Regulate & Rewire: An Anxiety & Depression Podcast

What Blood, Breath, and Belonging Have to do With Healing

January 16, 2024 Amanda Armstrong Season 1 Episode 47
Regulate & Rewire: An Anxiety & Depression Podcast
What Blood, Breath, and Belonging Have to do With Healing
Show Notes Transcript

EPISODE 47

Do you feel like you've been chasing healing for so long and falling short? It might be that one of these pieces is missing. Let's talk about some pitfalls in mainstream mental health support and the role that bloodwork, breath, and belonging might have in your healing. I'll also peel pack the curtain on a new program we're currently developing that'll help bring a true, physiology first approach to healing anxiety & depression. Hit play for more!

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3 tangible take aways:

  1. Order bloodwork:  As I firm up some of the RESET programs process with our nurse practitioner I’ll be happy to share with you an exact script/list of tests to take to your doctor and request - I wish I had that for you now, but if nothing else I just want to put on your radar that blood testing has a huge role to place in healing anxiety & depression.
  2. Pay attention to your HRV on your apple watch or Oura ring - I’m an Oura ring wearer and absolutely love it for a million reasons I’ll share in another episode. But HRV is an accurate measure for overall nervous system health. As you engage in certain changes like breathwork, trying to get more sleep, etc… watch to see how that influence your HRV overtime.
  3. If you feel like you’ve been trying so hard to heal for so long and falling short, it’s likely that the system is falling short not you. I want to offer a heartfelt invitation to join us at the entry point that’s the best fit for you financially or support wise.

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Website: https://www.riseaswe.com/podcast

Email: amanda@riseaswe.com

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0:00  
Welcome to regulate, and rewire and anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong. And I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now let's dive in.

0:27  
Hey, friends, welcome back, I am fired up for our conversation today. I also have been getting a lot a lot a lot of questions in the past couple of weeks about our coaching programs, how to know which one is the right fit for you. So just a heads up that at the end of today's chat, I am going to share with you a little bit about our two current coaching programs and spill the beans on a new program that we are developing that I am so so beyond excited about. And even if you are somebody listening who knows that you are not interested in working with us, I still want to encourage you to listen through to the end of today's conversation anyways, because number one, me sharing how we at races we help people heal might give you ideas for your own healing journey, whether you choose to work with us or not. And number two, because as always, I am going to boil today's conversation down into three actionable takeaways at the end. 

1:31  
Now what I want to get into, in today's conversation is to discuss what blood breadth and belonging have to do with healing anxiety and depression. Now one of the phrases I often use to explain to other people how I help people heal is that I and my team, we support them in creating a strategic path towards healing. So strategic healing being the key phrase here that a lot of our conversation today is going to come back around to. Now, some time later, sometimes towards the end of last year, I don't exactly remember when I was part of a conversation with other mental health practitioners about how frustrating it is and just how long it often takes people struggling with depression to find the right treatment or path towards healing. And our conversation went on to talk about how despite what you might think, or what we may have been led to believe in earlier training, how the research actually doesn't point towards any singular cause for depression. The research doesn't tell us what causes depression. And it's most likely because what causes depression is different for each individual. And I would go in our conversation to say to say that what causes anxiety is often different for each individual as well. And that's why in my opinion, understanding anxiety and depression through this nervous system lens. 

3:09  
Why it's so so valuable is because all of that is considered when we understand anxiety and depression to be natural physiological responses, right when we radically abandon the narrative that it's just this innate brokenness in us and instead adopt this narrative of, well, my symptoms must make sense. Anxiety and depression is a natural physiological response to assist them in survival mode anxiety, is that warning depression is that shutdown. And when we understand it this way, it makes space for this exploration, it encourages you to ask those questions of well, then what might be contributing to the threat load on my system? What might be putting me in survival mode, and it's an understanding that unique mix of things for you, that will point you towards the most helpful path towards healing, because our nervous system is constantly assessing for safety or threat. Inside outside and in between? It is assessing inside, am I fed enough? Are my hormones balanced? What is going on inside? How's my gut health? And does that feel more safe than threatening? It's looking outside and saying, Okay, what are my environments? Like? What's my home life? What's my work environment? how safe do I feel in my community in the world at large? And then in between us? relationally? Do I have safe relationships in my life? Do they feel playful? 

