The Crackin' Backs Podcast

Finding calm in the chaos- Polyvagal coach, Michael Allison

• Dr. Terry Weyman and Dr. Spencer Baron

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Ever feel your body slam on the brakes at the worst moment—or light up just from someone’s tone of voice? That’s your nervous system running the show. In this episode of the Crackin’ Backs Podcast, polyvagal performance coach Michael Allison (Polyvagal Clinic / The Play Zone) shows us how to find clarity in chaos and silence within the noise—teaching practical tools to shift from stress to calm, from pressure to play right when it counts.

Michael breaks down Polyvagal Theory for non-experts—what it is, why it matters for peak performance, and the top myths he wants coaches and clinicians to retire (looking at you, oversimplified “fight-or-flight” narratives). Then we dive into his frameworks: The Play Zone and Autonomic Agility™—how to read your physiological state, respect its impact on performance, and shift under pressure. You’ll get a crisp 90-second routine Michael uses with athletes and performers (such as high end tennis professionals and golfers) and learn exactly what a coach should observe and what the athlete should feel when it’s working.

Why listen? Michael’s methodology is endorsed by Dr. Stephen W. Porges, developer of Polyvagal Theory, and he trains coaches globally through the Polyvagal Institute—working across MLB, NBA, ATP/WTA, FIFA, NCAA, and more. If you want nervous-system regulation, vagus-nerve-informed performance, and state shifts on demand, this episode is your playbook.

Learn more about Michael Allison

We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.

Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Hey y'all, welcome back to the show. Ever feel like your body is like hits the brakes at the worst moments, or maybe just light up at someone's tone of voice? That's your nervous system running the show. You know today, Michael Allison from the poly bagel clinic is here to teach us just how to shift from stress to calm or from pressure to play right now. So Michael, welcome to the show, man,

Michael Allison:

thanks for having me. I love that intro. It got me excited.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

I guess that was my bagel simulation for the day, right. There you go. Hey, Mike, let me ask you. You know you you seem to help listeners feel. You know their end viewers of this show too, as well their nervous system. You know they can take charge of it right now and in 30 seconds, because you got us from that, that that amped to available. So they feel that polyvagal shift before we even explain what this is all about.

Michael Allison:

Basically, real, real, succinctly, how we are feeling or not feeling right. Some of us are numb. Really biases how we experience the world and how the world experiences us moment to moment to moment, and that's happening whether we like it or not, whether we recognize it or not, or whether we come in alignment to what's going on inside our bodies or not. And so what we're hopefully going to talk about is how to recognize what's going on, how to respect what's going on, and find a way of relating to your internal experience that helps you optimize your own lived experience, whatever that is,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

I've been hearing a lot about vagal stimulation from well, whether it's social media or in mainstream media, just how you can control that, and there's certain ways to do it. But can you explain to even the lay people in our audience what this polyvagal theory is all about, and how and what that is in the system?

Michael Allison:

So we have these reflexive reactions in our body, in our nervous system, based on what our nervous system parts of our brain, but not necessarily conscious parts of our brain, more subconscious parts of our brain, what signals around us and really relationally and already internally, we're interpreting. We're always we're always surveilling, whether we're deliberately paying attention to the sound or the movement or the light or how our digestion is working, we're always surveilling, and that surveillance is then triggering these reflexive changes, changes in heart rate, changes in your World, muscle tension, changes in posture, changes in our movements and how you started off, changes in our voice, changes in our facial expressions, right? And so that's always happening, and those changes we call physiological states, that's what I call them. They're different physiological states, and we have a wide range of physiological states that we evolved to move through for and each of them has different advantages and certain limitations. And where I'm coming at from all of this is this world that we live in, this culture which is highly competitive, very comparative. There's constant evaluation. There's this relentless having to acquire whether it's money, whether it's power, whether it's status, whether it's education. And that, in and of itself, is really in direct odds to what our biology is seeking, which is just this felt sense of safety, felt sense of connection and really enoughness for who we are right now, right here, right? That's not to say that being able to mobilize and get intense and fight isn't important, but there's an even higher level available to us, and that's that's play, that's connection. That's trust, right? So to me, that's what this is about. When we when we see bodies as as physical therapists or chiropractors or whatever, walking through life, when we see bodies that are tightly wrapped, when we see muscle tension in the jaw or around the eyes or we hear in someone's voice. We all know how someone's feeling or not feeling, but when we see that, we have to recognize that that's not necessarily intentional. It's not a reflection of their character or their values. It's really a reflection of for whatever reason, they are right now in a state of threat. You. In a pattern of protection. And what I'm seeing in this world, especially with high achievers and successful people, the way we define success high performers is we're just seeing these bodies that are locked chronically in this highly mobilized fight. Grab, Go, get it. Get aggressive. Take what's yours, and I'm over it. I want to do my part right, like in bringing a different lens to this. So basically, what aligns with

Dr. Terry Weyman:

much, Michael, basically what you're talking about is the resting bitch face.

Michael Allison:

I you know, as a father of two daughters, I can't say that, but I can agree with you, yes, but I will not say that. Well,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

my wife bought me a mug that says I'm happier than my face appears.

Michael Allison:

So, yes, yes. So, so there it is. So, so her intention is not to move through the world with that, right? But that is a reflection of maybe, for many, many good reasons, her heart rate's a little elevated, her respiratory sinus arrhythmia is a little decreased. There's more muscle tension, and that's the reflection of all of that. No,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

that'd be me. I'm the one with the resting bitch face, not her. She just gave me the mug that's uh, you know, before, before I go on it, just maybe so going back, sorry, Spence, but going back, it seems to me that we have not evolved neurologically, or since the quote, caveman days. What you're describing is that what some people call fight and flight, or, you know, we're always, you just made a comment that we're always aware, you know, back in the day, we're always looking over our shoulders for a saber toothed tiger to attack us, or whatever you want to talk about. And we're always were very rarely relaxed, because we didn't know where that next threat was coming from. Yet, we've evolved 1000s of years since then, but it what you're saying is we really haven't evolved. We just changed our clothes, but inside, we're very similar.

