211 - Nora Rodden - What If Your Symptoms Are A Signal, Not A Sentence

Nora shares her journey from years of back pain, gut troubles, and crushing insomnia to a calm, steady baseline by retraining a sensitised nervous system. Her story blends science, practical tools, and honest moments of fear, relapse, and quiet wins.

• linking pain, GI symptoms and insomnia through fear-based conditioning
• what "psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy" taught her
• outcome independence and reducing sleep pressure
• practical insomnia steps using soothing phrases and data
• gentle exposure to feared foods and spotting inconsistent triggers
• expressive writing and creative outlets to access emotion
• personalising tools rather than copying blueprints
• measuring progress by life, not daily symptom scores
• maintenance habits to stay well and handle flares
• redefining success as wise interpretation of body signals

Links:

Nervana app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nervana-chronic-symptom-coach/id6754898332 

Back pain study (2021): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34589642/

Books mentioned: Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter & The F*ck It Diet by Caroline Dooner

For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

Welcome And Nora’s Backstory

Jackie Baxter 0:56

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Long COVID podcast. I am delighted to be joined today by Nora, who is here to share her recovery story. So I'm gonna let her take it away in just a moment. But I love recovery stories. They're so exciting and inspiring, and they're what we all need to be hearing. So thank you so much for being here today. It's lovely to meet you.

Years Of Pain And Failed Treatments

Nora Rodden 1:19

Yes, it's nice to meet you too. Starting like at the beginning, um, I went to school in New York uh at Cornell University, and my senior year, I was unfortunately hit by a car as a student. So I had many years of chronic back pain starting from then. Um, as many of your listeners will know, like that started the first, you know, health journey for me of specialists and tests and procedures. And, you know, I did chiropractor, physical therapy, acupuncture, I got steroid injections in my back, and I was like 20 years old. Um, and I also got a procedure done called nerve ablation, which burns the nerves in your back so that you don't feel pain anymore. But guess what? I still felt pain, which is like my first kind of signal that maybe my pain was coming from a different location than my back. Um, so I struggled with pain for a long time, just kind of managing it. Uh, I didn't look like I was in pain all the time. I appeared kind of normal, um, which in some ways made it worse. Um, and fast forward after I graduated college, I was working in New York City and I started to experience a whole different set of symptoms. Um, I started to have some GI symptoms, bloating, no matter what I ate. And similarly, did the whole thing again. I went to GI specialists, I tried every antibiotic, every diet, every treatment, and it didn't work. Um, and I was just, you know, managing that as well. And I thought these two conditions were very unrelated. Like one was obviously about my car accident, and the other was probably about the food I was eating. And then, third times the charm, I went to um graduate school. I got my master's of science and my MBA from Harvard Business School in Boston. And while I was there, I started to struggle with sleep. So I started to have insomnia for the first time in my life when I had spent my whole life sleeping very, very well. Um, and so then it was just like the cherry on top. Like, I can't believe I now have this other set of symptoms. And once again, doing the whole doctor thing. And at that point, I was just feeling very dejected. It's kind of like my lowest point mentally. And I happened to come across a clinical trial uh for psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy, kind of a mind-body approach. And it was teaching that your chronic back pain could actually be potentially resolved by taking an alternative psychological type of approach. I was resistant at first. I didn't really understand it. I was skeptical, but within a few weeks of enrolling in that clinical trial and going through a protocol, my back pain went away. Um, so it was really transformative. And then I applied those same learnings and insights to my GI symptoms, to my insomnia with success. Um, and it's really just changed my life for the better. And so now I'm actually CEO and co-founder of a company called Nirvana, which is taking all of that research, putting it into an app so other people can go through a similar type of journey.

GI Symptoms And Insomnia Emerge

Jackie Baxter 4:43

Like that's totally wild.

Nora Rodden 4:47

I know.

Jackie Baxter 4:48

I mean, like, I know I think what's really interesting is those kind of three sets of um issues, let's say that you experienced, you know, the the back pain that came along following you know, an accident, and then the GI symptoms, and then the sleep problems. I mean, I think a lot of people will be able to relate certainly to the GI issues and the sleep problems. Um I I sincerely hope that they can't relate to back pain following a car accident, but you know, um lots of people get pain for all sorts of different reasons. And my understanding is often it does start with something that either did cause structural injury to begin with, or certainly could have caused structural injury to begin with. Um and like they seem so wildly unrelated, don't they? You know, the sort of the the pain from the injury, the GI stuff and the sleep, like they on the surface, I think to most people, would seem like three totally separate issues. And like, what was it that made you start thinking that maybe they were connected?