4:39  
And when our nervous system senses more stress than safety, we enter a state of survival mode. And when we spend a long time living in a world or in a way where our system has more danger cues and safety cues, it can lead to chronic stress, chronic anxiety and chronic depression, and being able to assess what all of those things are uniquely for each person is so, so critical for strategic healing. Because here's the thing, there is no amount of talk therapy that will minimize anxiety symptoms caused by a lack of sleep, or a hormone imbalance. And there's no right medication that will ever get to the root and heal depression that's caused by isolation or trauma or nutrient deficiency. And far too often, doctors are writing prescriptions before they're ordering blood tests. And therapists might dig into trauma without considering that part of the symptoms that are manifesting are because of an underlying physiological or health concern. 

5:42  
So an example or I'll share two examples of this. Recently, I was having a conversation with a past client about this, and she expressed her getting her celiacs diagnosis for those of you who don't know what that is. celiacs is a gluten intolerance, how that diagnosis was a major turning point for her and healing anxiety. Because now that she understands anxiety through this nervous system lens, what she realizes is that she was unknowingly adding a stress load to her internal system every single time that she would eat gluten. And so once that internal stressor was eliminated, it opened up a lot of capacity for her to do the other healing work. And another client said that the biggest difference for her in the work that she did in our restore program, that's our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program, was exactly what we just kind of talked about. What she said was so helpful was that exploration into all of the things that might be putting load on her system, what I've often shared with you is that stress bucket exercise, Hey, okay, let's look at it all. Let's look at past experiences. Let's look at daily lifestyle habits, environments, you spend a lot of time in unpack relationships, let's discuss underlying health conditions, past injuries. We've even talked about the potential of her getting a blood test just to see if there was anything that we could see there. And we'll talk again more about that in a few minutes here. And she expressed to us just how beneficial that was, instead of talking about her childhood for the 400 and 11th time in the last seven years that she had been in active therapy, because when it comes to anxiety and depression, the same symptoms often have very different root causes. And almost always there is some element of stress load coming from inside, outside and in between, internally, externally and relationally. We believe in starting with physiology first, because it is measurable, it is pretty easily altered when you have the right information. And it doesn't matter how much you declutter your environment, how great you get at setting boundaries in your relationships. If you are still receiving messages of deficiency, of depletion of hormone imbalance of funky gut health, internally, there's still going to be symptoms that we label as anxiety or depression trying to get your attention to address those things. 

8:26  
So why Rise As We is at the forefront of mental wellness is because we are committed to dismantling this outdated model were enough to check boxes, label you with a generic diagnosis. And instead, we tackle health with a integrative forward thinking data driven approach that goes well beyond just symptom management. And instead into helping you get really, really clear in finding strategic and personalized solutions, solutions that incorporate quantifiable health data as well as lifestyle changes, and also that deep inner work that needs to be done alongside a trauma informed practitioner. I just think it's so so silly that far too often, we are skipping this, this exploration phase. 

9:16  
Now imagine this and this is going to be a pretty silly example, but it will illustrate my point. Imagine if I noticed my dog seemed really down and I took him to the vet because he just wasn't being himself. Maybe he was a little depressed. The number one thing that bet is going to do is to order bloodwork because of course let's see if there's anything measurably wrong inside any red flags and physiology that might be slowing down my dog are overwhelming his system. It feels like the obvious and logical place to start. Why that appears to be less obvious or common practice as a place to start when humans present with anxiety or depression baffles me but more on that in a bit. Moving on from bloodwork V that will likely He asked me what his daily life looks like. And imagine my response is something like he wakes up in the morning and the first thing he does is scroll through a bunch of other dogs highlight reels. While knowing he rarely gets outside each Ultra processed food doesn't have a lot of time with other dogs, the people around him are too busy to play. On top of that, he dyes his hair monthly wears perfumes daily with chemicals that are known to be hormone disruptors. And imagine that my he dog was a sheepdog taking daily pills to manipulate her biological menstrual cycle. And oh, yeah, by the way, he hates brooms, but we sweep our house daily, which isn't great for him exposes him to that trigger on a regular basis. But right like I could go on and on hearing this, like, this sounds criminal, no dog wants to live this life, that vet is going to look at me like I'm insane. And it's going to be so so obvious why my dog is depressed. Because there is nothing about his daily life that nurtures his nature as a dog, we would look at the story. And obviously, his symptoms make sense. And that's the same hill that I and all of my practitioners practice from every single day is this knowing that when we can peel back enough of the layers that your symptoms make sense to. 

