29. Healing Chronic Illness Through Nervous System Regulation with Jacqui Raadschelders

In this episode of The Histamine Well Podcast, Joanne Kennedy sits down with physiotherapist and neuro-rehabilitation specialist Jacqui Raadschelders to explore the link between nervous system dysregulation and chronic illness.

You’ll learn how the limbic system, vagus nerve, neuroplasticity, and brain retraining techniques play a vital role in recovery from conditions influenced by trauma, mold exposure, and stress. Jacqui shares her journey from traditional physiotherapy to a holistic, trauma-informed approach—highlighting the impact of emotions, beliefs, and environment on healing.

Key topics include:

• Fight, flight, and freeze responses
• The role of the limbic system in chronic illness
• Practical vagus nerve toning exercises
• Emotional regulation and belief system shifts
• Brain retraining for long-term resilience
• Tailored strategies to regulate and recalibrate the nervous system

Whether you’re a practitioner, student, or someone navigating chronic illness, this conversation offers practical tools and evidence-based insights for restoring balance and supporting your nervous system health.

Enrol in the Regulate Your Nervous System online program and receive 10% off with the code JOANNE10. This program is for anyone navigating chronic illness, burnout, stress or persistent symptoms who’s ready to understand their body in a new way. Enrol here 

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Transcript

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Hi, it's Joanne. If you've been listening to this show, you'll know how often I talk about the importance of supporting the nervous system in the healing process. From my clinical experience, I've seen again and again that nervous system dysfunction isn't just a piece of the puzzle. It's often the number one driver of chronic illness. That's why I'm so excited to connect with neuro rehabilitation. Physiotherapist Jacqueline Raadschelders. She brings deep expertise in nervous system dysfunction, and shows us how surprisingly gentle and simple exercises can have a powerful impact. In this episode, Jacqueline shares her knowledge on nervous system regulation and chronic health. And she's kindly offered listeners, a 10% discount on her signature online program- regulate your nervous system. Just use the code JOANNE10 at www.brainbodywellness.com.au. We'll also include a link to her website in the show notes. We've already been recommending Jacqueline's course to patients in clinic and the feedback has been fantastic. So stick around. You'll love this episode with Jacqueline. Welcome to the Histamine Well Podcast. Designed for practitioners and patients alike. This is your trusted source for insights on histamine intolerance, methylation, gut health, women's hormones, and much more. I'm Joanne Kennedy. Your host, naturopath, author, and educator. Passionate about breaking down complex science into clear, accessible knowledge. Whether you are a health professional or navigating your personal wellness journey, the Histamine Well Podcast bridges the gap between cutting edge research and practical understanding to empower you with the tools to thrive. Before we get started, I just wanna say thank you so much to all of you who've been tuning in. I've loved hearing from so many of my loyal listeners, and even from my patients about how much this podcast is helping you understand your health and giving you extra knowledge about your condition. It honestly means so much to know these episodes are making a difference. If you can just take a minute to leave a quick review, it helps the show so much. It gives us extra traction so more people can find this information, learn and start healing too. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Histamine well. Today I'm joined by physiotherapist and Neuro rehabilitation specialist Jacqueline Raadschelders to talk about nervous system dysregulation and how it impacts our health. In clinic, I see this all the time. How trauma and nervous system dysregulation can drive chronic health conditions and keep people stuck in that state. That's why I'm so excited to have Jacqueline here to shed light on this really important and fascinating topic. We are going to dive into what the limbic system is and why it matters. How things like mold and trauma can throw it off balance. And why recalibrating the nervous system is essential for recovery. We'll also explore brain retraining, Vagus nerve toning and the science of neuroplasticity. And we'll connect this to how emotions and beliefs shape our healing. So if you've ever wondered how the nervous system plays into chronic disease and how to break the cycle, you are going to wanna stick around for this episode. So, Jacqueline, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks so much, Joanne. It's an honor to be here. I've learned so much from your podcast. I'm really excited to be on. Oh, good. It's good to get feedback. I actually love doing it. I think education is so important for people with these issues. I just had a girl on. She's been diagnosed with MCAS, but she's got mold illness, that's her problem. And she's had it for years and it just hasn't been diagnosed. So she found me on the podcast. So yeah, I'll have to send her your way to do your course for the retraining. Yeah, that sounds good. Just add so many layers of complexity, doesn't it? Yeah. So before we sort of dive into the nitty gritty, do you wanna tell our listeners a little about yourself and how you got into this work? Yeah, sure. So I started off as a standard physiotherapist. I specialized in neuro-rehab physiotherapy. I worked as a clinical lead physio for neurology in the hospital system. And I got into more of an a holistic way of looking at health through my own health journey. I wasn't very well during my twenties and my early thirties. Although I thought I was doing the right things I was really not. I cleaned up my diet. Cleaned up my lifestyle. Did a lot of nervous system regulation work myself, and just saw the incredible difference that it made to my