Aylward (01:14:33.824)

It’s really just shifting the identity and the belief system that we have created around some of this stuff. Productivity, always getting it right, never failing, pushing, pushing, pushing, hustling, hustling, hustling, people pleasing, bending over backwards for everyone else when you’re not taking care of yourself, like that kind of stuff. Right. So sometimes it can also be helpful to ask, like, who are we without the chaos? Like who, who is Hannah without always being busy?

And sometimes I also have to ask myself, like, where am I benefiting from never stopping? Cause I am. That’s why I’m still doing it. You know, I don’t have the time to think about, I in alignment? I don’t have to have the time to think about, am I happy? Do I feel fulfilled or, or whatever it might be? I’m cause I’m too busy. You know I mean? So it’s kind of like this protective mechanism sometimes too, where it’s like keeping us from really seeing these really deeply true things that we need to see in our lives. So we just keep barreling through them.

hoping for the best and then one day we wake up and we’re like, whoa, I don’t, I’m not happy in this relationship and I don’t like this city that I live in and I hate my job, you know, but it’s like the suggestions were all there and we just kept pushing through it anyway. So we, it’s, it’s, it’s very confronting to ask yourself and hard to ask yourself sometimes like, where am I benefiting from this? where am I benefiting from always being tired or always, pushing too much or never resting or

Whatever it’s either keeping you safe. It’s keeping you safe from something your own judgment what you think can happen, whatever it might be. So it’s like that’s a good question to reflect on and like definitely take that through some journaling after this a good good 20 minutes. Maybe some tears will flow and like this is the really good stuff to work with a therapist through to if you have access to that highly highly recommend and like the EMDR work is like very helpful for this because the brain just starts to work for you honestly and then.

the stuff starts to surface. so I really recommend that it’s helped me a ton in my journey. So yeah. And then the other thing to just keep a note is like when you start to feel more calm and you start to exit this chronic stress state, it’ll feel that alone can feel triggering a little bit. At least it does for me. Like I can feel boring. I can feel uncomfortable. I can feel like you’re forgetting something. It can almost like stir up some anxiety. Like I said before, it’s like, if my schedule isn’t packed to the brim where I literally have no time to breathe, I’m more anxious.

Hannah Aylward (01:16:54.702)

I’m like, Hannah, come on girl, you know? And so ironically enough, I’m like, I’m more anxious about that than I am the packed schedule. Cause I’m just so used to pack schedule. So it can feel destabilizing a little bit at first. And sometimes it surfaces a lot of emotions and sometimes it surfaces a lot of anxiety. And sometimes it surfaces deep, deep, deep, like cellular bone, deep exhaustion. When you finally get out of that chronic flight or flight state. So this is normal. Just, just know that.

things will start to surface when you actually create the safety in the body. It’s uncomfortable and it’s normal to feel uncomfortable when the nervous system is learning to regulate when it hasn’t felt that way for a really long time. So just know that kind of going into it. You know, when you work to create these little pockets of safety for yourself, it can feel a little triggering a little bit and it’s kind of just like sitting in that and moving through that.

Um, the last thing that I wanted to mention to you guys, cause I know we’ve been going for a little while. I hope this has been helpful. If anything, at least like reaffirming for you possibly. But the other last thing I want to touch on here was just like additional support, like supplemental herbal supports and things like that. Um, I would honestly love for you guys to do all the other stuff first because what we don’t want to do is just chuck supplements at stuff. You guys are already on a bunch of supplements. We don’t want to just throw random, like more random supplements at things and think that’s going to shift the real pattern underneath. It’s like,

That’s why I don’t do a ton of cortisol testing with our clients because it’s like the, the cortisol is not really the issue. The issue is what’s dysregulating the cortisol, you know, which is the chronic stress, which is all the stuff that we’ve talked about, the belief systems, the patterns, the lack of sleep, the under eating, that kind of stuff. I mean, that’s what’s causing the cortisol dysregulation. Doesn’t really matter what your levels are unless it’s going to help you make a change. If it’s going to help you make a change, cause you’re going to see like I got nothing left, then we’ll do it. But I don’t

You know, it’s just an extra cost. It’s not really like worth it for me, for our clients for a lot of the time, because it’s not really the route, right? And we want to get to that deeper route. But my point is we don’t want to just chuck more supplements at it. But additional supports that you could potentially add in are like these Nervine herbs. So these are these are like hugs to your nervous system. You can think about it. You can give yourself a little hug while listening to this or watching this. But lemon balm is great. Passion flower is great. Chamomile is great.