11:23  
And when I say that we take a whole human whole life approach to healing at Rise As We this is what I'm talking about. We support our clients in first understanding the physiology, understanding what makes them human, how their brain and nervous system work, the things that are biologically imperative. We look at and explain to them how when those dailys go unmet, what is the impact of that we help them look at their everyday life reflect on their past. And once we have collected enough of the pieces, then together, we help them create a personalized and strategic path towards healing. One that considers at all or at least puts placeholders for all these pieces. And then to make it practical to make it actionable. So we're not just sitting across from one another, talking about ideas. We take that plan and we break it into small steps that meet them where they are in this current season of their life with their current capacity, and take one small step at a time. But it's these personalized and strategic small steps over time that change everything. 

12:43  
And another example of this is many of you are familiar with my story. Over the course of a year, I had four miscarriages, and then I went right into IVF. And I now have a beautiful second baby boy. But I know that that took a toll on my body. And I know there was internal depletion. And I could have just guessed at what supplements to take, I could have guessed at you know, just taking a generic multivitamin. But it was really important to me that I dialed in my internal health because I do I want to get pregnant one more time, we want one more baby. And I want to do that from a place of physiological optimization and not depletion. And so I'm currently working with a naturopath who is so proactive and so supportive in helping me assess my labs, put all of those pieces together, consider both lifestyle habits. I'm on a very, very personalized supplementation routine, to meet the deficiencies that are unique to my system. And the lifestyle suggestions that she's making for me take into consideration the fact that a month ago I didn't have childcare. So I was full time, business full time mom all the time, every time. And that personalization is so so valuable. This exploration of all these contributing factors are so valuable and that is going to come back into our conversation in a minute about blood breath and belonging.

14:15  
Because how many of you listening right now, how many of you have gone to a doctor or psychiatrist checked enough boxes to get labeled with anxiety or depression and then sent on your merry way with a generic solution? And I know a lot of you are nodding your head because that was my story. Doctors gave me meds before ever asking about my sleep. My stress my sense of belonging and therapist asked me about my past 100 times before ever asking about my present or considering that there may be some underlying physiological condition which there was and they often made really generic suggestions like Well, maybe you should get more sleep or manage your stress. better without ever getting into the how in a personalized way. If you have ever, this is going to be a bold statement. If you have ever gone to a doctor for anxiety or depression, and been prescribed medication before a blood test, they were operating more like a drug dealer than a doctor. And I know that sounds harsh, I know that may ruffle some feathers. And I still believe it to be true, because number one, you deserve better support, I deserved better support more comprehensive support. And number two is we know the research the recent research, we know too much now for that generic approach to be appropriate for anxiety and depression. And Did you know Did you know that it takes an average of 17 years 17 years before new research findings become clinical practice? That's too long.

16:03  
And what I need to clarify is that this is not a hit piece on doctors or therapists. Let me make that crystal clear. The vast majority are wonderful, caring practitioners, helping humans the way that they were trained to do. And they operate in a system that is not agile enough to support mental health in in a way that more modern research shows us. It needs to be done. And if you are a doctor or a therapist listening to this podcast, because I know there are many, many of you who do, I've heard from many, many of you please please, please consider the conversation that I'm having in today's episodes in working with your patients or clients. Therapists consider that if you've been talking about the same things over and over and over and over again, it might not be a new angle, it might be time that they get a blood test to see if there are underlying physiological conditions. And doctors, please, please provide individuals with their personal health data order the blood test, I cannot tell you actually I can tell you at least 15 At least 15 of my clients in the last couple years. In our work together, I've said hey, I think it could be really helpful for you to get some some basic bloodwork done. At the doctor, here are some tests that a nurse practitioner friend recommends just to get a baseline panel. And their doctors have told them no. Their doctors have told them no, it should be standard practice. If you are going to see a doctor for anxiety or depression, that bloodwork is done, that hormone levels are looked at that gut health is assessed. Because we know that every single one of those can lead to symptoms that we label as anxiety or depression. And so in whatever way you can advocate for yourself, and doctors, please don't make that hard for them to get access to. 

18:15  
So this is all really just given a preface for the conversation that I want to have, which is the role that blood ref and belonging can play in healing anxiety and depression. And there are a lot of other pieces that we support clients and things you've heard me talk about before, right Bed Breakfast breath, I obviously am really into a lot of these words that start with a B. But today, I want to just bring your attention to these three elements that I think are oftentimes missed by either traditional talk therapists or by doctors, places where usually you go for support first when you're struggling with anxiety or depression. 