overall health. You know, all of a sudden I didn't need thyroid medication anymore and my gut symptoms disappeared and all of these things. And so I really decided that I wanted to take that further. I was always fascinated by the brain and the nervous system, hence being a neuro rehab physiotherapist. I started researching all things nervous system. And yeah, just couldn't believe what I found and all the rabbit holes that I went down. And changing career into a more holistic path. I studied health coaching. I studied low talks coaching. And I just realized with my patients how many of them had dysregulated nervous systems and how that was just feeding into their overall ability to heal. I found I was just doing this work with nearly everyone. So that led me to continue deep diving and learning as much as I possibly could to bring this into part of my work as a health coach and a physiotherapist. Yeah, that's great. So you actually offer online courses too now, don't you? I do, yes. Yeah. I wrote an online course for nervous system regulation that I released a couple of months back. I wanted to put it all in together into one package with lots of resources in there. It's the education piece is so important. If we understand how it all works and how the nervous system works, that's just a massive first step towards regulating the nervous system. Yeah, it is. And I love the online programs for this because people can do it self-paced and just as they need. I think it's a really good space for the online programs. So listeners, I'll put links to Jacqueline's website, including how to contact her. We do one-on-ones and do online education and programs. I'll link her website in the show notes. Thanks, that'd be great. Okay, no worries. So let's begin in. From your perspective, why is the regulation of the nervous system such a critical foundation for preventing and importantly healing chronic illness? Yeah, great question Joanne. The nervous system is really like the master controller of so many parts of the body. It's incredible. All of the different aspects that it regulates. Starting at the beginning, you know, we've got a couple of different states of the autonomic nervous system. So we've got parasympathetic, which is more known as the rest and digest state. Although it does a lot of other things, not just rest and digest. And then we've also got the sympathetic state as well, which most people will know as the fight or flight state. But it also, like the parasympathetic, it does a lot more than just fight or flight too. It does things like regulate the blood pressure and things like that. And then there's another state that most people don't talk about as much called or shut down or a functional freeze. State. So the nervous system when it works is working well. It's able to regulate all of the systems and use what it needs from those different systems to either keep us in homeostasis or to mount a response against something for our survival. And so when it's working well our digestions working well, we're able to manage inflammation well, we can heal. There's all of these functions that it needs. To do to maintain our overall health and unfortunately, when we become dysregulated. So for most people, that will be stuck initially, at least stuck in that sympathetic sort of driven state. These things that the nervous system will usually control to manage our overall health. They don't function like they normally do. And so then you get all of these changes that happen and you know, these things that occur that you talk a lot about Joanne. Like SIBO and we get mold illness and we get all of gut infections and all of these issues because the nervous system's not doing its job to regulate all of those different things and communicate all of those different things to allow us to have good health. And from what I see, it's often the missing piece of the puzzle. It's often the piece that people don't think about. They've done different protocols and different things, but it hasn't been effective. And so I would love it if we could think about the nervous system a little bit earlier in the piece for a lot of these patients. That's really true. So when we were learning about nervous system in college, you know, the, how we approach that was with adaptogen herbs like withania, rhodiola, licorice, um, potentially meditation, breath, deep breathing potentially, or B vitamins. And it just doesn't cut it. It's just not even touched in the size. So it really wasn't until I started working with Melanie who specializes in mold and learn how mold inflames a vagus nerve and disrupts the limbic system that I just started to understand from the mold world how important nervous system. How mould disrupts the nervous system and how we can see this chronic fight and flight in these patients in chronic anxiety and depression. And then when I started listening to Irene Lyon's work, who you would know and read the book, waking the Tiger by Peter Levine. Yes. So reading his work, it's like, oh, actually all my patients need to do nervous system work. So whether it's like significant trauma, childhood trauma, or health trauma. Health, trauma, acute stresses and trauma from like relationship breaks down. Work stress, like having chronic insomnia, having surgery, chemical exposure. All of these things disrupt the nervous system. So it's now very, very rare that I'm not referring a patient on for nervous system support. Oh, amazing, Joanne. That's part of what I do. Yeah, it's just so fundamental. I can just, I see it now. We weren't taught, so I didn't know and now I see it so clearly. Nervous system dysfunction drives illness. It's significantly. Absolutely. Which is why I've got you on to sort of help.'cause people, if you're listening to this podcast, you know, I've been talking about a lot. But I like, I really mean it. So when Jacqueline reached out to us, I'm like, please come on my show.'cause I want people to really understand that people don't heal if they don't do it, is what I'm trying to say. Exactly. They really don't. Yeah. Yeah. So I've kind of rattled off some of the reasons people can have