Discovering Mind-Body Therapy

Nora Rodden 6:06

Honestly, it was really about community. Um, when I was in the back pain trial, it was pretty quick that I found relief. Like, I think it was just a matter of weeks of doing some emotional processing via journaling, talking to a mind-body coach or a neuroplastic recovery coach, um, and learning a lot. It was a lot of education. That was really the protocol. And so it took just a few weeks, and I kind of woke up one day and was like, hmm, I don't think I have back pain anymore. And I started like submitting zero out of 10 on my like questionnaires and the clinical trial. But what I still was struggling with was insomnia. And at the time, like that was kind of primary for me. Uh, while I was in a back pain trial, like the number one issue in my life was the fact that I was having such a strong fear response towards sleep. Like I, it was so bad that I would get into bed every night and just like start to have like almost a little panic attack, like before bed, because I was so afraid of like the impending insomnia for that that night and what that meant for my day. Like I was just really wrapped up in this cycle. And I remember as part of the clinical trial, they introduced me to resources online, mind body resources, one of which was the TMS Wiki, um, which was just like an online community forum for people with TMS or mind body syndrome or whatever you want to call it. There's a hundred names for it. And I remember typing in the search bar insomnia to try to see just in case, like, has somebody talked about this? And I saw this post from a community member who like talked all about insomnia and how all of the advice she received was actually furthering her fear response. Like, take melatonin and use it was just constantly making her more stressed about sleep. And I could wholeheartedly relate. But then she said something about like outcome independence and that how what you really need to focus on is just like not caring anymore and reducing the pressure that you need to sleep. And that blew my mind. Like it just completely blew my mind because it was the first time that anybody had basically told me to do the opposite of what the whole world was telling me. Like, sleep is so important. You have to sleep. Here are all these pills, here's here's your sleep hygiene routine, here's what you need to do. It was very structured and just like kind of freaked me out. Um, and so her advice online was what really got me thinking: well, maybe this insomnia is actually related to the back pain because it's similar lessons. It's kind of like, you know, this is happening on a subconscious level, and my body has grown habituated to fear, you know, movement for my back or to fear sleep, that that's what I really needed to focus on. And then after focusing on that, my insomnia went away.

Community And Linking Symptoms

Jackie Baxter 9:14

I mean, it's it's so hard to not care, right? You know, it's like you know, the it's almost like the more you try to not care, the more you do. Um and um, you know, I mean, you know, I think you know, things like sleep hygiene, you know, the the environment that you're trying to sleep in, like they they are helpful things to do, but the more pressure you put on yourself to do all of them, or the more you worry when you haven't been able to do one of them, um, the the worse it gets. And you know, I I think we all know on some level that you know, when you're really stressed or when you're really worried, you know, when you've got something big the following day, you know, all of those things make sleep so much harder. So I think we've you know, probably everybody has experienced that on some level, but it's it's very easy to say, oh, you know, don't worry about it, it'll be fine. And so much harder to actually put that into practice. Are you able to say a little bit about how you were able to care less about it and to kind of let go of some of that need to get it right and more just kind of allowing totally, and I think it's a great question because I remember when I was struggling, like I would hear people talk about their recoveries in such a vague way, and I was just like, no, I literally want to know step by step what did you do. Told me the protocol.

