Exploring the Nervous System and Mental Health

welcome fearfully and wonderfully made humans to the holistic counselor podcast it's me Diana from through the valley therapy and today we're diving into a topic that's foundational to both mental and physical well-being the nervous system I first discovered today's guest through an Instagram reel she posted on April 12th of this year where she shared some truly thought-provoking insights on the nervous system her words instantly grabbed my attention then as God would have it I realized we

were both members of the same holistic business Network fast forward to a couple of weekends ago and we had the chance to briefly meet in person when we were both speakers at the relief Retreat organized by the net work and now here we are to dig deep into the connection between the nervous system and mental health with this incredible guest Dr Lauren deso is a doctor of physical therapy with over 15 years of experience primarily in

outpatient Orthopedics and Sports Medicine after years in the corporate clinical world she launched her own practice to offer the kind of holistic care she believes in focusing on full body healing by integrating the nervous system lymphatic system and movement analysis her mission is to help people achieve a regulated resilient nervous system rewiring the Mind Body Connection and empowering clients to take control of their healing Journey Dr Deo welcome to the podcast thank you I'm so happy

to be here that was a great introduction I really appreciate that yeah so listen you left the corporate world because this is where I'm like really intrigued you left the corporate world and started own practice which is something I resonate with right so what was the driving force behind this decision and how has it changed your approach to treating clients holistically well so for for me I always felt that something was missing um we were always

treating lots of people our schedules were super full but I felt really empty and I felt like my clients were being left with something on the table there like we were getting them better but we weren't really optimizing what we could do for them and it I would you know change jobs go to different offices things like that but it was kind of always the same and the the mindset behind it was really more about treating

the insurance rather than treating the person and I mean the conversations that I would have behind closed doors with management and the business side of it was just such a turnoff for me and I felt like I was being a part of the problem as far as not getting people healthy and well again but more so encouraging people to stay unwell and in the system because we knew we could utilize their insurance ultimately so you would

see the people that were like more like cash based and things like that that were really more taking control and responsibility over their health because they were more um because it was coming straight directly from them to the person providing the service they were more committed they were um more compliant and they were getting better wow and they were being accountable for their own healing so I just knew being in the um industry of being corporate

and taking insurance and just like running this Mill of getting people in getting people out and keeping them in the system wasn't the right thing to do and it also did not allow me to practice the way that I knew I should be practicing to like my fullest potential okay and and part of that was being able to connect with people and when you practice in those clinics like you just don't have the time and you

don't have the the mental capacity to even take on that load um so that building connection was very very important to me so I knew I had to shift and be out of that particular setting it wasn't about finding a new job at a new company because they were they're really all kind of practicing the same way when you're in that field in that like outpatient corporate field um so I decided just to take the leap

I think Co was a big proponent of you know I think a lot of people had really um aha Awakening moments during covid yes uh in my personal life in my professional life and that really catapulted me to just take the leap and get out of that corporate world and what I've seen being in my own practice since then and um yeah I don't take insurance but I do that so I can work one-on-one individually with

everybody but I have seen such a tremendous effect on the outcomes by practicing that way like I said people show up they they are ready to commit financially but also mentally physically like they're they're there to get better and they've been through the system already so they've been kind of like right fed up with yeah their symptoms not getting answers things like that so the I've really found that it's been a lot more effective to practice

that way and and I just feel like not participating in that insurance industry is going to be part of what helps to eventually um remodel that you know the more the practitioners kind of step away from that participating in that the more that the insurance industry is going to have to take a look at themselves and kind of remodel or restructure how this medical model is working oh yeah oh no and I see it in the

mental health field I mean this is why I'm a holistic therapist because you know when I was doing community mental health you can imagine it is like all right let's we have to chase the insurance and we had to diagnose like right now it's like I don't know if you if that law is pertained to you as a private prati practitioner Private Practice practitioner where I have to do a good faith estimate to every new client

do you guys have to do that too um I think anyone that's really practicing out of pocket so yeah I'll typically give people an estimate of like okay these are what my services cost and this is how I T what a typical protocol is going to look like like this times per week so you can kind of estimate what the cost is going to look like to you yeah but the thing is I have to diagnose

them the minute I get a phone call it's B isn't that bizarre isn't that to me it's the most frustrating thing I have to put a diagnosis on the good faith estimate and I'm like I just met them for two minutes but that's the L right and that's so fair to the person right because and a lot of people aren't NE and that's that's another issue with like the medical model is everyone's a diagnosis and that

just adds to the element of like not being well of this mentality of like oh well I am or I have or my I have a discernation now all of a sudden we're like our discernation right and we feel stuck yep so I I don't even like love to give a diagnosis I mean mean if you're doing insurance I have to give a diagnosis I mean for p the PT World which is nice is we really

base off of their presentation of what they their functional limitations are and that's how we determine how we're going to treat because it's not really about their diagnosis it's more about um optimizing their overall function and presentation yeah it it's getting your patient client I like to call them clients not patients right um to understand that they have a unique biology so you cannot I understand why we have to diagnose sometimes because we need some kind