Michael Allison:

We're exactly the same. We're neuro neurophysiologically, we're exactly the same. And what, what we at least had back then, which we don't have now, is there were periods of time where we were all together in a small group and we felt safe. Maybe we were in a cave. Maybe we were in a just an area that was somewhat protected, or maybe there was one person who was staying up and being hyper vigilant while the rest of us slept together and in a safe cocoon of some kind. So that part's missing for a lot of us is we don't actually have times or spaces or relationships that actually feed a real, true sense of safety in the body, right? Well, what is a sense of safety? Well, a sense of safety just means physiologically, the body is coming back into those rhythmic, biological, homeostatic rhythms that support our health and well being, and when we're in that physiological state, we have the opportunity to feel safe, to feel connected. And so I would say we're much we're lacking. As technologically advanced as we've become, we're actually steering ourselves further and further away from the core of what we truly need, which is safe and trusting relationships. The problem is and and safe environments where we're not on guard. The problem is we, a lot of us, and for very good reason, we no longer trust that it's safe to trust others, right? And we're getting constantly bombarded with messages for why we shouldn't trust others, which is a reflection of the collective state of being in a pattern of protection. And it just keeps feeding back in to it. So you know, my role, at least, I see my small role, is do my part in trying to bring a different perspective and an understanding to what we're really meant to be, which is safe and trusting and in polyvagal terms, co regulating. We're meant to share our voices and our faces and our body language and our movements in ways that down regulate other others, defenses and let them give up their hyper vigilance and actually trust

Dr. Spencer Baron:

So Mike, let me, let me build the ground floor here. You're considered a performance coach. Is that what you I mean that originally, that's how it all evolved, and then you the next tier was honing in on a neurological perspective that you can manipulate to create a more stress free or more performance based you. Thought pattern or approach to things. Am I right so far? Is that?

Michael Allison:

Yeah, I'll fudge it. I'll fudge it a little bit, but yeah, well, yeah. So performing, so I do, I do a lot of work with professional athletes, also business leaders in all of the organizations, but we'll just, we'll talk professional athletics, because it's even if you're not a sports fan, most of us have watched some type of professional athletics, and we all know what choking is. We all know when someone's really, really tight, like the US Open is going on right now. It's a perfect, a perfect example of how the body will naturally respond to the pressure to perform. You're in a you're in a large stadium. There's in the US Open, it says chaotic and noisy of an environment as these tennis players play in. There's people drinking and making noise. They're not actually there for the tennis. It's very disruptive. Well, those are cues of uncertainty to the nervous system. Nervous System, again, you can focus all you want, but it's still picking up on all of that movement, uncertainty, everything. It's also picking up on the evaluation, right? You're there, you're it's normal to want to perform, so that, if we go back in time, it's our survival was based on belonging, on based on providing value to the group. So it's absolutely normal and reflexive to feel pressure like I want to perform, I want to, I want to belong, I want to, I want to prove that I'm actually worthy of being here. So all of this is unfolding, and then you have the opponent on the other side. We'll think of in life, there's a lot of competitors, right? There's we're all kind of going for the same thing, and we feel this competitive deal, right? And so you put this player out there, you put this performer on stage, you put this business executive in front of his team or her team, and it's natural to have a bodily reaction. It's natural to all of a sudden feel your heart rate going off the charts, or your breathing getting really, really shallow and tight, much more muscle tension. Maybe you're starting to sweat, right? Maybe the way you're walking or talking is so different than normal. Maybe your mechanics are like, What is going on? That's all normal, okay? And it isn't about making that go away. It isn't about what we tend to do. Just, just tell yourself, tell yourself, come on, you can do this. Do more. And that's kind of the old paradigm is, let's just focus harder and get that body to perform right. Do it. And I'm saying no, you actually have to first meet yourself where you are. You have to recognize it as a normal, natural bodily reaction. And you have to come alongside it in a different way, and you have to start speaking directly to the nervous system, and you brought up the vagus nerve. Well, the vagus nerve is just part of this system, and there's a lot of talk about hacking the nerve. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about harnessing the benefits of it, recognizing the signals that actually come into the brainstem, and start then signaling the efferent vagus to start changing heart rate and chart changing breathing patterns and to start regulating the internal environment. But it's about finding the signals. So it's about finding what your body in that space, in that moment. Well, welcome as reassuring as a queue of you're okay. And that might be looking at like there's a player right now. He actually just lost yesterday, but he finds a fan in every match, and he's number Well, he's top he's number eight in the world. He finds a fan in every match who he locks into because he recognizes the power of the cues coming from a supportive fan. That's that's very basic and primitive. We were designed to communicate our alliance together. And he finds a fan. He has that with his coaching team as well, but he also finds a fan, and he feeds off of that. So you find what works for your nervous system that reassures it. For some, it's breath. For some, it's the feel right. For some, it's paying attention to what sounds of reassurance there are available. Some of it's changing your eyes, the tension around your eyes, relaxing your jaw, or you're feeling like you're slipping into there's another defensive component, which we didn't mention. And there's fight or flight, but there's also withdrawal, conservation of resources, shutting down, collapse, complete overwhelm. And when you feel yourself moving into that, sometimes it's helpful to fight, sometimes it's helpful to actually get a little bit going, if you can. So there's not just one defensive mechanism, do you

Dr. Spencer Baron:

so obviously, I imagine everybody's different, so everybody's got their triggers for and against the right kind of performance. Is that what you try to do is to find what those triggers. Are, or what those elements in someone's physiology that they can control, or, you know, you know, temp down or pump up,

Michael Allison:

some, some of it. So what it's really next to impossible to figure out all of the potential triggers to the nervous system that would cue the nervous system to move into a state of threat or a pattern of protection. It's almost impossible, because there's so much that we're scanning and surveying, right? But what typically happens for most of us is the body starts mobilizing, goes into that sympathetic fight or flight. Heart rate goes up, breathing changes, muscle tension, all those typical attributes of fight or flight. But then what happens is, when we're feeling that we have associations from prior experiences, like the last time I felt like this, I completely choked right the last time I was on center court and I felt like this, I couldn't I couldn't hit my forehand, or I'm giving a presentation, I couldn't speak. And so you have this prior Association, which you may or may not be aware of in the moment, but you have these associations that often then feed back into that natural response, and then you just get going and going and going until the only way out is to move into that collapse and just, I'm done. So I don't necessarily focus on, what are all the potential cues that could be triggering that initial reaction. I focus more on, okay, here it is. Let's not get swept away by the narrative of what this means. Other than, Oh, I need to find a way to either channel this and get aggressive with it, which is not optimal, but it's better than moving into defense and running away or shutting down. Or how can I soften around this a little bit and start to get my breathing back regulated, get my heart rate back into the rhythm that I know supports homeostasis and supports optimal performance? So I go into the body then, right? So I'm back in more into your world. What what cues in the body or in the internal environment, can I start enhancing or start paying attention to, to gently guide? I lightly use the word control. With high performers. I use that word control, but it's not really my word. It's more about guiding, gently guiding, because even when we try to control, what control does in and of itself, it's mental effort, and mental effort already spikes heart rate and reduces that heart rate variability. So I'm more into guiding, steering, if you can.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