Unlearning Sleep Fear

Nora Rodden 11:32

Right, I know, I know. Um well, when it came to insomnia, I did two things consistently, and I can't remember exactly how long it took me to recover, but I think probably a few months of me doing these sorts of practices and then waking up and and realizing that like I just stopped fearing the sleep. It wasn't that I didn't care anymore. Of course, you're gonna care. Like, of course, I wanted seven to eight hours of sleep every single night. Like that was my goal. But I almost sort of faked it till I made it. Like that's really my number one advice. It sounds kind of silly and a little barbaric, but I essentially would go to sleep every night after learning about a lot of this and after reading that woman's wonderful post that really inspired me. And I would go to sleep every night in bed, and I would, you know, of course I was still having a reaction. So I'd start like hyperventilating a little bit. I'd have my fear around sleep. And I would just close my eyes and repeat to myself like, even if you get zero hours of sleep, you will be okay. Like your body will be rested. You don't need to do anything. You are safe. I would just repeat phrases like that until like kind of for me, what resonated the most was that zero hours of sleep phrase because it gave myself permission that there was no goal. Like I almost tried to trick my brain into truly believing that I didn't need any sleep. Obviously, on a conscious level, I know that we as humans need sleep, but I didn't need to hear more of that. I already knew that. Um, and so that was one thing that I did. It was kind of like safety mantras and affirmations, which I'm not like an affirmation girl, like I've never done that before. So it's not like that was something natural to me. Um, and then the second thing I did was kind of more appeal to my analytical brain, which was really just thinking about the data. Like historically in my life, how many times in the last year of me struggling with insomnia have I performed really well, whether it was on an exam, whether it was being socially fun, whatever your bar for success is, how many times had I actually performed well when I had gotten zero or very little sleep? And that was actually quite high. So I guess what I was trying to prove to myself analytically was that I could actually function well without sleep. And the combination of those two things eventually turned into internal conviction that I don't actually need to be afraid of my sleep. My body will do whatever it wants to do. And then after a few months, it it went back to normal.

Jackie Baxter 14:28

Right. So it was almost like you took the pressure off yourself. Yeah, that's right. And by taking that pressure off, your nervous system was actually able to go, oh, okay, well, there's no danger. I can go to sleep, I can let go.

Nora Rodden 14:46

Exactly. And I did a very, very similar thing when it came to my um GI symptoms. That one I would say took the longest to fully recover. I feel like I had a lot to work through, especially around just being a woman and like the vanity of wanting a, you know, a flat stomach and all of that societal pressure. And I had had some struggles with disordered eating in my past. So I think that one, like, there was a lot more emotional weight there when it came to my GI symptoms. But I will just say that I did go through a very similar journey. There is a uh there was a book I read that's not rooted in neuroplastic science whatsoever. Um, it's called The Fit Diet. And I read it at the time, and it was kind of just like a funny uh short book about this woman who um was constantly cycling through diets, and she basically decided one day, eff it. Like, I am just gonna eat whatever I want to basically try to calm my hunger because she was just perpetually hungry no matter what. And I read that book and I got inspired. And so I did that. I basically was like, you know what? I'm going to teach my brain that it can eat whatever it wants and that it's not necessarily going to cause bloating or GI symptoms. And again, I was going to use my analytical brain to register, like, okay, you're clearly afraid of onions and garlic. Um, if you've ever had a digestive issue, like usually the advice is you have to restrict FODMAPs, which are this group of very delicious foods like onion and garlic. So I had naturally become afraid of onion and garlic. And I noticed that sometimes I would get bloated, but sometimes I wouldn't. And so that inconsistency of the pattern was very effective for me. And maybe that won't work for everybody. That's that's why I think a lot of this treatment is so unfortunately vague. And it's quite frankly why I built Nirvana was because I wanted to demystify it. Because everyone's journey is different. Everyone will appeal to a different um set of structures or protocols that will resonate more or less with them.

Practical Steps To Ease Insomnia

Jackie Baxter 17:14

Yeah, I I think you're right. And you know, it's it's what makes my job, you know, the most rewarding and interesting ever, because everyone is different. Everyone comes along with obviously there are a lot of themes, but everyone's, you know, symptoms, everyone's history, everyone's goals, what they want to be doing, what's important to them, it's all different, and therefore their route through and you know the strategies that are gonna relate, you know, resonate with each different person are gonna be slightly different. And it is, you know, it's it's really interesting and beautiful because we are all different, but it also makes it super frustrating when you're trying to recover because you're like, oh, okay, well, I heard this person's story and they did this and this and this. Brilliant. I'm gonna try that, and you'll set out on this kind of journey where you're trying to do this person's blueprint, and like it's probably not going to work because you are not that person. Um, and you know, I I think that's why it's really great that we often hear someone's recovery story that we maybe relate quite a lot to, because that's a great starting point. You think, okay, well, you know, that person I have a lot in common with, so maybe it's worth exploring some of the things that they talk about, but you're never gonna be exactly the same things in exactly the same way, which is you know, it is it's really frustrating sometimes when you feel like you're trying to do everything right, but you're not seeing the results that you want to, and then it's almost like the more we want to see those results, the more frustrated we get, and actually sometimes the worse it feels because we're just kind of like running at a wall straight, you know, over and over and over, aren't we? With that kind of you know, almost trying too hard. But I mean, how can you not? Because you want to put everything you can into it because it's your life, and um I I don't know if you've got any kind of thoughts on how you approach that or how you would um help other people approach that.