of boundary for us practitioners but when we that no sio effect nobody talks about that right the second you get that diagnosis guess what like you just said that is now your new persona in a in a sense right yeah and that's frustrating as practitioners because I'm like no like you're not depression you might wrestle with it but let's get to the root cause of it just with you okay so let's go a little bit into

so you started your own company what's the name of it oh I just go by my name Dr Lauren Deo doctor of physical therapy um and I focus on really performance wellness and um like like because a lot of people come to me not necessarily just for like skilled rehab Services okay so we so we do I do more like wellness services with people that's cool so let's go into that a little bit because I saw

a huge list of all the certifications you have I'm like this This Woman's ambitious like I thought I had nerd that's what I am I me too I love it oh my goodness if I just met a nerd like that gets the whole thing I'm so happy like we're gonna have to just hang out after this so so you have like Vegas nerve stimulation techniques lymphatic and lymphatic system stimulate dry kneeling grason Tech I've I've heard

half of these or a little because I do because I am holistic I understand the nervous regulation of of that's something I've studied you know complex PTSD and stuff like that so I want to go through a little bit of like all your not all of them certific but what's important with the let's start with the nervous system because people don't understand that whole fight flight freeze or Fawn they don't understand like you know logically I

know that I should be doing ABC why is my body reacting because that's what I say I'm like your body is activating right now we have to get to the root cause of it and rewire the brain so I would love to know how you do that okay so that is so I have that whole list of things that I do but the the foundational stuff the stuff that I focus on with every single client I

see whether I'm seeing you for chronic illness chronic pain all the way up to high performing athletes or high performing professionals I I'm even working with people that are coming with like physical manifestation of their anxiety depression or trauma so um the nervous system is like the number One Foundation to being able to achieve positive outcomes for people so I'm not going to go straight to your knee pain I'm going to address your nervous system first

so then when I do address your knee pain your body is able to handle the treatment and optimize that treatment to the best ability right okay so um the approach that I take with the nervous system is and it's the part of the nervous system the autonomic nervous system like you said that's the portion of the nervous system that goes into sympathetic fight ORF flight or parasympathetic um that rest and digest State and um I would

say 100% of people that I see are sitting in some sort of excessive state of that fight ORF flight response right and the people that I've seen that are in those chronic States chronic presentations so chronic illness autoimmune um pain um chronic history of like complex PTSD things like that they've been revving for so long in their fight or flight response a lot of them now are dipping down into that like Freez or Fawn immobilized response

so they'll just fluctuate between excessive states of fight or flight or excessive states of freeze or Fawn so they either go excessively turned on overstimulated or shut down right and um so basically what I do is I start off by reintegrating safety for them because that's number one that's going to be the fastest way to break that cycle of all of those States fight flight freezer Fawn are states of survival our body is very smart in

a way yeah that it has learned that anytime it feels threatened it's going to activate those survival responses but what tends to happen is we get stuck in them we don't we we don't have these like integrated internal resources to turn that back off and and balance us back out so because we've been stuck in these excessive States um someone like me I'm going to come in as an external resource and I'm going to send a

signal of safety to your body okay okay so I do that through um stimulation of the Vegas nerve okay let's go there for a second because a lot of my listeners might not even know what you're talking about like what do you mean parasympathetic sympathetic ner ner nerve I mean I get it because I studied it you studied it but like it's like also the Vagas nerve like I get it but how do you explain it

to your to your patients okay so and this has Tak me a long time to find the words and these explanations yeah for tell people because it is so kind of really in depth and it's it's abstract and you know um so this Vegas nerve is a cranial nerve meaning it comes directly from your brain and it travels through an opening in your skull near your ear both ears okay and it travels down the front of

your neck behind your chest bone and into your abdomen and this vagus nerve is incredible because it really um when it's activated properly it starts to balance out our nervous system because it's sending a a signal to the brain of safety essentially it should naturally activate on its own but for a lot of different reasons our Vagas nerves in our body are suppressed for whatever you know it could have happened all of us have different histories

right so it could have been like developmentally um as small babies that's when it really starts to take shape and form and that typically happens when we're nurtured and we're um at build healthy attachments with our caregiver things like that it start in worse and we are soothed as babies that's our first form of Regulation um is coming from our caregiver typically and that starts to tone and develop that nerve so it helps to keep us

really well balanced when we have stressors stressors are healthy and normal typically but we still have to have that balance right so the Vegas ner will kick in to balance us us back out um it can happen from like if you have suffered from whiplash if you've had a lot of neck upper neck cervical tension um if you've um just undergone tremendous amounts of stress without any sort of escape from that right so if like you're

just chronically overloaded in a stress response it starts to deteriorate the function of that nerve as well traumas and things like that right um all sorts of different things can affect the that vagus nerve so I go in and I do techniques to the vegus nerve to reactivate it so I use vibration I use stimulation I actually have a device that I use that gives an electrical impulse to right over the path of the Vegas nerve