So Terry, I have to ask, to get real clear, if I may, I'm not gonna ask you to fix me, but I'm gonna use this as an example and how, how you would approach something like this. If there, I could lecture to people all day long, and 1000s, hundreds, and I could talk to a group of people. I could talk one on one, if I'm with somebody, I don't care if it's my mother or whoever, and I'm going to I'm going to introduce them to somebody that's walking up. I have this fear that I'm going to forget everybody's name. And you know what I do? Oh, forget my mother's name. It's almost, it's, it is the most bizarre sensation. Shut up, David.

Michael Allison:

Anyway, he just popped in to give you a little jab. That was a little jab from David. Wow.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

His name. How do you do that? Well, and if he does for his mother from Morocco. If he ever forgets his mother's name, he will be even shorter than he is. She will whoop his ass for

Unknown:

forgetting his mom's name. I'm exaggerating. You shallow, shallow son. You shallow son. Your name, at least remember mom? Can you my mom,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

and she's a bit she's a big fan of this show, so right now she's just getting the kick out of this good speak of vagal response. Look at Spencer right now.

Michael Allison:

So, so Spence Spencer, were you asking? Kind of what? What might you do in that moment?

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Well, yeah, how would you find out? Because I'm telling you before, if I see it, it come, it happen. You know happening before my eyes. I start getting nervous, because this is stuff that had happened as a kid, and it still hangs

Michael Allison:

with me, right? So there's that anticipation of a prior Association again, which is very, very common, right? So if you have had an experience on center court or in introducing your mother, which feels just like center court,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

but in your. Fence Spencer, that's a good that is a good example. I think a lot of people, when the time comes up, they forget names. They go blank. So I think it's a great Sure, yeah, the

Michael Allison:

forgetting of the name just shows you that when that physiology is in a very heightened state of hyper vigilance, of protection, access to the prefrontal cortex is compromised, right? Like clearly, you know her name clearly, but in that moment, you're proving a really good point that when we're really disrupted internally, good luck on accessing all of your prior knowledge and as a performer, good luck on accessing your strategies, your game plan, seeing the opportunity before you. It's just, it's off the table. And yet, the approach, the old paradigm, is just focus more, bear down on it. More. You got it, you got this, you got this, you got this. And what's really funny, imagine, imagine that experience, okay, that you're having and you're there, and not only are you the only so you're there, and you're you're the only witnesses. There are you and the two people you're introducing, imagine having that same reaction internally in front of 100,000 people, with millions of people watching. And then one more kicker this, because this is what's happening. There's, there's your, your team support, right? So imagine Terry and David are barking at you. Come on, David, come on, come on. Spencer, come on, come on. Remember Her Name. Remember Her Name. Come on. You got this, you got this, you got this. That's what's happening. So imagine a nervous system that is freaking out, and then you got all the people who are supporting you, barking at you to do more. You got this, you got this. And it's a disaster, right? And it's a disaster. That's so not what the nervous system needs, actually, right? So in that moment, that's the reassurance to yourself, yeah, you can, you can tell yourself a story. Oh, this is what happens. Oh, here it comes. Oh, it doesn't mean anything other than here it comes. I have associations to it. Okay? That can down regulate some of the response. And then you can also, as it's approaching, you could take a really long exhale. You could take, like the longest exhale you could possibly take before you speak. Because on the exhale is when that vagal break, okay, that ventral branch, that efferent branch that goes to the heart, goes to the pacemaker of the heart. It's when it slows down the heart. So you could simply see that coming, feel that initial reaction, and slow down your exhale. And just take the longest exhale, let as much air out as you can before you even speak. And then, as you're speaking again, just slow down the exhale, slow down the delivery of the words, see what happens. Right? That's just one really basic thing, but that that's the thing, and that's why this I'm so passionate about this, because what we as coaches or parents or supporters tend to do when we see someone struggling, we have a reaction, right? So these coaches who are barking at the player, they're having their own bodily reaction because they care for the player, and they don't know what to do with it, so they just throw it back, back at her, right or him, and they're just yelling because they feel unsettled. So the first part is, recognize it for what it is.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

You know, on that note, what are some you just gave us the exhale? What's some? Because, God, you're talking and I've seen this, whether it's the US Open, when Djokovic and I mean, what center was doing, and then the crowd gets into it, and also they see, within five minutes, they've lost two games. And then you've seen it in baseball, you've seen it in golf, you've seen it, and they choke. What's some strategies that, besides an exhale that we can switch

Michael Allison:

so, so I'll break it down a little bit more first before we go into it. So the places to look for strategies, okay, exhale is internal. So you look internally into the body, into something you can do internally. You can also look relationally, like I was talking about that player who looks for a fan. So you can, if you had so if I'm coaching and I'm on the sidelines, I'm recognizing what's going on, and I'm going to cue that person reassurance. It's like, okay, it's all right. You got this, it's okay. You're having a reaction. That's cool. And we can, we can play with it, right? And even with that reaction, we can still play because you're that good. But we're going to also see if we can settle down that thing. So you look internally, you look relationally, and then you can look into the environment, right? So in almost any situation that we're in, obviously there's stuff internally we can do. We can take a slow exhale, right? We can change the muscle tension in our face. So this muscle the abicularis Oculi around the eye, right? So that's controlled by cranial nerves like the trigeminal nerve, facial nerve, which also come into the into the brainstem and connect to that vagal branch. So by changing the muscle tension of. On the eyes and softening, or even opening the eyes and what and sounded softening, but looking out, we've just changed the feedback coming into the brainstem. Right? Simple, pretty easy, relaxing the jaw, just letting go of tension, or like I was saying, if you're checking out and you're starting to feel like you just don't even want to be here anymore, because you're and you're starting to hide or conserve, you could tighten the jaw. You could tighten muscles so there's there's tightening or softening, there's where you're looking, how you're looking, there's the breath, there's what sounds, what other sensory information might feed into your nervous system. A little more reassurance, like, I'm outside, I'm going to listen for birds. If I'm under a tree, I'm going to look at the leaves. So you're really our nervous system is always looking for patterns, right? And it's looking for predictable patterns. And there are certain frequencies in sound that also are reassuring, like a mother's lullaby, right? So, or the way we talk to our pets, that's not something we learned that's wired into our physiology because of the physics of our middle ear, because of the way this all works. So the mother's lullaby calms a baby because that's the design of the nervous system, and it's those nerves are regulating the middle ear muscles around the frequencies and modulations of those frequencies, which are then simultaneously pulling that vagal brake on and off, and giving your heart rate that rhythm, that respiratory rhythm that we all know is very fundamental. So you look within, you look around, and you look really between and that's what you do. And you build this, I call it a container of safety. You build this container of safety for those big moments, right? But you also create a lifestyle around recognizing that look, most of my life, I'm on guard, I'm mobilized, I'm accomplishing something, I'm taking care of something, and I really need spaces and places, and particularly faces that I can just let down the guard and we can play and we can relax and all that. It's really, really important. And a lot of these professional athletes are especially during covid, they were living very isolated lives, and it was, it was really, really hard, but also, also, a lot of them, the team sports are different. There's a lot of camaraderie, and they have a lot of that. But these individual sports, like golf and tennis, they really don't have they don't have a lot of the social interaction, which is vital, and they're constantly competing against each other, which is why I'm loving what we're seeing right now at the top of the men's tennis game between sinner and Alcaraz, if you listen sinners and they're both saying, Hey, we're actually friends off the court. We're very, very fierce competitors, but we're not we're respectful on the court. The sportsmanship is unbelievable between those two, but they're acknowledging that they actually have a friendship off the court, and they check in with each other like that is incredible, and it's so different than the Michael Jordan era right now. That's where I'm going, is they're actually by being friends off the court, they're feeding their performance on the court. When you understand the biology, they're actually allowing themselves to enter what I call the play zone. They're not fighting each other. It's it's like, no, they're not. They're actually respecting and allowing each other to lift and elevate each other's game. It's awesome. It's awesome. You know,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

I want to speak say something, because a lot of time coaches will yell, if I'm hearing you right, will yell to the player, focus, focus, focus. And sometimes the unfocused is the better thing. And so like, for me, I'm a my favorite sport is snow skiing, and I so I want to know if what I did subconsciously is what you're talking about. I came up against a very scary double black diamond run, very narrow shoot, and I was focusing on this path, and I was terrified. And all sudden, I just stepped back, I exhaled, but then I opened up my eyes, and I lose peripheral vision. I kind of screamed like a cardinal yell, and then I didn't even look at where I was supposed to go. I just looked out and I was able to go into it with and I and I was way better and way easier. Is that what you're talking about? I kind of took my focus away of being hyper focused, and I actually executed better.

Michael Allison:

Is you took you took your focus away, of focusing on what was queuing. You danger, threat, risk, life on the line, and you diverted your attention. So what I would call that is redirecting your attention. You diverted your attention and you looked out, which automatically, by looking up and out, were already. We're already slowing a little bit of the heart rate and the intensity, right? So the more under threat we are, the closer prox, you know, we're looking closer. We're zoned in tunnel. And what you had more tension, guaranteed you were, like, really tense, and you're looking at it, and you're just and now you're in the spiral of looking at it, but also a story. Of, like, I don't know if I can do this. By doing that, you took away the story, you redirected your attention up and out. This all changed, which, again, changed, changed a little bit, probably not a ton, but changed a little bit of your physiology. Then you let out a yell, okay, which, again, is a longer exhale to yell was probably some some length in that exhale to yell you were also using the larynx and pharnix to produce the sound, probably not in the ideal frequency. That would be reassuring, but it was more, to me, a release. It was a meeting yourself, where you were right, and we can see that. So Carlos alcarez, right? We, most of us, know that name, even if we don't play tennis. He's one of the most, maybe the most popular tennis player right now. He was one in the world. He's now two. He his technique is a scream followed by a smile. It's exactly what he does, right? So the scream, again, is meeting himself where it is, it's it's a longer exhale, and it's doing something with that mobilized higher heart rate, more muscle tension. It's doing something with it, at least it's channeling it somewhere, so there's a little bit of a release. And then the smile again. He's using the smile isn't about the smile in the mouth. It's about the crinkle in the eyes, and it's about getting those, those abicularis ocules, to move. And so he smiles to send feedback back down. That says, Oh, you're okay. Slow down that heart rate. Get more variability. And then what he's really doing too, which the crowd loves him. They engage with that smile. So now he's seeing their feedback too, of reassurance, not criticism, right? And so it's a beautiful, beautiful, simple thing, and he does it all the time, and he doesn't know the nervous system below it. He doesn't that doesn't matter. He just knows that it helps him feel better and and he relaxes just a little bit more, right? And so I you did. You were doing that intuitively. That's exactly it. Yeah.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Well, with that, and I'm honestly not throwing him under the bus, but how would so Spencer is terrified of paddle boarding on the open ocean, and especially at night. So here he is on this open ocean. And so the vision, unlike me, where I was in this this tight little cooler, his is wide open, and he's terrified that some whales can eat them up or something. Yeah, so he's, he's and

Michael Allison:

his eyes are darting, looking back and forth. He's wide eyed and open mouth is probably open, probably breathing through his mouth and and, yeah. See, first off, back off. Bring him into the bring him into the the harbor a little bit, and get get used to just feeling and titrate. So so the way with that is you can't throw so it's kind of like exposure therapy. You can't throw somebody into overwhelm and expect them to manage. You have to move them into it gradually. That's why we see like amazing singer like Louis Capaldi, is a, do you know that name. He's a really. He's a terrific example of becoming too big too soon before his nervous system could adapt. It's like throwing him out into the ocean, in the dark sky on a paddle board. He wasn't he wasn't prepared, and he never found a way to relate to that in a way that was healthy. Until he's no longer performing. He can't perform. His body locks up. Everything goes off the rails for him, and not because he couldn't do it. In fact, when he would sing, he had such a gift, he could still, even though he was in a state of threat and not comfortable, he had access to his voice and all of this that the fans thought he was, and they're feeding back to him, but he never shifted into a state of safety and comfort, and little by little, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and to where he was completely overwhelmed. So I would first back off, bring bring it back within reason, and do little doses, but in that moment too, I don't know how comfortable you feel on the board in a normal environment and but I would get back to just really feeling the feet on the board, or feeling feel is so vital, right? So feeling something that is really grounding and reassuring, and when you're in that unknown in that environment, is going back to that, just going back to that basic feel, if it's there, but if you're already squirrely that, then that's, that's off the table. But for me, like it would come back. It's like, when you're talking about skiing, I was a big skier, so when you said I'm like, Yes, that was my thing too. Like, like, there was nothing more connected to Earth and. Movement and all of that. But you, you, you have to get to where you can maintain the mechanics even as the pitch keeps getting steeper and steeper and and that that. And that starts again with the baseline of the feel, right, the feel. And then you're just dropping into that even on a steeper pitch, the feel is still there. The speed of the movements might increase right, the angles might enhance, but the feel and all that. So like even with a tennis player, I do a lot of work with tennis players, a lot of it is about the feel, and it might be when, when you feel completely off. The feel might start with just the racket in your hand, right, like the grip. It might it might be the the rhythm of the feel of of getting into the service motion. It can't be complex, but it has to be something that you've tapped into before, a prior experience related to feel. Because again, what you're really doing is you're recreating the physiology that would support that feel. Right. What is Feel? Feel means you're in a physiological state of some kind from which you have that feeling, that movement, that rhythm. So when we talk about, I just, I just, I couldn't get my feel, or they threw me out of rhythm. Athletes say it all the time, oh, I couldn't get my rhythm. What is that rhythm? That rhythm is that that's that rhythm, that vagal regulation. It's like, so there. And yet we just keep going, Oh, try harder. Try harder. Too, more. So like, no, they're trying to get their rhythm, get the rhythm and get the

Dr. Terry Weyman:

So for somebody like, we had a guest that that used polyvagal. Unfortunately, she had, she killed an intruder that was in her house, and it was very hard for her to get back to normalcy of what life was, and on the same plane, where I would see on that open ocean, I would see beauty, Spencer would see fear. How do we find these these balances that get these people back to where they don't see fear, they see or see beauty, they don't see trauma. They see balance and health, where are some people to do?

Michael Allison:

Well, it might, it might not have anything to do with that domain, right? It might not have anything to do with him in the ocean, ocean. It might not have anything to do with that because the nervous system can, we can develop what I call agility and the nervous system in any domain, and then shift that because the nervous systems and the bodily reactions are still the same. It's just a different context, right? So like the bodily reaction Spencer's having in the open ocean is probably very similar to if I dropped him into a cold plunge. It's probably very much the same physiology, like, if we had a heart rate monitor on, we'd probably see that immediate hitting the cold plunge. It's probably very similar to as soon as he goes out into the open ocean, heart rate goes up, all that stuff, right? So, but it's a completely different context. So in that, in that cold plunge, right? You could start to develop the capacity to be with that discomfort, to be with that heightened heart rate, all of that, that same physiological response you're having in the open ocean, and begin to relate to it in ways that you either can just ride it out, or, better yet, you can slow down your breath, and you can actually become somewhat comfortable with it, and you can start to shift your physiology. After that initial trigger, you can start to realign it back into it's closer and closer to homeostasis, right, without layering on the meaning of, Oh, crap. This is really, really awful, because it's the same physiology. So I would almost steer her away from anything that was at all associated to that experience. And I'd start with helping the physiology, helping the nervous system begin to trust that it can move into these different states, sometimes really hyper, aroused, sometimes really, really calm, sometimes not certain. And the deal is, you get that nervous system again, trusting that it's safe to move through a wide range of states without layering the meaning of uh oh, I am going to be stuck here. Or I don't know if I can do this right, and the goal is to just be able to start trusting that you can be with a wide range of physiological responses, knowing that they will pass, knowing that you have a way back into feeling closer and closer to that homeostatic. Rhythmic, connected, present state, right? But challenge is, not everyone feels that they have that baseline question, yes.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Would you ask someone like, what puts you in the most resourceful state of mind? And ask, you know, what kind of stimulus? Is it music? Is it a certain aroma? Is it a visual stimulus? Like, for like, like, Terry, like, you know, there's certain music that totally fires us up or puts us in a state. I mean, I'll tell you right on, there's a certain music that'll that I will play that'll put me in the most like I would never, ever consider doing drugs when I have an ability to listen to a certain music with a certain environment, because I it's a high. Now, would you start there to find out

Michael Allison:

you could? Yeah, you could. So, so yes, you want to. So yes, where do you where or when, or how do you already kind of feel at your best? What are those? What are those times? What are those places? What is that activity where you feel most accessible, most authentic, most present, right? And build on that, yes, so like for you, for the music, that's a really powerful resource for you that you can always draw on. Right now, how? How? What other things? What other things do you respond to? Right are there? Are there other things in your life already from which we can again build upon? So you're leading me into what I was saying. So for a lot of us, and for very good reason, we are locked in these either highly mobilized, anxious, whatever we want to call it, ready to move all of this right, attacking, getting getting things done. And others are more in this withdrawn, lethargic, they're almost I just, I can't engage anymore in life whatever right, or some of us move back and forth between those right, because being being highly mobilized is metabolically costly, and the body only has so much resource. And then it moves into this shutting down, withdrawal, conserving, and then comes back out. So a lot of us are in this, and not a lot of us necessarily feel like what you just experienced, where they already know that there are times in their day or places or things that they can do where they actually feel really just wonderful, that that's not that common. I don't know if you realize that it's, it's, it's not that common, right? Like it's more common that people are seeking because you said you don't need to do drugs. Well, it's more common that people are actually seeking other ways to feel differently. So the way I look at addiction is it's their attempt might be misguided, but it's their attempt to feel different. Well, what does that mean? It's their attempt to feel closer to that homeostatic place where they don't feel worried about tomorrow, they aren't reflecting on the past. They're literally just there, and that's in the physiology, that's the nervous system. So yes, build on those things, find what those things are, and you can say, oh, okay, well, here's the common denominator. Maybe it's sound. Maybe I'm really keyed into sound, right? Or maybe I'm really keyed into relationships. I really are there, really right, like, so for for me and for my daughter, it's our pets, you know, and harness that, or there are, they're mammals. They're social mammals, so like a dog and a cat, they the reason why a lot of people who have had prior experiences where they don't trust a lot of people in the world, they gravitate toward pets. It's because their pets are reliably cueing them safety, connection, I'm with you. I'm not judging you, and I'm not going to abandon you, right? So harness that and start. Start wherever you are, start wherever you are, and what your body will welcome, and yours is music. And I bet you you have other things, but I just think not a lot of people really notice or really have that experience of when they feel actually, just, I'm good, like, this is an optimistic about life.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Spencer, you know your, you know your other one is besides music camera.