Reframing GI Triggers And Food Fear

Nora Rodden 19:37

Yeah. Yeah, no, I I I I do. I think like recovering from the pain and the insomnia and the GI symptoms really led me down this path in my life that was transformative beyond just physical symptoms. I started to get a lot more interested in this underlying nervous system and like how our mind affects everything. And I became an avid meditator and I'm also a yoga teacher, and like it really just enriched my life. And I felt like for the first time I really understood myself. Like I was just very, very lost, I think, before then. And so for me, this is more than just, you know, oh, you'll just recover from a chronic symptom and then you'll go back to your regular life. It's really about like understanding who you are and how your brain and your mind and your thoughts, how that can all influence your body, and that the healthcare system has a warped view of, you know, how we treat disease or injury and like there is an alternative view that, or it can be an even in conjunction, you know, to treat the emotional and the psychological alongside the physical. And I think like what really helped me is learning about the evolutionary nature of humankind, um, if that makes sense. So because I was a, you know, studied biology and had a biotech background, like I'm very science-driven. And I really struggled in my past with how to have compassion for myself or grace. Like I'm always very on, you know, type A, ambitious, want to be top of my class in school. Like that's how I am. Go, go, go. And what I realized after learning about the evolutionary nature of humans and how we evolved to be dissatisfied, essentially. Like we evolved to constantly be seeking food and information and um tools and, you know, all of these things would help our survival. And just learning about like the cavemen days, I think that book, um, Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter was very helpful for me to really understand this. Um, but just learning about how like we evolved to run from tigers, and that system is in us today. We have not out-evolved that system. And that helped me have some more compassion for myself and helped me just realize that this is human nature, that we are just predisposed to like taking things really sensitively from our environment and storing them in our bodies, and then wanting to find a solution for our symptom and like desperately wanting like, but the desperation to want to feel better is what's causing a lot of the amplification of your symptoms. So it's this very like confusing paradox. And I think the way that I just like think about it in general is if you're someone who had poor sleep one night that week, but you don't have a history of insomnia, sure, you should track your sleep to try to learn more about yourself. You should optimize your sleep hygiene. That's great. No one's saying don't try to fix anything. But when something becomes chronic and you've already gone to your medical team and like they can't really figure out like there's not something wrong physically with you, and you're just suffering, then I would encourage people to start looking inwards and to stop the chase and really just focus on well, why am I chasing in the first place?

Jackie Baxter 23:26

Yeah, that's really interesting. Why am I chasing in the first place? Because I think like I mean, I I find myself doing this, you know. I I have a problem with boredom. Like I cannot be bored if I feel like I've finished my to-do list for the day. I will start inventing tasks that don't need doing, or I will start on like next week's tasks, or I'll come up with things, or I'll, you know, I'll be so desperately seeking something to do because I cannot countenance that feeling of being bored, because being bored means I have to feel my feelings, and I don't want to do that because they're big and scary. And like you know, I still catch myself doing it, but when I then do catch myself, it's like, oh, you're doing the thing again. But like you know, I think so many of us have that kind of you know, that need to achieve and that need to keep doing and that need to keep pushing, and you know, I mean, the reasons for that probably go back a long way to when we were a lot younger, and that's probably a a discussion that's too big for today. But it's it's like when you suddenly start asking yourself those questions, why why are you doing that? Oh, well, because it's what I've always done. Um, but just because it's what you've always done doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good thing. Um, and that doesn't necessarily mean you need to let all of it go either. But I think you know, I'm big on awareness. I think it's when we start being aware of things that we're doing, and then we can start to make choices about them, whether it's something that we want to be doing or that we don't want to be doing. But if we don't have that awareness, then it's not a choice, it's just a thing that we do. Um, and it sounds like you kind of had that kind of revelation as well, where you started noticing that and going, Oh, that's interesting. I'm not sure I want to do that. Um, but it sounds like you also very much had that kind of um you're kind of quite strong in that analytical brain, that thinking brain. And I definitely find myself getting caught there and have to remind myself to stop thinking and start feeling. And I think that's something that a lot of us have got stuck in, that kind of, yeah, that left thinking brain, which is very important, keeps us alive, it's really great, but we don't want to be there all the time.