to kick it back in and teach it to flex back on to balance that nervous system back out okay and once that that nerve is kicking in then it will send that signal of safety to the brain and then the body can pull back out of that over responding stress response right and help the balance back out wow okay I mean that's great that you do that how how long would it I mean I know it

depends on how much stress the you know that they're on because it is it's like your brain's on fire that's how I usually put it like all of a sudden your brain's on fire but logically you know you need to do a b and c and d right like some people they come to me because they feel a lot of guilt and shame like they know I need to be doing this they know I need to

be a you know all this stuff but I have this and I don't and people are telling me you should be over it or whatever it is like this happened when you were a kid or or whatever the situation is right because there's a big tea trauma which happens and then there's a little stackups that I like to call them right the little you know like something happened when you were little and then this other thing

and then this other thing and this other thing and there you go on fire on fire and and your system's going boop boop boop you know and you're trying to ulate them um what's the typical start like what would be the first thing like I'm brand new to you and I come into your office what would you do with me first thing you never met me I just hired you to help me out because I heard

you did some really good stuff on the holistic counselor podcast and now I want my therapist and you too because honestly it's a team sometimes say we need I know I have my team to help me with my you know my situations right so what would you do if I walked in your office and I'm like oh help so so the number one thing to understand like what you said is especially with the logical part of

the brain is telling you I need to be doing all these things and then you start beating yourself up because you're not doing the things well there's a reason why you're not doing the things because subconsciously from a nervous system standpoint it's a protective response to kind of be stuck in those behaviors in those patterns because our nervous system would prefer a familiar hell over an unfamiliar Heaven is what saying is right so like no matter

what you you can tell yourself all day long I should be doing this I know what's best for me I know I should be over this because I'm not actually in that position that I was in when I was seven years old I'm actually safe and whatever right now but your body doesn't know a different story right right so you're you're your body has a felt sensation in it that it experiences and it sends that sensation

up to your brain stem first and your brain stem doesn't have a timeline right so it doesn't understand logically that you're not seven right now that you're 27 and then that story goes to your brain and then you're like wait a second so then and then you have to convince yourself wait no like I am I am safe and then you have to tell your body no we are safe so what I do is I start

reintegrating that felt sensation of safety to the body so then it can then tell the brain that yes we are in fact safe right now wow so my first steps when people come into my office so day one would be and I get an idea people talk to me you know they'll call me and kind of explain what they're experiencing I'll go by kind of what their physical symptoms are like oh I'm always have neck pain

am I always clenching my jaw um I just I'm always agitated so I'm already listening I'm like okay so they're more in a fight or flight or if they're like I feel like I can't get out of bed I'm so tired I get sick all of the time they're more sitting in their like shutdown side right they've been under too much load for too long so I already get an idea but when they come into my

office I first will kind of get I use my own system my own nervous system to co-regulate with them when they come in and that gives me a good idea because I can actually feel with my nervous system what they're feeling and experiencing wow so I'm co-regulating with them but then I'm also using that co-regulation to help them to regulate their system because my nervous system is always going to stay regulated when I am working with

them so I'm going to be the safe calm centered nervous system right in the room and then they're when they get near me and in my space they are already going to feel different because they are now going to be co-regulating to that so our nervous systems will speak to each other in that way right like you get near somebody and you can kind of feel what they're feeling right their energy are they anxious are they

now I just got near someone and now I'm anxious that's their nervous system in that state and it's creating that sensation within you as well so they're kind of mirroring each other so I use that mirroring technique that co-regulation to really feel what they're kind of experiencing but the key to that is that I maintain my regulation I don't let their disregulation so how do you do that oh I have to practice I I make sure

I use all my own techniques okay and get myself in a very regulated centered state to prepare for what what's to come no seriously that's the same for me I have to do I have a system before I see a client once once I do a free 15minute consultation right because right then I'm going to know if I'm the therapist for them because right we're not everybody's cup of tea no matter what right and you can

tell and and that's that again it goes down to that co-regulation right like are your nervous systems gonna be like this yeah ring heads and like almost like causing a resistance to each other or they kind of really acclimating and magnifying towards each other and um so really it's about me keeping that holding that space for them and then my space itself I try to keep it very safe feeling um very open meaning they can tell

me anything uh lots of listening and validation so that's like we people being heard is like one of the first steps to that that transitioning into healing right so connection trust being heard and validated those are that's all what's going to get established in that for a session right and then I'm going to start doing some stimulation to those different portions of their Vegas nerve and their nervous system to help to regulate them in that moment

in that session so within that session they will become centered and regulated how long does a session last with you usually an assessment like the first session is an assessment and a treatment and it's about an hour and a half yeah okay cool I do that too my first one that you to see me you have to be 90 minutes and then um yeah and then from there on it's usually an hour from there on but

okay so tell me tell me about um because I know you said you do quite a few different techniques depending on the client I bet you anything you're like okay this person needs a b and c right and that person needs d e and f and so tell me all the things you do use to um in your practice like give me an without saying you know a case study or whatever so because you don't want

