The missing ingredient in every health protocol you've tried
And how working with your nervous system can help you stop googling symptoms at 1am
If you’re dealing with persistent health issues — fatigue that won’t lift, anxiety that follows you everywhere, pain that specialists can’t explain — I can’t imagine how vulnerable and frustrating that feels. There are many people close to me who have been in that boat for years. You’ve invested time, money, and hope into finding answers. And it may seem like the last thing you need is someone suggesting you’re looking in the wrong place.
I’m wading into this conversation anyway, not because I claim to be the expert with the magic pill you’ve been waiting for, but because what I’ve seen through neuro/somatic work across a wide variety of humans who presented with different persistent health challenges may offer some relief.
And because I don’t know what I’ll do if I see one more ad for a “supplement stack” or “reset protocol”.
What sparked this
Someone shared a video with me from Chris Williamson, host of the mega-popular Modern Wisdom podcast, who documented the behind-the-scenes of his severe health struggles while building his business. After just a few minutes, I immediately recognized the pattern I see repeatedly with the high-achievers I work with:
Going from expert to expert, solution to solution, searching for the magic pill to fix the health problem without rehabilitating the communication between the body and brain.
When we hop from one miracle solution to another, relentlessly searching for the answer out there without slowing down enough to tend to what’s in here... we’re ensuring it’s going to be a long, bewildering road.
And here’s what surprised me and led me to write this: the comments section under his video was actually full of the thing that often goes unsaid:
“Calm down your nervous system. You are trying too hard to get better and doing too much. Your body won’t heal if you keep it stimulated.”
“I am a pulmonary and critical care doc with 20+ years of experience... you have to keep peeling your way through the burning pain of disappointment, anger, anxiety, fear, and frank rage that is turned more inward than out.”
“I finally feel my nervous system down-regulating for the first time in my life and my symptoms are getting better. This is after seeing more doctors and specialists than you could imagine and having every one of them shrug their shoulders.”
Snippet from the comment section
Why we keep chasing
Let me be clear: I’m not suggesting you turn away from medical expertise or ignore diagnostic data. That information is valuable.
But here’s what I want you to consider:
What if the problem isn’t that you haven’t found the right treatment?
When we’re stuck in chronic stress, fatigue, or pain, we default to our most practiced skill: problem-solving. We accumulate knowledge. We optimize. We create color-coded spreadsheets comparing modalities. We push and we push to find the answer.
This makes perfect sense — it’s how you’ve succeeded in your career. It’s probably how you’ve navigated most challenges in life.
But the body is limited in how it can respond to an intervention when it’s spent decades in anticipation of a tiger lurking just around the corner.
When your nervous system is in a chronic state of activation (sympathetic dominance), the body will limit the resources going towards healing.
Our autonomic nervous system has two primary branches: the sympathetic (mobilization, alertness, action) and the parasympathetic (rest, digest, heal). When we’re constantly in “search and fix” mode — even when we’re searching for solutions to help us rest — we’re reinforcing this dynamic.
It’s like trying to fall asleep by thinking really hard about falling asleep. Doesn’t work, makes you angry, 0/10 would not recommend.
Think of it like trying to have a conversation with someone who’s sprinting. They might hear fragments of what you’re saying, but they can’t process it deeply or respond thoughtfully. That’s what’s happening between your body and brain.
Your body is sending signals — through fatigue, through pain, through anxiety — but if your system is locked in high alert, you can’t receive that information clearly. We’re treating the alarm signals as the problem instead of recalibrating our alarm system.
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
The missing ingredient (Not another $97/month supplement)
Supporting a more fluid conversation between body and brain means creating the conditions where your system can shift flexibly between states. Where you can reliably and consistently access the parasympathetic “rest and digest” mode that allows for healing, integration, and clarity.
This isn’t about adding another protocol to your stack. And, please hear me on this: it is not just about calming down. This is about recognizing that you can’t biohack or detox or plant medicine your way out of being disconnected from your own body. (Trust me, I’ve seen people, much like Chris, go all out.)
It’s about creating the foundation that then allows you to rebuild your capacity for change.
When you build this fluidity, a few things happen:
1. You start recognizing your body’s signals earlier (before you crash)
2. You discern what your body actually needs (vs. what you’re grasping at out of desperation)
3. You access more energy for the things you actually care about (not just surviving the day)
Here’s how this played out for one of my clients:
She’s a startup leader who came to me exhausted, anxious, and frustrated that she’d “tried everything” but still felt like she was running on empty. Like most of my clients, she spent her days staring at screens, locked in a fixed gaze for hours at a time. Her browser tabs had browser tabs.
To start, we co-created a visual reset ritual. A simple practice to help prevent the overwhelm that comes from an inundated nervous system, which is typical in a high-demand life.
For her, it looked like this: After her post-lunch walk, she comes back inside, grabs a cooling gel eye mask, lies on the floor with her legs up the wall, rests her hands on her belly (the gentle weight provides a feeling of support), and spends a few minutes relaxing her face muscles, doing some audible sighs, and letting the snow globe in her head settle.
That’s it.
No complex protocol. No expensive equipment. No app that gamifies your parasympathetic activation. Just a few minutes of intentional, low-stim space for down-regulation built into the day, ideally before it’s desperately needed.
The result after one week of this daily practice? She reported having significantly more energy for everything she cares about — especially outside of work. More present, less reactive.
Wild, eh?
Why this matters for you (And why it can be so hard)
Here’s what I want you to notice this week:
Where are you looking outwardly for solutions instead of building inner fluidity?
Look: This outward searching serves you in some way. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it. It gives you a sense of control. It feels productive. It’s familiar. You can put it on your to-do list and check it off. (”Research magnesium types” ✓ “Read 47 Reddit threads about sleep optimization” ✓)
And it can keep you stuck.
Both can be true.
The invitation isn’t to stop seeking expert input or medical care. It’s to make space for becoming the expert of your own dynamic, inner experience.
Which is hard because it’s not the way most people are living. And because coming back to the body in earnest — after feeling betrayed by it for so long — is no easy feat.
Your experiment (That will seem too simple to work)
Create a visual reset ritual that you actually enjoy.
Give that brain a break from constant stimulation by going straight to the visual system that takes up more of your brain real estate than any other.
Some options:
The cooling eye mask + legs up the wall combo (like my client)
A soft gaze out the window at the furthest point you can see for a minute
Closing your eyes and gently pressing your palms against them for 30 seconds
Looking at the sky, trees… allowing for peripheral vision activation
The neuroscience: When your gaze is fixed (as it is on screens), your sympathetic nervous system stays activated. When you allow your eyes to soften, move, or rest, you signal safety to your system. This is one of the fastest pathways to parasympathetic activation.
Try it daily for one week. Notice what happens.
That noticing is the beginning of fluidity.
Yeah, it might seem anticlimactic at first. But keep going for one week.
Neuroplasticity doesn’t work like a flip-of-a-switch, despite what those reels on instagram claim.
You got this.
Reply and let me know: Where have you been searching for answers outside yourself that might benefit from some inner attention?
If this resonates and you want support building more practices like this into your work life, reply here or message me. We have both group and 1:1 openings coming up for those who are ready to stop pushing through and start working with their nervous systems. No more “research” required.
And if you want to get into a bit more of the science behind this, listen to our most popular episode of the pod to-date (#11) where I speak with the founder of Neurosomatic Intelligence, Elisabeth Kristof.