Personalised Paths And Frustration

Nora Rodden 26:27

Yeah, no, I I really resonate with the the concept of the awareness because I sometimes it's very simple for me to tell my story in in these chapters of like, you know, everything started when I was hit by a car. But in reality, when I actually look back at my life, I'm like, hmm, well, even before I was hit by a car, I had uh a chapter of my life where I actually had very bad, like chronic acne as a as an adult, where you know, it was well past puberty. And, you know, I shouldn't really have been struggling with acne for that long, but I had like a really bad period. And I I never thought about that as neuroplastic or anything like that. But I also know that I was going through a very stressful period in my life. And, you know, then I think about before that, even I had been a chronic nail biter my entire childhood. And I'm not just talking like biting my nails, like shredding my cuticles. I was like constantly covered in band-aids and bleeding. And like you just start to think about these smaller things, and you're like, huh, you know, there's been evidence all along, my entire life, that my stress and my body and my emotional state were all connected. And, you know, we never, I never thought about that. I never understood that until much, even much later than I recovered from my back pain. It wasn't like overnight I had this light bulb, miraculous realization. It was, it was gradual. It was over the course of, you know, a few months and then and then even a few years. I remember like actually recovering from my back pain and my insomnia and feeling like I was recovered from my GI symptoms. And then a year goes by and I made a post on the online community and I was like, it's back. I'm feeling my GI symptoms again. You know, what should I do? Should I go reach for those herbs? You know, the brain just goes towards like, I need to fix this. And I think that's why like community is really important and um people supporting you and saying, you know, well, yes, but how you know, why don't you also journal about it? And and and I think that, you know, that's really helpful. And it at the end of the day, like it's easy for me to say I'm fully recovered, but it's a lifelong journey, you know. I mean, there there will be times where I will have a random pain and I will explore, you know, did I accidentally hurt myself or am I just really stressed out right now? And like, let me let me consider both of those as potential possibilities.

Jackie Baxter 29:10

So you're able to look at it as a kind of like, well, is there something structural here? Because it is important to rule things out. Um, but then once you have, okay, what what else might be going on? And is there something else to explore here? I mean, I suppose that's a very analytical view, isn't it? Where you're able to kind of rule one out before then moving on to the other. So it's almost like you're making your tendency to be quite analytical work for you.

Nervous System, Ambition And Compassion

Nora Rodden 29:42

Yeah, and I think you know what you said earlier about like needing to be in your body, it's funny because I'm a yoga teacher, and so I think a lot of people expect me to be like very in tune with my body, but I'm actually really bad at it. Like I'm I'm very analytical, and I think the way that I was able to heal from neuroplastic symptoms was through being analytical. Obviously, there's a component of breath work is really helpful, and and like bringing your nervous system down is important, but there are multiple ways to do that. And for me personally, I really resonated with expressive writing, like writing so, so, so fast, and not even trying my best to write faster than I was thinking was kind of a way for me to like hijack my analytical brain. So I was just like writing super fast, then my hand would start cramping, and you know, I was just kind of pouring things out of me. And that was almost a way for me to get more in touch with feeling rather than thinking, but it's not in the most common way of like I'm gonna, you know, feel into my body. I think I'm quite bad at doing that. I'm bad at like sitting down and just like feeling into my body. Um, I just find that quite challenging for me. So there are other, there are other ways to kind of hack it too, if one, if one way doesn't work for you.