to put it all out there but like you've been doing this for a while now right a couple years in your own private way like yeah so we in this like holistic approach and nervous system lymphatic um more systemic approach has been probably the last four years okay um still compiling and adding on certifications and things wow yeah I hear you uh well you know part of that is it's part of your own healing Journey too

right so what do you mean by that well I mean have my own history I have my own history I actually have complex PTSD um from childhood and adulthood and um I've had experienced some pretty traumatizing parenting experiences as well and through that I really really had to take that deep dive in how to address that trauma and especially when it starts happening with your children and you're in the parent role keeping that nervous system regulated

and not getting triggered and um and then like seeing what the trickle down health effects were of all of that right right so at one point maybe five or six years ago I was suffering from every autoimmune symptom gut issues and chronic pain going to rheumatology olog neurology pain management things like that and when I kind of shifted my environment and left the environment that was actually making me sick and keeping me in that survival State

a lot of that just got better melted away and so I really realized like what that was doing to my whole system what that like trauma was doing to my system and so going down every Rabbit Hole of how to address that and then pulling from that how that was going to affect my clients who are coming in with chronic pain that's not getting better chronic autoimmune that's not getting better things like that and really applying

those tools to my clients such a dramatic difference right with that I you know when you have complex PTSD every day you don't know what could be a trigger sometimes right so I'm still experiencing my own disregulation here and I just know I'm super self-aware of what the shifts are and fine-tune and you know I'm really back in my body um so I can actually attach to what it feels like to be super centered and regulated

versus what the shifts are becoming disregulated and and then what tools I need to use for myself yeah so what tools worked for you because I know what worked for me because I mean I don't know if you want to tell the listeners what your a score is your adverse CH I mean I don't know if you even took the 10 question test no one's ever given me the test ah I know about test talk about

the test no one's ever given me the test really okay but we're not gonna give it to you right now because we're talking but I'm just thinking if you had cptsd usually what I've come to understand and research is like anything over a four that's what correlates with um autoimmune this is something that they're and so the higher the but doesn't mean you're doomed so listener if you take that a score score which I'll leave it

in the show notes and you're high it does not mean you're doomed because some people get freaked out over that they're like oh my gosh my score was a nine and you know 10's the highest and then now they're thinking I got all this illness like you said you're stuck in some but we're trying to tell you as holistic practitioners that there the obstacle is the way to Healing you got to go through it you can't

ignore it that's where self-medication comes into play right and stuff like that so for you because you realize like I need to shift and change or I'm going to be stuck and I'm going to now continue on this um intergenerational thing that like people are talking about now about breaking the cycle right yes breaking the cycle so what was your like aha moment like was there a book a podcast a TV show another human that like

a doctor or somebody else that you all of a sudden went whoa that that makes sense I I need to go into that rabbit hole um discovering the nervous system yeah um oh my gosh I think it was probably a Youtube video um so I had I I went through a a pretty traumatic breakup and that's when I started looking and exploring like okay I got to this place for a reason of how I ended up

in this situation with this person and again and it kind of basically repeated a cycle from childhood of trauma and things like that so I knew like what I need to I need to do something so that this doesn't keep repeating itself right so I started doing a lot of more of like the mental health side of it cool so a lot of like top down processing understanding understanding patterns and things like that but it still

felt I felt it in my body right and the triggers and the the visceral responses and the ACT activation to things and something came across I don't know if somebody sent it to me or what about this woman on YouTube doing a Vegas nerve exercise and then I was like well what is what is this Vegas nerve thing and why is that something that's going to help with my stress and my trauma and my chronic pain

right then it just sent me down this Rabbit Hole of like your Vagas nerve and your nervous system is in charge of your tissue tension your digestive system um your inflammatory response it literally puts you in pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory your immune system um and then even how you present in the world your motivation your ability to engage with others and socialize and all of this stuff and it just I was like okay so how do I

how do I do this what do I do so I looked up every single course I could find I signed up for the this woman that I found on our YouTube her Nervous System Program healing your nervous system I've worked with this um man who's a chiropractor and that's where I learned the physical manipulation of the body where you can access those different points of the sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system and the vagus nerve to shift from

a physical St Point into there um I'm getting certified in sematics right now so that we can help to discharge that wired response of stress and Trauma from the body and what's being stored in the body um so I'm going to finish that hopefully soon because I'm I feel like that's a huge component to help people safely discharge those trauma responses from their bodies without having to relive the trauma right necessarily and reprocess and relive the

trauma so it's a way to help heal that from your body and that for me is also like that's that's the certification I'm doing right now that I feel like is going to be part of my continued healing process as well so okay that's wonderful I love that um were there any books that you read like I know for me as a therapist they have the poly vagel Theory um and so I studied that some and

that that's where I was like oh okay that makes sense body keeps the score with Dr Bess vott that's like everybody's go-to like yeah that makes sense Peter LaVine waking the tiger the body you like pretty much those are the big ones um I think there's a lot of professionals that I follow that their theory is what I really like this the information that they're putting out there about the nervous system so a big guy uh