Michael Allison:

Oh, I mean being on the camera or taking pictures,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

he takes pictures, and when he's taking pictures, He's so calm and he's so happy when he's taking pictures.

Michael Allison:

Yeah, what are you taking pictures of Spencer?

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Well, it's, it's interesting that Terry brought that. I never even, I wouldn't have never associated that, but photography, I mean, ever since I found photography in as a high school yearbook staffer and. What I realized, and I don't think many people know this, it's kind of personal. I was always afraid. I was very, very painfully shy growing up and having a camera in hand. What am I doing? I'm hiding behind a camera, and I'm watching people, and I don't have to talk to anybody because I'm busy, and that has permeated throughout my life. So now, you know, I'll do wilderness photography or things like that, but, but when I'm at a place, man, that is my, that is my. I didn't even Terry, I didn't even think of

Michael Allison:

it. Dude, that's beautiful. I can relate to you. Spencer, I would have considered myself pretty shy as a kid and everything too, and what you're doing there too, which is really cool, is it was faces. So not only were you able to not have to speak and not show your face, you were still getting you were getting the cueing back from other faces. So it was like you were behind a mask, but you could still take in the cues. And most people, when they're getting their picture taken, are smiling, right? They're laughing, they're doing silly stuff or whatever. So you were getting cues of reassurance and safety and trust, but you didn't have to be exposed to get it, dude, it's a beautiful it's a beautiful story, and it's awesome, right? Like that is in again, intuition leading you toward what you actually needed. Totally,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

totally cool, crazy since high school, that

Michael Allison:

high school is such a challenging time, right? Challenging time to feel like you belong, to feel a sense of okay, I can be who I am and still be, still be welcomed here. Beautiful.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

That was pretty cool. I didn't even realize that.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Well, while my friends recovering, you meant you mentioned, you mentioned High School. We have a lot of kids right now suffering from anxiety, you know. And we've heard, we've heard a lot of different, you know, technique. You know, nobody wants to be on medication anymore, and nobody wants to do all this. But some kids are stuck in these anxiety loops. They can't get out. They're so worried about everybody else, but they don't know how to handle themselves. Can you can you just briefly talk about anxiety and what you see with the youth today, as well as some of the parents.

Michael Allison:

Yeah, so anxiety, from this lens of the nervous system, is a physiology locked chronically in a state of threat, in a pattern of protection. And the way we're defining anxiety as a culture, it's a more mobilized, hyper vigilant, higher heart rate, always scanning what might go wrong. Am I going to say the wrong thing, and getting loops, psychological loops that keep reinforcing it? But from a neural neurophysiological lens, it's in the body, it's in the nervous system, and so just like we've been talking about, we're trying to find what will interrupt that loop in a way that leads them back more into that homeostatic place, what will interrupt that loop? And it's really, really hard, right? Because they're they're not, they're not feeling safe at school necessarily, right? So we put up, we put up fences, we we relegate guns and all that's just really important. But removing threat is not the same as feeling safe. So feeling safe and feeling connected and feeling belonging is in the physiology. It's not about removing danger. It's about feeding connection, and that's what they're longing for, and that's what we're all longing for. And so these poor kids are just longing, just like Spencer was, to find a way to belong, to fit in, and that's absolutely what they're supposed to do. That's the stage of life where they're supposed to sort of explore and leave the family a little bit and start making their tribe and their friends. And yet it's not safe because we, we as a whole society and we as parents. I'm part, I've, I've co authored a parenting book on this, and it's we are our biggest job as a parent, which is, again, is so hard, it's almost impossible, but it's, it's still the biggest job is to no matter what, how can we feed safety and reliability and trust to our kids? And it's really, really hard, because if we're walking around super tense or checked out for many, many good reasons, again, we're constantly broadcasting that to our kids, even if we're saying the right things, even if we're saying hey, you know what? You just do your best, right? It doesn't matter if you it doesn't matter if you did your best and you got to be doesn't matter if we're saying that. But our body doesn't believe that, if we're locked in this fear of like crap, are they going to stay? Are they going to be able to keep up with everyone? Because this is a really competitive race. Race, right? Our bodies broadcasting a different message. So this anxiety is really coming from the way I see it. It's coming from the bigger culture, the social media, the constant comparing each other on social media, right? It's coming from us as parents, how the bodies we're living in with our kids, and also there's a really big component. They're not playing like they used to. They're not, they're not playing together. They're not, they're not having freedom to play like they aren't doing when we grow up. I'm going to I'm speak for you. I don't know if it's true, but so I grew up in Pennsylvania, and I played outside all the time, right? I roamed from a little kid. It wasn't we, didn't we, as my parents didn't think I was something was going to happen to me if I left the house, right and and we now I'm, I'm a parent. My kids are, my daughters are 24, and 20, but I remember having tremendous fear of allowing them to walk to school like three blocks, and we lived in this incredible neighborhood, and in yet, there was this fear again, because of the messaging, and because I was also not necessarily in a safe body at that time. And so it's a complex combination of factors that these kids are experiencing that I think is at another level than what we experienced as kids. We had more free play, we had more interaction with other kids that were also we were playing with, and that's really, really, really important. And we didn't have social media where so we compared each other at high school, but when we went home, we still weren't we weren't locked into comparing ourselves to everybody else, and hopefully we had a safe refuge. But now what's happening is they're comparing each other on social media, and they're not connecting social media is not from a neurophysiological lens. It's not, it's not it's not using your face, it's not using your voice. And why is that important? Because that those nerves that allow us to communicate change our physiology. So you're not getting that change. You're getting dopamine spikes, but that's not the same as the neural system that supports homeostasis, right? So you can get a dopamine spike and feel good. That's not the same as homeostasis. That's dopamine different system, right? So it's kind of a false provider of, Oh, I feel better when I'm talking to my friends on social media, yeah, but it's not actually feeding into the nervous system. Oh, gosh, so much. It's

Dr. Spencer Baron:

complex. I absolutely Terry. I, you know, look at, look at our, I mean, we've, we have time, but I mean that we haven't even covered half the things that we wanted to talk about with you.