nervous system dysfunction. Do you wanna sort of add to that or talk about that? Yeah, absolutely. So the things that you've mentioned already are great. So it can be just as simple as stress. Yeah, it can be as simple as how we perceive just a standard, you know, stressful work, stress and relationships and stress. Ongoing chronic stress can do it. But then there's also the other things that you mentioned to Joe around toxins. So one of the nervous systems jobs is detecting toxins. So the vagus nerve is very good at detecting toxins. And over time that can bring a lot of dysregulation. So the toxins might be mold, it could be a tickborne infection, it could be environmental chemicals, it could be heavy metals. Any of these things are really going to impact the nervous system and make it hard for it to function. And then there's other things like infections. There could be gut infections that are really driving nervous system dysfunction as well. Trauma is another one that you've mentioned too. When we experience trauma, especially in childhood, that is really setting up the nervous system to be in this fight or flight response is sympathetic dominant state. When we're young, you know, our nervous system is also sort of looking to answer the question, am I safe or not? And if we're not getting that safety from our caregivers, or there's an event that happens that tells the nervous system, we're not safe and we need to prime ourselves for survival. And so that then continues on into adult, into adulthood as well. So they're the main ones. Yeah. What would be some of the first signs and symptoms to show. Is this such a thing as that or is it just a myriad of different things depending on the person? It can be a myriad of different things depending on the person. The initial, I mean, signs that you are in a sympathetic dominant state are feeling like your thoughts are racing. Maybe you have some memory problems. Being really quick to anger. So your partner breeze the wrong way and you're going off with that. Maybe it's anxiety, maybe it's signs of depression. So those sorts of things being sort of erasing heart or shallow breathing all of those sorts of things. And then I guess in terms of chronic illness you've got all of the digestive complaints. Yeah. So I think we're gonna go first. Digestive complaints and skin. Skin. Yeah, absolutely. So there's lots of physical symptoms as well that can be a sign. Yeah, I mean it can be tricky'cause all of those things can be signs of other things as well, but often it is nervous system. So Jacqueline, most people have heard about fight and flight, but there's also fight flight and freeze. Can you tell our listeners about the freeze state? Yeah. So the freeze or the shutdown state is what someone will describe as feeling like they just can't get off the couch. And it's an extreme fatigue sort of state, but it's more than that. It often goes with a hopelessness or despair sort of thought pattern, like, nothing can improve or get better. And this is an appropriate response in some situations if you've lost a loved one or something really extreme like that. Yeah, that's a completely appropriate response. But what I do see in people with dysregulated nervous systems is they'll sit in a sympathetic dominant state for a long period of time, and then the body just can't continue to do that for much longer. And so it will crash into this shutdown state. And there's different theories around how this occurs. The polyvagal theory has one sort of line of thought. And then if you talk to people more along the neuroanatomy field, they'll have a slightly different thought. But the similarity between those two skills are thought is that the vagus nerve really increases its activity. So it's a hyper vagal state. It's like if I'm driving down the highway in a car and I just pull the handbrake on, it's kind of that, that sort of shut down period of the vagus nerve just really saying no, this is enough. It's moved to the next phase of survival. So sympathetic is no longer enough. I need to shut down the system. So it can be quite a scary sort of state to be in. Yeah. It would overwhelm also be a classic sign of that? It can be part of it, yeah. But you can get overwhelmed in a sympathetic state as well. It's more just like sitting on the couch, can't get up. Lack of motivation. What I'm not really clear about is how the limbic system. Like plays into all of this. Like what exactly is it? How does it influence our stress response? What causes issues with it? How does it impact our overall health? What are the signs and symptoms that limbic system is not functioning optimally? Yeah, the limbic system's really interesting in how it plays into the stress response. So the limbic system consists of the amygdala, the hippocampus, hypothalamus, depending on which textbook you read. Sometimes there's some other things in there as well. Maybe the thalamus but let's start with the amygdala. So the amygdala is like the alarm system of the body. I think is the easiest way to explain it. And so the amygdala is always looking to answer the question of, am I safe? Or am I not safe? And so it does this through what we call interoception, which is messages that are coming from the body up to the brain. Partly via the vagus nerve, but through other systems as well. And it also gets this information through what we call external excption. So our external senses. So smell, science, touch, taste, sound. And then there's also the vestibular system in the inner ear, which is involved in balance and also proprioception. Our joints ability to feel where it is in space. So it combines all of this information to try and answer that question of am I safe? And then it also will have connections into the hippocampus, which is part of the memory. Part of our brain. And so it will say to the hippocampus, or have we seen this in the past? Do we have any memory of this? Is this situation okay or not? So it combines those things to answer the question. And then in a well-functioning limbic system, there's also some connections from the insula through to the prefrontal cortex and the frontal