one that I took coursework from is Perry Nicholson stop chasing pain oh I love that and that's his um website he's amazing and he gives he teaches a lot of the things that you can actually manipulate in your body so that you have a tool to go to so um I think one thing that's really hard for people that are dealing with triggers or stress responses and things like that is our reflexive part of our brain

is starting to respond and then we have to remember all those tools like okay just breathe right down whatever but you don't really have access to that right when you're when you're in it so so what I've taught people is get something that vibrates so I have everybody get a ball that vibrates and they take that ball and they just all they have to do is get that vibration on them I love that and that vibration

is it feels soothing so it's all about self soothing really yeah um but it's hard to cognitively be like okay I need to calm down I need to breathe I need to slow down myself like I'm in moment I'm present whatever so that is one of the most effective tools that I found for people is just take that vibration and even my kids they're young they're seven and 10 oh wow but they take the ball they

sit with the ball and they just start to self soothe with that as well that's a beautiful tool because that's my next question like is there any because not everybody could afford therapy right and and not everybody could afford going into non-insurance practitioners and I get it you know I I get people telling me like why you know and that's why I try to keep my my prices reasonable because we still are people that have to

it's like a balancing because we know what worked for us and how hard we had to work but how I say it's like you're gonna pay either way you're gonna either pay for prevention and root cause or you're GNA pay for intervention and staying stuck in a system you're well in that say I think to people detach from the fact that their insurance is paying for something but you're paying for your Insurance you're paying quite a

bit for your insurance your insurance is telling you where you get to go so it's you're not you're giving your money to these people and you don't even get a choice in anything so um it's it's it's also taking away some of that self- agency and autonomy with people too so I think that's why when people make that commitment financially yeah they're they are deciding this is who I want to go to and this is who

I want to see right and it reinstates that self agency there too so um yeah I think it's important that we are still accessible to people right so and it might not be like in a one-on-one session or something like that that's why I try to put out information on yeah this is why I did this podcast media the pod that's why you I mean you're not getting paid you're not a paid speaker on the podcast

you came on because you realized like okay how do we get information to the masses so people will have that self- agency and and take control they some people don't think they have control because you're the one with the doctor degree and I'm the one with the you know Masters or the certifications but it's understanding like you are this individual human being with your own thumb print with your own journey and now you get to choose

what you want to do what do you want to do do you want to stay stuck and just you know balancing or um you know symptoms basically that's what you do right I know I have I have autoimmune I've been diagnosed autoimmune and I've been working through it with my integrative functional uh doctor you know but it is that's why I'm like I was so curious about what you have to offer because I'm like maybe I'll

go to her too and because I check out everything like honestly I go to acupuncture I go to chiropractic care I have to especially with the work we do if you're sitting there picking up people's energy I am too right you had to be as the practitioner so careful about holding space that you're really just holding space that you're not actually merging ING with the person right love that I love that so let's talk about that

a little more the therapist I work with says always resist the urge to merge right I love that oh my goodness that's that right there I live by that so so easy to especially as a parent and you know some working with people because that's that's the um the Instagram reel that I saw you were sitting there uh training practitioners and you're like if you're a clinician a doctor and you named it all and it was

just a short know 15 second reel and I said right there I'm like and then the nervous system and you need to and I'm going I need more of that I wasn't able to go because I had something else but then I'm like I need to find out who this woman is and then I started following you and saying okay let me see if I really really like what she's saying and I'm like oh my goodness

this this woman gets the science of things because to me I like to explain it clinically as well because we're we're clinical but you get the holistic part of it as well too like understand like we're a whole being it's not just that one part it's like understanding all your parts coming together right right so let's talk about um just like this different like what is dry needling dry needling um okay so everything on there is

like so there are all different certifications modalities and dry needling is using acupuncture needles to go into soft tissue structures and help to release the tension from those soft tissue structure so it's targeted more towards muscular skeletal so the muscles that insert around joints um say you have neck pain I'm going to Target that that tight muscle everybody gets on the top of their neck going into their shoulder and it goes and it just immediately uh

realigns and releases the muscle fibers there um it's not for everyone but it is super effective for treating soft tissue and muscular skeletal um chronic issues um will come in with acute pain and it clears it up very rapidly um muscles that just won't release and we sit there and we dig and we dig and we dig when you go dry needle them it pretty much helps that muscle release immediately but then it helps in in

the the systemic side to it is like we start building this pain response so our shoulder hurts it tells the brain I hurt the brain says okay I'm going to protect that shoulder I'm going to tighten all the muscles around there I'm going to change your movement power patterns and then it hurts again it tells the brain so it's like this vicious cycle that goes back and forth when you do dry needling that insertion of the

needle helps to like trigger response to turn that pain cycle off wow so it's pretty effective when I'm dealing with people that have you know anything from acute to a chronic issue and it helps to send new fresh cells to that area so like stem cells and um lay down new collagen fibers and things like that so it's got a a lot of of benefit to it yeah but again it's really not for everyone when people