Michael Allison:

We can come back. We can come back. Yeah, we're definitely

Dr. Spencer Baron:

going to have to. But let's, let me, let's talk about this, this play zone, or autonomic agility, or something, you know, something that you seem to be masterful at. Go ahead and describe what that is.

Michael Allison:

So I came up with the term the play zone when I started really understanding polyvagal theory and the nervous system and the play zone what we were talking about with professional athletes, or even giving a speech or doing something like this, and the way you guys created the environment, right, when we got on here, right? You were engaging with me socially. You were making it light. You were playing back and forth with each other, right? That that's a different physiology, and so what you were helping create in me was a sense of safety, a sense of no evaluation. I mean, the first thing you said is we just see how this plays out right, like so you've already taken off the cues of risk that often we feel when we move into environments that we don't know or where we're trying to perform right. And so you already sort of did that without knowing, without knowing what you were doing, necessarily, but you you were doing it right. And so the play zone is recognizing that our optimal state, our optimal state for performance, does something just change. No, I can hear you. Okay, okay, so our optimal state for performance is, is a state of play, and that is where the heart rate, there's still, there's still higher metabolic output at times, but then there's recovery, and then there's higher metabolic output and recovery. But it's not fully sympathetic nervous system. It's not like, Oh, right? There's actually flexibility in that. And really importantly, there's social engagement. There's communication with other, right? And like that tennis player who's looking at the fan, that's what he's doing. He's trying to help himself get into what I'm calling the play zone. And when I one of the questions I often asked when you've been at your truly at your best, is it fighting for your life, or is it play? It's kind of play. It's free, it's creative, it's right, it's exploratory. Doesn't mean it doesn't mean you know the outcome. It actually means you're playing, you're curious, you're seeing what happens, just like you said to me. So that's the play zone. And autonomic agility is this ability to move through states of fight, states of get me out of here, states of withdrawal and shut down and recognize them relate to what's happening. Again, not as deliberate or intentional, but as a bodily reaction, and figure out how to navigate within those patterns of protection and maybe ultimately come back into a state of play if the conditions are appropriate, right? So to me, we get locked in what I would call rigid patterns of protection for very good reason, and what I'm trying to help people develop is what I'm calling autonomic agility, so that we can spend a little more time in the play zone together, basically.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

So Wow. Terry, where do you want to go with this? Man?

Michael Allison:

Well, that's what you guys are doing. You're creating the you're creating the play zone with your guests, right? And that's rip that's rippling out.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

The funny thing is, we've been in that play zone for 30 years. You know, whenever we meet each other, we usually banter within the first what five minutes of seeing each other. We're like giving Yeah, and then from then on, this is go type, you know, I think that's, you know, of all my friends. That's why I picked him to be a podcast partner, because he's the only guy that we can just joke and then switch immediately. But it's what starts

Michael Allison:

it off well, and he's well, and he's broadcasting tremendous cues of connection through his eyes. I mean, look at his look at that when he smiles. How, how many crinkles those crinkles don't get rid of those are all good. It's

Dr. Terry Weyman:

also this. It's also this. He does this. He is the goosebump master.

Michael Allison:

Goosebumps, Goosebumps. Goosebumps are a sign of the play zone, sign of the play zone. Because you've got, you've got mobilized energy that you have sympathetic on there, but you're, you're connected to you're connected like there's a reason, like you're either feeling a connection to somebody or a connection to your own presence. Goosebumps are not fear. They're, they're like joy, bliss, celebration, right?

Dr. Terry Weyman:

And that's why we make such a good partnership. He's Mr. Goosebumps. Enjoy a Mr. Resting bitch face. Exactly. We're totally RBF, yeah, we're the ying and yang of each other. I'm all tight wound up, and he's Mr.

Michael Allison:

Goosebump. Good combination. That's that vagal, vagal and sit. That's the vagus nerve and the sympathetic nervous system coming together. There you go into a blended state of play. It's

Dr. Spencer Baron:

beautiful. I've learned more about what we do through this plug. And then, then even with, I hope the general public that's viewing this, listening, right? It's funny. Mike, you know, it's funny. You bring this up because I sometimes I'll, you know, look at Terry, and he's just stone faced. And I have too much. I better turn down my tone, down my expression. I'm like

Unknown:

big eyes

Dr. Spencer Baron:

all over the place I go, I think I need to calm down a little bit.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

No, you need to keep it ramped up. Totally, totally. When he gets ramped up, I go, I go. RBF, when I'm all amped up, he goes quiet,

Michael Allison:

exactly like a good like a good marriage, like

Dr. Terry Weyman:

it is like a good marriage, absolutely, yeah. Well, we're, you know, for those listening, we are going to have Michael back as Spencer said, we have you touched half the crap.

Unknown:

So, so crap. Keyword, crap, absolutely.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

So, you know, Spence, let's go write the rappers. Let's get this done. And then I'm going to table some of this other stuff for for we meet Michael again,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

really good idea. Really good because some of the stuff that we wanted to talk about is very valuable. We'll get to that. But Mike, this is sometimes, oftentimes, one of our favorite parts of the show. It's called the rapid fire questions. There's five of them, and they're just kind of off the cuff. Some of them have to do with what we talk about. Some have nothing to do with it. It's about you. Okay. You ready for question

Michael Allison:

number one? I think so.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Look at his vagal response. Yeah.

Unknown:

Also, I'm feeling a little about. Valuation, but I'll try.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Well, don't feel little. This is 100% valuation. We're like valuation. I'm gonna keep

Michael Allison:

I'm gonna keep my my eyes focused on Spencer, not Terry.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

That's Here we go. You've taught breathwork and physiology, not, not guessing what's, what's the strangest or most hilarious moment you've ever had testing a nervous system hacker or on yourself or in the wild. Oh boy. Craziest, even the funniest experience,