cortex to kind of sense check, I guess. So it gets a bit of a sense of are we right here or are we not right here? So it's like when you know the balloon pops and you jump and then you think, oh, hang on. No, that was just a balloon. It's okay. So it's that kind of sense checking. So that's how it should work. And then if the answer is we're not safe, it will send signals through the Lucas Urus and a few other different parts to set off a sympathetic response. So what happens over time, if we have chronic ongoing stress or we have a toxin, say, let's take mold for example, is that the system becomes oversensitive. And so initially the body would've detected some mold. And then it would've set off an inflammatory immune response to try and deal with the mold. The next time when you come up to this mold exposure again. The amygdala goes, oh, hang on, I've seen this before. I know what this is. I can mount a response. And so it will mount a bigger and faster response than it did last time because it thinks it's trying to protect you. It's really protecting the body. And so over time you get this real mismatch between the stimulus that's coming in and the response that it's sending out. So it's really overreacting. And it keeps the body in this sympathetic fight or flight state for longer periods of time. And I'll even have, you know, it can get to the point where a lot of my patients will say, I think about walking into a mouldy building and I get my symptoms. It can get to that point where the brain is really driving symptoms, sort of down that extreme end. Yeah. Fight and flight symptoms. Sort of like racing heart diluted pupils, like blood pressure changes, sweating. Can it cause like more long-term anxiety, depression? It can do both. So you'll get all of the sympathetic symptoms happening. But then, yeah, you can get longer term anxiety. So the system just thinks that everything is a threat. Doesn't matter what it is. Everything's a threat. And so you just always sitting in that heightened kind of state, waiting for something to happen. Okay. Can also cause chronic dizziness? It can. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Interesting. Absolutely. And it's interesting the way the vestibular system kind of feeds into all of that as well. So you can get chronic dizziness from the vestibular system too. So it all works together. Yeah. Okay. So this is these dizziness conditions that don't have another diagnosis. Like it's PPPD. PPPD. Oh no, that's the crystals moving. There's another one. Persistent dizziness. Oh, Persistent Postural-Perceptual Dizziness. Yes. Yeah. And Mal de Débarquement Syndrome. Yes. You heard of that? Yeah. So is that limbic system problem? Ooh, that's a good question actually. I haven't looked into the PPPD with the limbic system involvement. That would be interesting to research though. Yeah. Yeah. But it's definitely because I've got Mal de Débarquement Syndrome. Very mildly. So I know all about this, but I was wondering, when you said the vestibular system, I'm like, Ooh, how does that play into it? Because essentially there's nothing wrong with the hard drive. It's just the software needs updating essentially. Yeah, that it's interesting and that sort of probably leads into the functional neurological disorder side as well. But is there an underlying infection or something that we haven't diagnosed that's gonna feed you into that as well, would be another question I would ask? Yeah. Okay. No. From what I understand, it's like these conditions don't have any underlying pathology, so it would be then PPPV would be an infection or it'd be diagnosed as something else. But From what I understand, it's neuroplasticity essentially is like brain retraining to help with those conditions. So neuroplasticity. Let's have a chat about neuroplasticity. This is what Joe Dispenza does, isn't it? Yeah. It is part of what Joe Dispenza does. Absolutely. Yeah. So talk to us about what neuroplasticity is. Yeah, so neuroplasticity is the ability to change and rewire the brain. So we used to think many years ago that it didn't really change and rewire past a certain age, but we know now that's not true. And I talk about this a lot in the course actually, because we really need to have the principles of neuroplasticity underpinning everything we do in terms of nervous system regulation. So you're essentially trying to create new pathways within the brain. So that different neurons talk to each other. It's a little bit like when you first learn to drive a car, for example. It takes a lot of effort. You've really gotta think about it and think about every step. Nothing's automatic. It takes a lot of effort to start to learn. And then as you get better and you've done it on repeated at multiple times, it becomes completely automatic and you can then drive the car and not remember getting from A to B. So that's because neuroplasticity has occurred in the brain and you've wired kind of pathways into that. Yeah. So in terms of retraining the brain for nervous system regulation or for anything really we need, there's certain things that need to be met, which is it needs to be important for someone to start with. So you won't prioritize something that's not important to you. For example, you need to be repeating it enough times. It needs to be repeated at a certain intensity. And with a certain level of specificity as well, so if I wanted to strengthen my biceps at the gym, I wouldn't go do calf raises, for example. You know, it is gotta a match. So you've gotta have all of these things coming together to create the changes in the brain that you need to get the nervous system back on track. And what would be some of the things someone would have to do to help support the neuroplasticity of the brain. Like I believe meditation's one of them. Yeah, absolutely. Meditation's one of them. Exercise is another one. If you can. I mean, someone who's very unwell may not be able to exercise. But exercise has been shown to release BDNF brain derived neurotrophic factor in the brain, which will help with neuroplasticity. And really it's about practicing what you want to get