are coming in and they've been in like a really heightened fight ORF flight response and then you start sticking needles yeah they're like know so it's amazing for the people that can tolerate it and don't have any sort of like needle aversion but if people are creeped out by needles at all be effective for them because it's going to put them more into that survival response but it is it's really a soft tissue modality that I

use that for people that have muscular skeletal complaints do you use Meridian like the meridians from traditional Chinese medicine to put it in there or is it different it's different from acupuncture and that's the big thing and that's why it's called dry needling and I'm a physical therapist doing dry needling um it's just a technique okay acupuncturist you know are going to school for a very long time to learn that whole theory of practice right right

reading and diagnosing and things like that and using those acup points to achieve the outcome that they're looking for okay so that's the difference between acupuncture and dry needling so out of all of these because I'm going to name them all some well most of them like Vegas nerve stimulation non-dietary dietary gut healing techniques lymphatic and lymphatic brain system stimulation the dry needling grass and technique functional range conditioning blood flow restrict and I mean it keeps

going and going with DM TMJ dysfunction out of all of these that you do what would be the one for mental health you know what I mean like you just said that that's musular like someone comes into pain and if they don't have cptsd or a score that's high and so what what would you do with someone that's coming in with anxiety or depression so when people come in with some sort of mental health diagnosis I'm

obviously I'm I'm not going to treat that mental side of it right but I am going to explore what are your physical symptoms that you're storing in your body in response to that anxiety and depression but are also feeding that anxiety and depression right so those we only know we're anxious because our body is sending a message to the brain it's a felt experience and sensation in our body it could be increased tissue tension it could

be stomach pain it could be a knot in our chest tightness shortness of breath things like that and then that sensation tells the brain I'm anxious right so I'm going into the body and exploring what those different physical symptoms are and I could address it I mean some people do come with some multiple region chronic pain that's a result of being in that chronic cycle of anxiety and depression so if we can break some of those

signals that are going up to the brain and reestablish some of those signals then we're gonna help with what's going on with that anxiety and depression so it's a two-way street right so and and like the top we got top down what the brain is telling the body and then we have the bottom up which is what the body is telling the brain so I'm GNA approach all of those physical messages that are going up to

the brain so it could be vagus nerve stimulation so that we can reactivate that balance back into the nervous system um a lot of it it could be soft tissue work as well um I'm always going to do lymphatic work explain that please just a little I know what the lymphatic system but for the listener like what do you mean by that what I have another system first it was the skeletal and it's the central nervous

the lymphatic system is almost just as important because this system are a bunch of vessels in in um nodes that follow your entire region of your body from your brain all the way to your toes and hello Dro oh hello can you hear me now I can oops sorry there was just a she froze she's back though yay all right I don't know where it froze at but it was the lymphatic system the the the nodes

I think that's the last word so it's all vessels and nodes that basically follow all of your um arteries and veins and um nerves that go from head to toe and it cleans and clears out all of your cells so as cells break down um as they process different things um it clears out toxins infections and it keeps your fluids so think of like a fish tank right so when that fish tank gets all backed up

and disgusting like the pipes and everything are what goes in and filters and cleans all of that back out right sometimes the the system gets backed up um and it's typically related to lack of movement high amounts of stress um poor diet not move um like being in that activated nervous system so when our nervous system gets highly activated our tissue tension increases and that cuts off a lot of our fluid dynamics when you cut off

fluid dynamics then you're going to get backed up and stagnant in your lymphatic system so your body's not detoxing and cleaning itself out the way it's supposed to yeah so I go on with different stimulation techniques and I stimulate the major choke points of the lymphatic system to help encourage that fluid to move and flush and detox the way it's supposed to okay so so again if you leave that lymphatic system and you don't address that

when people come in then that is going to continue to also send a message of threat back up to the the brain saying like uh I don't feel so good because I'm really backed up with toxins and waste and now I have like issues where I'm swollen yeah my cells aren't healing they're they're not regenerating right and th those are all threat responses or threat messages that are going to your brain so it's going to keep

adding to that cycle all right so same thing with like um a lot of functional medicine people will gut health for example has a huge effect on your mental health that brain access so you have to address everything in your body in order for your brain to feel good as well yeah no you're right on like the lymphatic like I I learned about that my sister had cancer back in the day and when they took out

her nodes under her breast and everything like that her arm would swell up and then you're feeling crappy of course and then you feel depressed and then you get stuck in that cycle and stuff and she would have to go every once in a while to get that lymphatic massage to to move it to the other side and that you know this is why I became a holistic counselor because there was so much stuff that happened

in my family and my past right so I research we're talking about how we're nerds but that's who I am I'll go into these rabbit holes because I want to learn how to not only help my clients but myself I don't want to end up at you know 75 80 years old and even if you are 75 or 80 with 10 orange bottles next to your bedside there's still hope you still can change your brain you