Michael Allison:

well, a funny one. Okay, I'll give you a funny one. So a lot of these athletes are incredibly gifted at controlling their bodies, right? But have no no often have no sense of what's going on inside their bodies. Okay? So I'm talking to this professional tennis player who, at the time, was maybe inside, just inside about 8080, or 90 in the world, okay? And so we're having this, that's a good, that's a good tennis player, right, like 8090 in the world. Okay, we're talking, and I'm watching his match, and I'm seeing a body completely right at its threshold. I'm seeing super tight breathing all over the place, and extremely, what you would just say, very nervous, very tight, okay, steps up to the line, and I already know it's coming. I'm like, there we go. Okay? And, you know, first serve into the net, next serve, like, six feet long. And so anyway, loses this, it was a big game. It was against another top player, like, I think the player at the time was top 10 in the world. It was a big player, and big match. And so later we're talking, and I say, so what was, what was going on for you at that moment, right? Is it was, it was like, it was his chance to serve for the for the set, and he gave it away. And so he's like, What do you mean? And I go, Well, how are you feeling? What's going? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I felt like, like, I always do. I was like, Really, okay. And so I said, So what'd you do? He goes, Well, I just tried to serve it into the box. I said, How'd that play out for you? He's like, Well, no, I guess, I guess it didn't right. And I'm like, Look, did you have to serve? And he's like, Well, you know, there's a there's a clock, you have to serve the first serve within 25 seconds. I'm like, Yeah, I get it, okay, but did you have to serve the second serve? Technically, no, you could. You could stand there and wait until you actually feel ready to serve, right? And so we're talking about this. I'm trying to get him to recognize that he was not physiologically ready to serve, until I finally had to say, Look, dude, I'm 50 years old. I play tennis. We've hit together, right? Like, even I don't serve the ball when I'm not physiologically ready to serve, let alone try to serve the ball into a box against the guy who's top 10 in the world, what's the point? You might as well just hit it into the net, right? And then we both just started busting up laughing, because he recognized in that moment that he actually wasn't at all aware of what he was feeling. And he had no he had no concept that actually I don't have to feel this way and serve there might, I might actually be able to change what I what he would just simply refer to as I felt tight. Eventually acknowledged I felt tight. Well, it was a lot more than tight. It's like trying to serve with your arm here, I don't know, right? So, you know, it just, but that recognition, and that's so prevalent, it's like, it's just, this is what I do. So anyway,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

so So my question number two, and we're gonna have to abbreviate short numbers, shorten them. Hence, rapid fire. All right, so you've, you've run Boston qualifiers three years in a row. Tell us about that first Boston you know, who were you thinking about at mile 20, and what polyvagal shift may have saved your day?

Michael Allison:

Actually, kids along the side. I was high fiving kids at Boston Marathon. There's literally people lined up for the 26.2 miles, and I was just high fiving kids. I was having the time of my life. I've never felt better in my life. Oh, it was one of those moments.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

How cool is that? That's cool? Question number three, parenting and polyvagal coaching, what is one rule you refuse to break? Whether it's a fussy team a teen like you have two girls negotiation bedtime rituals or your own ride the rule with your daughter's issue.

Michael Allison:

Yeah, meet yourself where you are first and and try to regroup before using your mouth, right before you really say something or do something that it's damage control at that point, right? It's really about damage control, and that starts with meeting yourself where you are, very cool. Cool.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Option, or before, if you had to pick a soundtrack, you know, something for entering your own, your own play zone, say, podcast taping, right?

Michael Allison:

No, I can't share that. I like, you know what? I actually, I actually like the Bee Gees. I like the Bee Gees. For that, for me, it's just, it's silly, Goofy. It's, it's fast paced and all that. It's, it's, Bee Gees, for me, no, don't

Dr. Terry Weyman:

ever feel shy around us Michael, because he likes Ricky Martin, so don't

Unknown:

feel much I feel much better now, much better. Bee

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Gees, yeah, you're way more connected to Spencer on that one. Yeah. Oh,

Michael Allison:

man, watch the Barbie movie and cry. Oh, that's a good movie, that is, it was, and I would cry with that. Thank you,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Terry, see, see, there's one other human being on the planet.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Oh, yeah, poor kid. One Poor kid. Oh, my God, you stay in San Barbara.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

I All right, this has been a blast. Question number five, last one, Mike, what's been the most surprising place someone told you your work helped them something even you know, from a corporate boardroom to a locker room or living room, or, you know, what did you actually feel when they told you what helped you?

Michael Allison:

Want to know what, what was that place where it helped? Or how I feel, how you when it helped? Yeah, any, any time that I hear back from someone that something I shared has changed how they're experiencing themselves or the world, there's there's really no better feeling right, because it's just it is my life. To me, this is as silly as all of this is, and silly and play is really important. It has deep meaning for me and deep fulfillment. And so when I hear those things, there is not much better in life, other than like childbirth and marriage and those sorts of things, it really rivals those experiences of deep meaning and connection and expanding that outward.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

So Mike, I gotta, I gotta listen, Terry, I hope you don't mind. I got question four a for you. I'm gonna back up one, because you said something that that really struck me, and I really want to know, what was it when you're running in a marathon and at the at that point where you're high fiving these kids. What is that? What is that? What was what does that mean to you? Why would that jazz you?

Michael Allison:

Well, it's, it's a couple of things. It's the touch itself, right? It's the actual physical touch. And you're, you're running along, and you're, at that point, you are starting to feel, you know, not so great necessarily, but for whatever reason, it absolutely lifted me, physically and emotionally. And it's seeing, it's seeing the possibility, right? So, running a marathon is, you could argue, isn't healthy. There's a lot of you could. You could really make an easy argument, it's not healthy, but for those who have you recognize it as a it can be a real moment of growth, because you can, you move through these states. I didn't understand all of this when I was running marathons. It just was what I did naturally. But you're you're moving in and out of highly mobilized. You might even get to where you're starting to shut down and collapse and and that resource of others amazingly powerful, especially little kids and their innocence, and they're looking at you, and they're celebrating that you're out there doing it. And so maybe you inspire another little kid to challenge themselves and recognize that they can get through challenges and really get through it through the support of trusting others. So to me, it was all that wrapped up into that. I didn't know it at the time, but it really true. I wrote a paper back when I experienced that, because I was so I didn't know that would I didn't even know that would come out of me. I didn't know I would start high fiving people like that. Was like, wow. And then I was actually like goosebumps the whole way through doing it. And it was awesome.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Love it. This guy's great, man, really. Thank you so much. I can't wait to part two of this show. Mike, thank you so much for your watching your time. Michael Allison, thank

Michael Allison:

you. Thank you guys. You guys are awesome.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

That was Thank you for listening to today's episode of The cracking backs podcast. We hope you. Enjoyed it. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at Kraken backs podcast. Catch new episodes every Monday. See you next time you.