Jackie Baxter 31:08

I use a lot of creativity and I always recommend people to try that, you know. I mean, some people like writing like you did. Um, but you know, a lot of people like to paint or draw, or you know, they do it through poetry, or you know, there's so many different ways to do it. And I think it's finding the way that works best for you. And, you know, you might find one that works straight away, or you might have to try a few different things, or maybe you even use a bit of both. Um, I mean, I I did use some journaling during my recovery, but it was something that I found really helpful when I had a really big, powerful emotion come up, and it was a really great way of handling that, but I didn't find it that helpful to do every day. Um, whereas I know some people, you know, were almost like obsessive journalists, like every day, and it was a much bigger part of their recovery. So I guess it's like you were saying, you know, it's like everyone is slightly different, and it's using those tools in the right way at the right time for you as an individual, isn't it? Rather than as someone else's pre-prescribed blueprint, because that's just not gonna work. Um yeah. Now I love you've mentioned the um the clinical trial that you were a part of. Um we kind of skipped over that a little bit. And would you mind just saying a little bit about what that involved? Because I think, did you say that was something that you found really helpful for the back pain? And you then used a lot of those techniques to help you with the other things after that. I think that was what you said.

Nora Rodden 32:47

Yeah, no, that that clinical trial was really my entry point to this whole world. Um, and you know, it's been a few years, so I might not be very accurately uh reflecting what exactly happened in the protocol, but it is published. The clinical trial results are published, and there are, you know, methodologies that you can look through if you're curious. Um, it's called psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy. It was a pilot study in back pain. The results were incredible. 66% of people in that clinical trial were completely pain-free after a few months of that treatment compared to, I think the placebo group was like 10% or something like that. And they also had an arm comparing to mindfulness, and the and the mindfulness was substantially worse outcomes than um the psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy, which just shows you that neuroplastic recovery is very different than just mindfulness. Um, it really goes deep into retraining. And so, really, what we did as a participant in that trial was you know, lots of education. So I think we were in like a group setting. I had one other, and it was a very small study. So I was, it was one other individual in my group, and we just had virtual meetings, I think a few times a week, where maybe it was an hour a week, uh, each meeting. And I think we learned about um pain education. We learned about the mind-body connection. There were like slideshows and screenshots and case studies just trying to get us to reflect. We had a couple of exercises like somatic tracking and breath work to try to regulate our nervous system. And then we would just kind of have conversations. Um, and then writing, we were assigned certain writing prompts. We would end, I think, each session with writing. And that lasted a few, maybe a few months of that clinical trial. Um, and yeah, I remember we would get questionnaires every week or two. And I used to have like, I don't know, six out of 10 pain, seven out of 10 pain, and it would go down all the way to zero at the end.

Lifelong Patterns And Flare Management

Jackie Baxter 34:56

Which is quite significant to go to nothing.

Nora Rodden 35:01

Yes, it was really significant, but I also feel like, and this is kind of another paradox, but it was so significant that it was insignificant, meaning I sort of just returned to my life. Like it wasn't like, oh my gosh, I'm now recovered from chronic pain. I have to go tell the world. It was more just like after a few months, I was like, oh, you know what? My, you know, like I feel like I don't have to adjust my back anymore. Like I feel like I can cancel my upcoming steroid injection appointment with my pain clinic. And, you know, the next time I went on a flight, I noticed that I didn't ask my um partner to carry my luggage. I could do it myself. So there were just little things like that that I was realizing I think this worked. Like this actually worked. I don't have chronic pain anymore. Um, so I think that's important to note because sometimes when you tell the story, it almost sounds like it was this miraculous pill or something, but really it was just like a deepening of this understanding and a returning of me going back to my life.

Jackie Baxter 36:12

Yeah. So it's almost like you morphed back into life almost without really noticing. Exactly. Which is which is beautiful, right? You know, it's like when we we start being able to do more things and you know, you you sort of don't really notice. I mean, that sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Because how could you not notice? But it's almost like oh, you're doing the same things, but you're doing them with less discomfort, and you don't realize that you just did a whole load of things without feeling terrible until oh I just did the thing and I felt fine. Yes. Um, yes, you know, and it's it's almost like I love it when that happens because it's like it takes the pressure off. Yeah. And then, you know, you you notice that things have improved, but it's really hard often to see those improvements day to day. Whereas when you've had like a few weeks or even a little bit longer and you're able to go, oh, oh, that's cool. Um, which is really exciting, right? Right.