still can do something about it you are not stuck that's what I keep trying to tell people you if sometimes it feels like you're in a cage but that that cage door is open and you're able to fly if you find you know under have understanding and become your own advocate so to me like do do you dry brush I will use all sorts of lymphatic techniques um only because our body acclimates rapidly to the same

stimulus all the time so if I use the same lymphatic routine where I'm like rubbing and I do that same thing every single day my body is going to start to get used to that right and it's gonna Plateau okay so I'll I'll vary use um do variations between like manual stimulation I'll change the depth I'll change the speed um I'll use vibration I'll jump on a rebound or trampoline um do hitting techniques dry brushing it's

just all about giving what we call a novel or a new stimulus to the body okay and that also helps to really reconnect and pull you into your body as well so that's another nice effect of doing some of this body work stuff to yourself is really pulling you back into your body and having that full experience back into your body because a lot of us are like really detached from physical Sensations right and these are

like very pleasant Sensations so it's it's not about just getting back into your body but it's like really real establishing and rewiring Pleasant sensory information there too because that's what's going to start to the more you can hardwire those experiences in the body the the less you wire those like chronic pain or unpleasant right Sensations in your body and also understanding when those chronic you know to me it's like okay as women especially you know we

have to understand our cycle too and many women are so detached from that they don't know when their winter spring summer fall um week is in their month I'm in menopause so it's just like what you know I'm I'm on my second puberty that's what I call it but right it's like really getting to know you it's okay to get to know you because a lot of people that I I work with the bipac community you

know the black indigenous people of color and the the things that we go through is very different than some others that you know that might have been born in this country and stuff so it's teaching them it's okay to take care of their cells right so then they can function in a healthy way for the family or you know and and being able to say no because that's we're trained like a lot of us and it's

the culture our culture it's very individualistic it's very like oh my comparison especially the younger generation that I work with it's just like they have a I I had Cosmo or whatever to compare and I really didn't care back then but but a lot of us that are you know we're looking at social media how many likes you know sitting in front of a computer I mean I'm a online therapist for the State of Florida like

you know and I'm here so I have to do my work right so I will go outside after I'm done with you between because I have another client coming and I'll go outside sit there in the sun do some prayer breath barefooted these are the things I learned nobody teaches this in schools or or how to you know take care of your gut like gut health like microbiome what are you freaking talking about second brain like

yeah and I think well we're teaching children very young to really detach yeah from their innate desires to be in their bodies and move and express and things like that because we just want them to sit still and be rigid and like when thing about understanding what you're feeling and your emotions is what it feels like in your body and we don't even know what what our body feels like right so really developing um and one

thing to like EST reestablish getting into your body is through movement um really if you're not moving very much it's really hard to attach to What feelings and Sensations you have there but developing language around it too like descriptions and it's not just about like oh I feel anxious well what is that feeling right is it is it pressure is it tightness is it like give it give it a a size where is it you know

um like actual descriptions of what that is and where it's at in your body too yeah and like teaching I mean but the kids learn learn to detach from that super young and then we just up and and we have you know we're 30 years old and we have no idea why I feel the way I feel and it feels terrible and out of control and then I can't I don't know what it is so now

I'm anxious there's just so much that goes with that but really it's about getting people back in their bodies but safely right so and then and then teaching them like okay like where is that what is that how do you describe that and then being able to do something with that so that's where you're like going to re-empower people is get them back into their bodies safely and and then having that that control over like the

awareness of it and having the tools to then it's about making you the driver of the bus again right yeah we're not getting dragged behind the bus we're we're the driver us like our systems are going to respond the way they respond but it's about being aware and then like reintegrating that safety and self-control and things like that right and resiliency too because we also are living I mean I worked with adolescence for a long time

and I love that we're talking about mental health and sometimes though it's like I'm anxious I'm depressed I'm anx and then they get into I I'm suffering from depression I'm like no like clinical depression to be diagnosed with that has to go through a whole bunch of stuff I will validate them I'm like yeah but sometimes we have to understand not to be scared of being sad or stressed because we need a little bit of that

to understand happiness and you know so it's the balancing and disentangling of certain things because you know it's like so many it's a lot of work we both have a lot of work to do with people and especially holistically like that's the thing it's like okay is it resiliency that we have to do because they're kind of in fear mode all the time how do we get them to get back to their body I I use

a lot of like the for me I have an acupressure mat I know that sometimes I need to go lay on that thing because I need to get back to my body right and that sensation like At first my husband did it and he's like what this is weird and then after a while we're like doing breath work on it and you know whm hofing and stuff it's really learning to regulate or I do the 528

megahertz little dingy that I got on Amazon you know and that right there I'll hit it while I'm praying in the morning watching the sunrise right because sound is a great way to really um allow you to safely be in your body again about safely being in your body and I think some of it is that we almost like reject ourselves when we don't have pleasant Sensations in our body exactly like why do I feel this