Hannah Aylward (01:19:14.454)

Skullcap is great. Valerian root is great. Valerian root is what you’ll find in like sleepy time tea. If you’ve ever had that, there are amazing herbal blends and teas. There are additional supplements that we can recommend to you guys as well. There’s tinctures like on full script. have tons, we have access to some great stuff. I think I have a whole list. If you go into your account, that’s it’s titled either like burnout or

nervous system support or cortisol support is one of those. And I have some of our favorites listed there, like passionflower is really good, especially if your mind is like racing. There’s different tinctures of these herbals. And then of course we can get into adapt, adaptogens as well. Things like ashwagandha, rhodiola. I don’t personally love to start with these. They can be helpful, but they’re not really like, they’re less replenishing and more kind of helping your body mitigate some of this stress. But I kind of want to work on replenishing you a bit more. The adrenal cocktails.

Adequate protein carbohydrates, all of these things are super helpful. B vitamins and vitamin C. This is like what the adrenals work with and magnesium. So all of these things, you’re already taking a lot of this stuff, which is on purpose, but the additional turbine herbs and potentially adaptogens can be helpful here too. So once again, the nerve and herbs you can get in like simple teas. You can buy bulk herbs and make herbal infusions. Whole list of those in module five for you guys inside of this program.

And then additional supplementation you can find in full script. And if any questions about this, just just put a put a question in the chat now or you can pop it in the Facebook group and I’ll get back to you with some of our favorite recommendations. They can be helpful, but once again, the route has to be addressed. So I just want to make that clear. You’re not going to get out of like a chronic burnout state by just throwing passionflower onto like this regulation. You know what mean? But it can be helpful in conjunction with this other stuff.

And it can also sometimes be helpful for like breaking the pattern and breaking the cycle a little bit. So yeah, magnesium, I mentioned, L, Fianine, glycine, these are all great. I think a lot of these are that list that I have for you guys in full script. So you long in your account, you’ll see like my favorites, and then you’ll see like a couple of the lists that I have. And a lot of that’s in there. Any additional questions, feel free to ask. If you’re like, I cannot take another supplement on this program. That’s fine. Do all the other stuff, you know, and we already have you on some of this, some of the stuff too. So

Hannah Aylward (01:21:28.812)

I hope this was helpful for you. hope it was reaffirming. I hope it you feel seen and understood in this. You’re not alone. If this resonates with you, we’re all feeling this to some degree. That always makes me feel a little better because I’m like, wow, am I totally nuts? No, you’re not. and there’s so much that you can do. And, and what I really, what I really want to end this with is like, you deserve this. Like you deserve to go throughout your life feeling more at ease than

than stress and it’s not always super easy. It’s kind of easier to like hit the chronic stress state, especially if that’s what you’re used to. But it’s like you deserve a life where things feel just a little less stressful, you know, and you can do it like it’s part of the dance or you can do it like it’s just a huge heavy weight on you. And that’s a little bit of a choice. And sometimes it is going to be a heavy weight and you’re like, I need to put this weight down. And that’s, that’s just real life, you know,

But also where can you play with the energy a little bit, where you learn to access that safety in the body a little bit and support yourself so you can, you know, move through life and all of life stressors just a little bit better and really take a look at those patterns of like, wow, these are some deep rooted limiting beliefs that I have. There is another way. There is another way that I could do this. And it can be hard to see when you’re so in it, but there is, there is another way that you can move throughout this life feeling a little less stressed. So.

That’s what I want for you. And that’s what’s going to help keep your gut issues away. If I didn’t sell you yet, that’s what’s going to help really keep those gut issues away. So, that’s real because the gut, the gut brain connection and the fact that the nervous system regulates the gut. So, so yes, big hug Cishan, every one of you. Thanks for being here with me. We’ll, get the replay out for you as well. Any questions on any of this pop it in the Facebook group. I’m always here to help. and we’ll keep moving forward from there.

Okay? Thank you guys! Bye! Have a good night!