Nora Rodden 37:18

And that's what I mean, we put a lot of thought into the into like how do we want to measure progress in the Nirvana app. And that was that was challenging because I didn't want to ask every single day for people to rate their symptoms because you don't want them thinking about their symptoms every single day. But at the same time, if you don't track progress at all, then you know, you you don't realize, oh man, I, you know, my pain is gone. Um, and sometimes I like uh from the product perspective, sometimes I'll I'll see people not come back to the app the next day. And I hope that that's a good thing. You know, like I'm like, oh, okay, maybe they're not coming back because they're living their life, and that's actually good.

Jackie Baxter 38:02

It's a terrible business model, isn't it? Where you're like, actually, the way that you succeed is the way that people leave.

Inside The Clinical Trial

Nora Rodden 38:11

Right, right. It's like the the dating problem, the hinge or the Tinder app problem. You know, you find someone and then you end up deleting it. Um, no, I mean, unfortunately, I think this is a lifelong journey. I, you know, have been recovered for years and there are still vulnerable moments in my life where I reach for, you know, a pill or or a physical treatment for some sort of like headache or something like that. And it's really important to consistently retrain, like consistently have these kind of on-demand clinical trial like insights um available at all times. So yeah, I like I want people to get better, but the most important thing I want is for people to have this lifelong tool that they can they can leverage.

Jackie Baxter 39:04

Yeah. So it's like you, you know, you want to get better, but you want to stay better as well. And I think that was one of the things that I was really conscious of when I, you know, when I was like, oh, I'm better. This is great, this is awesome, everything's gonna be perfect from now on. And like, you know, it it is, you know, it is perfect because you know, life is amazing, but it's also like you know, life is stressful, things happen and things go wrong, and unexpected stressors come along, and like there's so many things that happen in life. And I think what I came to realize was that you know, recovery for me from long COVID, you know, was the end of one journey and the start of another. Right. And the the new journey was okay, well, you know, I want to stay well. And you know, in order to stay well, you have to, you know, it's like a car. You can't not maintain a car and expect it to keep running perfectly, as we found out a few weeks ago to our cost. Um, you know, you you don't maintain your car, it breaks down on you. Um, and I think, you know, we're kind of the same. You've got to keep that maintenance. So whether it's a breath practice or whether it's you know continuing to journal or you know, whatever your kind of thing is, it's like it's continuing to take care of ourselves. And those lessons that we learn in recovery are, I think certainly for me, the lessons that I will continue to take forward in my life, which will hopefully allow me to stay well. That's that's certainly the way I see it. And um, you know, in in that way, you know, you you you keep keep going, don't you? You keep those tools and you notice, you know, come back to awareness, you notice start stuff starting to bubble up before it becomes a really big deal, hopefully.

Nora Rodden 41:08

No, I think I mean success uh is simply uh having the capacity to notice when symptoms come up or when physical manifestations come up. Do you have the capacity to also think psychologically and mentally rather than just physically? Um, and that to me is what success is. Like that is really the the goal is not to have zero physical symptoms. We want physical symptoms. We want, you know, we we want to feel, you know, you get butterflies in your stomach when you're nervous. Like that's natural. We want that. It's helpful. Um, you want to get a pain signal when you're when you've touched something that's hot. Like you want these things. Sometimes it can go in overdrive, and having the capacity to see that is the success criteria here.

Jackie Baxter 42:05

Nora, thank you so much. Um, it's been amazing to hear your story. I will make sure that those things you've mentioned go into the show notes so anyone can check them out if they're interested. Um just as a one mini tiny final thing, what would your word of advice be to anyone who's still on their journey? Um, what we or what would you have wanted to know earlier on in your journey?

Quiet Improvements And Measuring Progress

Nora Rodden 42:33

I've never like vocalized this before, but I think I'd always had this like fear that with all of these different symptoms, that I was just born like unstable. Like everyone else seems to have this like stability inside of them, and I just didn't. And I was just at the whim of my physical symptoms and my mind and my general anxiety. That's just how I felt for the majority of my life. And I just hope that if anybody feels that way, that they can hear this and feel that it is possible to find that stability inside of yourself without anything external. Um, and as much as I, you know, would love for people to try my product, you you really you it's in you, like you can figure this out with you and yourself, and and any tools can be helpful along your way, but it's like within you. And I know that sounds a little cheesy, but um, it's something that I wish I knew.

Jackie Baxter 43:40

It feels empowering as well. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It's been so much fun chatting to you and hearing your story. So thank you so much.

Nora Rodden 43:51

Thank you for having me.