better at and those things I was talking about before, making sure you're not taking, bringing in new toxins that are gonna damage the brain and the rewiring. Yeah, practicing what we're trying to achieve with the nervous system, with specific exercises. Yeah. Interesting. So basically it's like exercise for the brain. Like Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Like it's funny to think about like that we know that we can just change our body. We don't think we can change our brain so much, but we actually can with the right environment. Yeah. Yeah. We can with the right inputs. Before we go any further, I want to speak directly to the practitioners and students listening. If you're intrigued by histamine and methylation and eager to expand your knowledge in this fascinating area, we offer the Histamine and Methylation online group coaching course. The only program of its kind. It covers everything you need to know about histamine and methylation, providing both the theory. And guidance you need to treat these issues effectively in clinical practice. We cover SIBO, hormonal imbalances, oxalates, MTHFR. The four pathways of methylation including the folate pathway, methionine pathway, tetra hydrobiopterin pathway, and the all important transsulfuration pathway and much more. The program is delivered by detailed online webinars and handouts for you to keep. And for eight weeks you'll meet with me for live coaching calls in a private community space with other practitioners from all over the world dealing with histamine and methylation issues in their patients every day. Together we learn so much. To learn more and apply, visit joannekennedynaturopathy.com. So is this going back to the limbic system?'Cause I know that this is mold, people need a lot of help with this. What are actually some of the things that people can do to help the limbic system? Yeah, so it is, we're talking about brain retraining. And essentially the underpinning thing is that we need the body to think that it's still believe that it's safe. So yes, we've got mold, illness or whatever it might be, but my life is not in danger at the moment with mold illness, and that's the message that the brain needs to get. I often won't start with that brain retraining initially with someone I find is better to do it down the track a little bit. So get some vagus nerve toning and things going initially. But yeah. At a basic level, I start with just trying to bring a sense of safety back to the limbic system. So that fire alarm starts to tone down a little bit, and it doesn't go off when the toast gets burnt anymore. And now what does that look like? How do you do that? There's an exercise where you are resetting, so trying to redirect some of the thoughts. That's where I would normally start people off with. So when they're noticing that they're having those ruminating thoughts or the fears and things are coming up. Just really try and break that habit. So sometimes I'll get people to wear like a rubber band on their wrist and they might kind of just really gently snap the rubber band. Not to hurt, just as a reset that they're doing. The ruminating thoughts and their worries and the fears are coming up. And then redirecting to something like exterior reception. So an exterior receptive practice. So taking in some external senses. So when we are living in the present moment, it's really hard to be worrying about the past or the future or what's going on in the limbic system. And then it might after that, go into more redirecting some of the thoughts that we were having previously that weren't so helpful. So thinking about how a loved one or a friend might be talking to you in that moment as opposed to what you're telling yourself about what's going on, for example. So that's a way that I will usually start it. Then going into usually some vagus nerve toning. So if we can get some messages going from the vagus nerve up to the brain saying that we're safe and we're okay here, then that will start to tone down the limbic system as well. So getting those messages of safety. And then I'll usually come back around to some of the brain retraining, which might look like some visualization exercises. Some more of that pattern interrupt and redirecting thoughts. It'll be looking more deeply at belief systems and emotions and that sort of thing. And tying all of that in again. I just find sometimes starting with all of that is too much for a lot of people. Yeah. I've done Irene Lyon's course myself and listened to a lot of her stuff. Jacqueline, sorry, I have to bring it in'cause that's the only way I know about it. She says things like meditation and stuff is like an advanced practice. And I think her first lesson was I had to orientate myself in my present environment. I was like, oh. So I'm sitting down and I'm in at my desk. And I, it's like, oh, there's my cup, there's my glasses. Oh, like, what's this random thing? Like, I noticed there's like random stuff all over my desk that I didn't even like know was there. The classic thing was, I remember I've been in Portugal. It was really hot. I go back to Sydney. It was freezing cold, like so cold in Sydney. We've had such a cold winter. I was buying electric blankets, rugs. I bought a heater for my room. I actually put the heater up against the fan. I didn't know that there was a fan there. A big fan for about two months. I really was not present. Yeah. Like I really didn't see the fan. I probably cleaned it. But I was so like not in my body. And when I'd started, I was like, I sat there, I was like, oh, like there's a fan there. Like I don't need that. Why is that there? And I looked around my environment and I saw things that I didn't see. I was just not present in my body. Absolutely. And that was the first exercise she did. I was like, oh, like you are not actually calm. You are not present. And she spoke about how you know, you sit there and he's like, am I hot? Am I cold? Am I thirsty? Do I need to go to the toilet? And I realized that'cause I'm quite brain heavy, I will work and push my brain through and ignore my body for hours. Yep. Absolute. And how this has