way I don't like it I don't want that and we push it away and we stuff it down and we say just stop you know but if you really just kind of sat in that and said what what is that you're trying to tell me right now yes and like love that part and and nourish and support that part like what is it that you're asking for right now what is it that you're trying to tell

me right now what can I do for you right now because that's what you would do for your friend right that's what you would do for your a small child walked over to you and said like they don't feel good and they are this and that like you wouldn't say like ew stop go away right hopefully not like IDE hopefully you never know now you know that this happens but you as yourself would just you that's

not you talk to somebody else right so really having some acceptance for yourself that you're not maybe in a pleasant state but but like really self-love for that and the more you can sit in that like self-love side of those unpleasant Sensations actually the faster it is that you move through them yep really you're acknowledging them and you're nourishing them and healing them that way right so I'm teaching my clients how to not have like rejection

shame or guilt for for what it is that they're experiencing that these are your Sensations are your your compass right your built internal guidance to what it is that your body and your system is asking for and then using that to really like realize where they're at in their system and acknowledging like okay I'm not necess like it's okay to go into that stress response but not excessively right match it has to match what the situation

is calling for what the environment or the situation is calling for right and if we're realizing like okay the situation is here but my stress responses here using one of those tools to the system to self-regulate you back down to what's appropriate so we can be as clear and connected and centered in that state that we need to be in as possible right yeah but we have to learn how to be in tune with our bodies

again yes and it's a scary process right I don't know if that you know for me when I first had to go into these places like that it is I rather ignore it right it is and your adrenal glands are shot and all this stuff and you're like oh no I now I got to go into these different places and I'm glad that I went to you know I did EMDR I also went to a nutrition

I mean it was like I was going to pay either way and I rather have done the hard work to to go through it all and learn these tools and that's now the beauty is as wounded healers like the two of us we now get to teach others and and you know like we're I really feel like once we work through our stuff and it's not that we're perfect or ever going to be because we live

in a world that there is toxicity constantly if it's not other human energy it's the food sometimes or like the water quality or the air it's just like can't think so broadly that way because that will cause you to like spin out and be like give up right that's stressful too that's doing all the right things and biohacking yes and I mean you could go all day doing yes routines and and then that could become that

too and that's that's very stressful in itself like oh my gosh I ate this today I and I didn't eat clean like it's like we're beating ourselves up even on like the healthy side of it yes so right on it's just about being as kind as possible to yourself I love that and and then so as far as like creating resilience for people that's like on the tail end of my um kind of like my protocol

that I work with people so first is like I help them reintegrate safety into their system right because they don't have those internal resources then I help them to basically develop their internal Resources by continuously self-regulating with the tools that I showed with them and then we start trying to increase their capacity to stress and that's resilience comes in right It's Your Capacity to stress and um we do that by pendula or tie trating like adding

a little bit of stress I love that seeing the person respond appropriately to that taking the stresser back out right adding a little bit more stress and that can come in forms of like increasing the intensity of their workouts their exercise um starting to do some breath work that's meant to induce stress so it's all about inducing a little bit of a stressor but in a really controlled way and allowing the nervous system to flex on

and off appropriately to that now if I see that they can't Flex on and off appropriately too much stressor we take that away right so it's it's a it's it's a game that we play of like how much can they handle and stuff like that but that's where you start to reintegrate that resilience for people yeah exactly it's not yeah I love that well I could talk to you all day about all sorts of different things

so we're going to wind down the episode I would just like to ask you if there was one or two things that you feel like that resonated in our conversation or that you think the listeners should really know what would it be um I think that the number one thing that is so important is um really acknowledging where you're at um and if you feel like you've had enough suffering in your life and you don't want

to feel those that way anymore feel really stuck there are so many tools out there for you and resources out there for you and really exploring what you can um start to learn through your nervous system and reintegrating safety trust and connection is really going to be probably one of the fastest ways you can transition from that um survival to that thriving State yeah for sure um where can a listener find you um so I like

Instagram okay uh I'm on Instagram at Dr dr.

Lauren Deo DPT um I have a website it's optimiz if people are interested in learning a little bit more um like a beginner's guide to healing through your nervous system I have a workbook a digital workbook on my website if you go to optimiz dm.com back heal yourself you can download a free uh workbook so you can kind of understand the different components of the nervous system a little bit more it's got um basic techniques that

you can start applying that you don't doesn't require any sort of like device or tools or anything like that and it even has a daily log on there so you can start to track your nervous system dayto day as well wow I ABS everything will be in the show notes everybody listening that's wonderful thank you so much for being here I really appreciate you taking time to be to be with us yes thank you appreciate it

I appreciate any opportunity to share and um really hope that it helps people so yeah all right all right listener so remember trust in the Lord guard your heart and renew your mind bye and now for the disclaimer to make sure you understand that you are responsible for you the content provided on the holistic counselor podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice diagnosis or treatment

always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental Health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental condition never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast the views expressed on this podcast are my personal opinions and do not represent the views of any professional organizations with which I am Affiliated call your doctor 911 or 988 immediately if you have a medical

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