been really not a good thing. No. So it's been shown in multiple studies in our ability to sense those sensors, so interception, feel what's going on in the body. Even the basic things like needed to go the toilet that is really reduced in people with dysregulated nervous systems. We just, yeah. Ignore. And then as you increase interception, we tend, our nervous systems can become more regulated. But yeah, you're absolutely right. We just don't notice these things in our surroundings. And I think that's one of the not talked about benefits of nervous system regulation is just how much more present you become when you regulate your nervous system. You notice the beautiful things and that, and, or is another part of nervous system regulation as well, and how much, or kind of brings us back into balance. Oh, I love, I love that. Yeah. Let's talk about shifting limiting beliefs and like awe and presence and all of that stuff. From like, and throw some science into all that. It's great. A cut toll, isn't it? We'll throw some science into it as well. Yeah. Very tall. Yep. I mean our belief systems are just so powerful. So many of my patients come to me and their underlying belief system is I can't be well. I can't heal and I won't heal. And that is just so incredibly powerful overall. And so I do spend a bit of time trying to get to the bottom of those belief systems. Where did those belief systems start? Why did they start? And how can we try and undo this? And I do find other therapies, things like kinesiology and clinical hypnotherapy. And some of those things can be really useful as well in terms of shifting those limiting beliefs. It does sound a bit woowoo. I think the most scientific sort of way that people would understand when I'm speaking to clients about this is if you think of like a professional athlete, for example. It's very well shown in science that if they visualize winning the end and they believe that they can win whatever it is they're trying to win and they must much more likely to get there. And it's the same for us. If we believe that we can get better and we believe our body can heal, our brain will start to believe that as well. And there's quite a bit of science behind that too. So I was just gonna talk a little bit about emotions as well and how our brains and emotions we're really wired towards negativity, which is incredible. Probably 80% of our thoughts are negative. And then 70% of those are the same as the day before. And we're wired this way for survival. But unfortunately for our nervous system, it's not so great. And if we can start to rewire the brain and rewire some of these. Thought patterns, then we're much more likely to regulate and heal the nervous system. And it also makes, it changes our whole perception on the world really as well. If we can rewire some of these negative belief systems. That's fascinating. And then, you know, emotions, looking at emotions as well. So when we get stuck in a fight or flight state or a sympathetic dominant state, our emotions can really run wild, unfortunately. And so if we can try and really analyze those emotions, where they're coming from, what's going on in the body and breaking it down into interception. So what are we actually feeling in the body? So what are the sensations that are related to these particular emotions? And then how can we potentially shift or move them if they're unhelpful? It's not about suppressing them. We don't ever wanna suppress an emotion. But we want to allow it to kind of move through the body as opposed to being stuck in a particular place. Yeah, fascinating. I was listening to a podcast. I listened to so many podcasts the other day. Someone was talking about the negative thought patterns and how humans are so wired to be entertained by movies and cinema, films that are really around negativity and violence and like murder and you know, abductions and like, you know, things that are more negative based and like happy. And we kind of like think those happy movies are a bit cheesy. And that people actually, love and get very entertained by negative emotions. Which I found that really fascinating. Yeah. We're kind of a bit wired for it. Yeah, I haven't seen that, but that's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember. I listened to so many podcasts. Maybe it was a book. It's just interesting'cause you know, I think I'm more of a positive person, but I can understand how you could just get trapped in that loop of negativity and we can wallow in it and get pleasure from it a little bit. Yeah. That's another point. True. And probably sympathy. Yes. Yep, that's true. One of those studies about when someone's ill in front of their partners, they react a lot more than when their partners aren't there. Have you seen, oh, yeah. Yeah. I could imagine there's a study. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what, there's something that comes up so much that I can now see in my clinical practice, and I didn't get this so much when I was first started out as a naturopath, and I look back at these patients. Now that I had for many years, understanding that they actually had chronic health anxiety. That's a trauma response, surely. Yeah, absolutely. It could be a trauma response. I think there's a lot of fear involved in that, isn't there? In terms of Yeah, just thinking that something negative is gonna happen with their health. There's a lot of fear involved. So that could be the amygdala has rewired itself as a result of trauma from the past, or maybe they've experienced some sort of health trauma through a relative or a friend. But yeah,, definitely something that could be helped with regulation. Yeah. I've seen it a lot with, I think it's like people that have an anxious predisposition and trauma. They end up being more prone to getting health anxiety. But then I have seen people with misdiagnosis surgeries that were not right for them, et cetera, and real reasons to have chronic health anxiety. So the trauma work can really help with that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of these people, trauma is created because they don't feel seen and they don't feel heard because they've been to so many different people. And that creates an element of trauma in itself is, is what I've seen. That's a huge, portion of my patient base. Especially the mold. Yep. Mine as well. Patients, yeah. Where they're told it's all in the head. They need to take antidepressants and that they're crazy that it doesn't exist. But it's a really blood, it's blood work's fine. There's nothing wrong. Yeah. Well that's the thing. That's that blood work fine is fine. Yeah. Yeah. They're not looking for the right things. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Interesting. So Jacqui, once someone has really recovered from their illness, their symptoms and their nervous system is regulated and they're good. What are some of the things people can do to sort of prevent a relapse? So if you can continue to maintain a nervous system that's somewhat regulated, you're much, much less likely to relapse into these conditions for the reason that we've spoken about already. So the digestive system will be working better, the inflammatory system, the immune system, all of these things will be working much better. So you're much less likely to relapse from that point of view. And then if you do relapse, it's not going to take as much to come back out of that again. Your detox pathway will all be open. All of those things will be working. if the nervous system is regulated, any treatment that you might need, which might be herbal or whatever it might be, are going to be effective and they're gonna be effective much quicker than if you've got a dysregulated nervous system. It might not be need, you may not need to continue the nervous system work as intensely, but just checking in and still doing some regular practices might be a bit of meditation, it might be some breathing exercises or whatever you found to be most effective. Just continuing those will definitely help in the long term in terms of managing chronic conditions. It's a bit of an all around lifestyle change, isn't it really? Yeah, absolutely. I'm probably a bit biased, but I think once you see the benefit of how everything changes with nervous system regulation, it's a good motivator to keep going. I'm definitely a big fan. So interesting. When I started learning about like the people I could refer my patients to for nervous system retraining, I really couldn't talk, tell them exactly why it was so important. Other than just sort of a basic understanding, which is, you know, why sort of interested in chatting to people like yourself. And then lo and behold, I just think, I'm not sure why this happened, but I ended up getting mal de debarquement syndrome, which is part of this sort of neuroplasticity disorder. So now I have to understand it on a deep level myself. When I am in my body grounded. Get out walking in the morning, less screen time. Don't scroll on my phone. Eat well, sleep well. Orientate myself in my present environment. Just become a lot more present, a lot more grounded. I barely notice my dizziness. When I get up in the morning rush around, drink too much coffee, work 12 hours on my computer screen without much of a break. This is when my dizziness ramps up. And so I know now. I'm like there are just these symptoms. It's just like, it just kicks in. My nervous system is like, it does not like it. It wants to rest and recalibrate. So I can attest to it really, really being such a powerful way of just the simple calming down and shown me that yes, the nervous system can cause and trigger and keep these symptoms in a chronic state. It's your nervous systems telling you that there's something wrong and that you need to fix it. Even though for me, there's nothing structurally wrong. I've had MRIs and hearing tests, eye tests and everything, right? It's just my dizziness came from like bit of stress and it just hasn't recalibrated. And I can feel it when I do the right things. It's very calm. But when I don't, it really, really ramps up. And I see it in my patients with their gut problems. With their skin issues. You know, the thing with SIBO. SIBO is the double whamming, Jacqui, because it's caused from mold and it's caused from nervous system dysfunction. And I think this is why it's so common. Because mold is so common, people don't understand it. I'm diagnosing mold every day. Every day I have a full calendar of patients. There'll be one or two that are mold. Globally, right? And they've all got sibo and then we have the nervous system dysfunction. Sibo. So when it comes to the gut, it is a big, big nervous system issue. SIBO for sure. Hundred percent. If you look at what the vagus nerve does and the function of the vagus nerve, you can see exactly why you get all these gut issues when the nervous system is dysregulated. And then, you know, if you think about the vagus nerve and its ability to detect toxins and how it reacts to toxins, it's just such a double whammy of things that put the gut out. Yeah. Yeah. What are some vagus nerve toning exercises people can do? They're a bit funny, aren't they? Singing.. Yeah. Oh, there's heaps of them. Singing is one of them. I don't probably sing a lot, but you can. It's definitely a good one for calming. There's so, so, so many of them. One that I really like is called Double Inhale exhale. So you take a deep breath in, you kind of sniff in a bit of air at the top, and you sit it out. That's a really simple one, really quick one. Another one called Voo Breath. So you take a breath in and you make a voo, like a long voo sound like a ship coming into port. So there's lots of breathing type exercises, but there's also more movement based exercises. So it might be twisting or you can do shaking or, you know, there's heaps. If you just hop online and, and look at parasympathetic ways to stimulate the vagus nerve. So I'm not talking about wim Hof style breath work at this point in time. You know, you need to start with the parasympathetic ones. But there's heaps and heaps there. And then the other thing I'll just mentioned with the toning as you. I think that you need to match the state that your nervous system is in currently with the exercise that you are doing. So if you are in a really heightened state of fight or flight, for example. And I said to you, okay, Jo, now I just want you to do some calming belly breathing exercises. That's like me telling my 5-year-old in the middle of a tantrum that he needs to calm down. You know, it's not really gonna work. So we've gotta match the state. So if you are in that heightened kind of fight or flight. Day, you need to discharge some energy first. So you've got cortisol, you've got adrenaline, you've got noradrenaline, all these things, glucose, all going around the body because the body is primed to either fight or to flee. So you need to do some movement based or something that's gonna discharge some of the energy first before you came back to doing something like belly breathing or the breath, or any myriad of breathing exercises that might be out there. Yeah. One thing I do know. I've had patients whereby they've done reputable online courses. Like these are great courses. They are not able to finish the first lesson because their nervous system is so dysregulated. So this is a warning to people. Listeners, you need to do a course or train with someone like Jacqui who knows what they're doing, because I've had patients whereby they've done a course or done it in the wrong way or too much too soon, or with a practitioner that's not right for them. Well, Jacqui, what does it do? It causes them to get worse. What does it do? Do they go into a freeze state or what happens? Like it can be significant. It can be really significant. And I get this a lot too with some other courses that people do. People either can't start or they just can't. You know, they'll do one or two lessons and they can't continue. It does it heightens whatever state they are in, I find. The way I approach nervous system regulation is different for every person that comes in to see me. And so there is a, you need to really take into account. You know, how the person presents. Which does make it a little bit tricky with the online programs. The way I've done it is I just really teach people how to build their own program. So give a variety of exercises and then a lot of instruction on how to build a program that's right for them as opposed to everybody do this, everyone start here and everyone move here. And it's not like that. The other thing I would say, just with breathing exercises, just as an example. I mean, I find breathing, which is often the start of those programs, is very triggering for some people, particularly people with a background in trauma and from what I've read, I think that is because often when the traumatic event has occurred previously, we've adopted a particular style of breathing pattern. So a shallow, sharp sort of breathing pattern, for example, as a method of survival. And so then if you start with breathing and trying to retrain that, the amygdala goes, hang on, this is, we're threatening. I've done this for survival. You're threatening my survival. And that can really be triggering for people as well. So often I won't start with breathing exercises, I'll start with something else. But yeah, it just depends on the person and their history. That's'cause people would just presume that would be great and really calming for them. That's, I think that's a real telltale sign for listeners if you are worse from doing breathing exercises. There is significant nervous system dysfunction. Yeah, absolutely. So we still need to work towards being able to do the breathing, but we don't start there. You don't start there. So with your one-on-ones, do you do them via Zoom as well? Online? Yeah, I do. So I'm Sunshine Coast based, so I see people in person on the Sunshine Coast, but then I also do via Zoom as well. So it can work both ways. Sometimes I will do some hands-on work on the vagus nerve, kind of through the neck and things. So that can't be done online, but there is a lot that can be done online. Yeah. So I think if people know that they're in a bit of a significant fight, flight, freeze state. Having a one-on-one is a really good idea. And then they can refer to the online courses. Having the online course is great'cause you can just always keep going back to refer to it. Yeah, absolutely. I think a combination is the best approach, really. I mean, it's a lot more cost effective to listen to all of the information through the program, but then we develop a one-on-one approach as well that's tailored to the person individually. Yeah. So listeners, I really want you to understand that if you've got a chronic health issue, there's a nervous system dysregulation. Whether it caused the chronic health issue or it's caused from the chronic health issue, like the circle goes round and round and round. It's like you can't supplement yourself out of that. And I think that's what I really, really understand is that when it's significant, it's like you can do as much magnesium you like or you can do as much, you know, adrenal herbs and calming herbs as you like, as much yoga, meditation as you like, but it doesn't shift. It needs to be done in the ways that Jacqui does.. Wonderful. Cool, Jacqui. Well thank you so much. Can you let our listeners know where can find you? Yeah, absolutely. So my website is www.brainbodywellness.com au. So jump on there. I've got a few freebies as well you can download. I'm also on Instagram same name brain_ Body_ Wellness. Yeah. So feel free to reach out via either of those methods. Great. Thanks so much for joining us today, Jacqui. Your absolute world of knowledge. I'll definitely be sending patients your way. Sounds great. Thanks so much for having me on the show, Joe. Yeah, you're welcome. So thank you for joining me. I hope you found this episode beneficial. Be sure to subscribe to the histamine well so you don't miss an episode. Leave a review and you can also share this episode with someone who could benefit if you have any questions you'd like answered. Or have a topic you'd like me to discuss, please go to my website, joanne kennedy naturopathy.com, where you can provide us with that information. Until next time, take care and be well.