19:02  
So giving the context one more time that the same symptoms often have very different root causes. What causes anxiety and depression, the symptoms happen when our body is in survival mode when our nervous system is dysregulated. And it gets dysregulated when it has more signals of danger than safety. And it collects all of these signals internally, externally, and relationally. Inside, outside and in between. So blood blood work. If I were to go back and start my healing journey all over again, the very first thing I would do is to get comprehensive bloodwork done. I would want to look at my hormone levels, my morning cortisol, my nutrient levels, my thyroid panel, different markers. If I had a hunch that maybe there was some kind of intoreance, like my client who had the celiac disease. What does it look like to assess that to assess my gut health? Because low estrogen or low progesterone often looks like anxiety, intense nutrient depletion or not even simply not eating enough calories is going to put our system in a state of survival mode. So I would want to know, are my vitamin B or D or magnesium levels? So so low? Is that depletion creating a physiological depression inside my body? Are there liver markers that feel alarming? Does my morning cortisol look really high? Okay, that's indicative of anxiety. Are my morning cortisol levels too low? Well, that's indicative of a physiological depression. bloodwork and or gut health assessments can tell you so much about the threat load your nervous system might be receiving from inside your body. 

20:59  
And again, I am just constantly baffled at how often I hear about people requesting bloodwork. And having that request denied. If you are struggling with anxiety, or depression, that should automatically qualify you for comprehensive blood hormone testing. And in whatever way you can, I want to encourage you to look into that. And I would go as far to say that when possible, to have those labs assessed with a functional medicine doctor or naturopath who isn't just going to say like, oh, look, you're within normal range. But oftentimes goes that extra mile to look at all of those different numbers as they correlate to each other to say, Ooh, when you have high this, but low this, even though you're in with within a, quote normal range, also, I will say that the normal ranges are based on data predominantly done on white men, and not necessarily the healthiest demographic, so and with being within a normal range, may still pull some red flags for people who are looking at your bloodwork in a really comprehensive way understanding your unique demographic. But getting that done, and even just seeing if there are any major red flags that say, oh, okay, here is something to take into consideration, there is a deficiency, there is a hormone imbalance, there is this thing that can be addressed in a really, really specific way to help reset your system. And in a few minutes, spoiler alert, this has to do with that third program that we are developing, I am going to talk to you about how we at Rise As We want to support you in not only getting access to your own bloodwork and personal health data, but then what it looks like to optimize it and put healing and resetting your system into action in a really tangible and personalized way. 

23:00  
Now, the second thing I want to put on your radar on your healing journey is your breath. This is not the first time we've talked about this on this podcast, and we will talk about it in great depth in future episodes. But breath is our nervous systems love language. When we have dysfunctional breathing, dysfunctional breathing, being short, shallow chest breaths, mouth breathing, if you find yourself often holding your breath, this is adding stress load to your system. Every Breath You Take communicates to your autonomic nervous system, are we more safe or less safe right now. And we know that deep slow breaths stimulate something called your vagus nerve. And for those of you who don't know, last year, I wrote an entire book on the vagus nerve. It's titled: Healing Through the Vagus Nerve. And it's available for preorder right now. So I'll drop a link in the show notes. And I would be ever, ever, ever so grateful. If you could spend $23 to preorder my book, it comes out in May, but pre orders are really, really important for first time authors. So there's kind of a shameless plug there. Please, please, please head to Amazon, order my book Healing Through the Vagus Nerve.

24:14  
But when it comes to the way that we breathe, it either contributes to higher vagal tone, which is good, we want that or when we have dysfunctional daily breathing patterns, we decrease our vagal tone and we can measure our vagal tone through something called heart rate variability and I know I'm in the weeds a little bit right now. But why I think this is so awesome to know is because most of you, again are wearing either a whip band or an Apple watch or you're an aura ring that's giving you personal health data. It tells you about your blood oxygenation levels, it is going to spit you out and tell you what your heart rate variability is heart rate variability is one of the most accurate measures for overall nervous system function overall vagal tone and Let's say you set a goal, you're looking at a lifestyle approach to healing and you know that you are getting suboptimal sleep, you aren't getting maybe six hours of sleep a night. And you look at your heart rate variability score today, and you say, Okay, for the next six weeks, I am going to singularly focus on getting closer to seven to eight hours asleep at night. And maybe you change nothing else about your life, but you really dial in getting sleep, I can almost guarantee your heart rate variability is going to improve. Or let's say you're like, I am going to get really into breathwork, I am going to do some formal breathwork practices every single day. Throughout the day, I'm gonna try to be more aware of my breath, taking deeper, slower, more diaphragmatic breaths, every single breath activates my vagus nerve, I guarantee you focus on that for a few weeks, your heart rate variability is going to improve. 

25:52  
And this is what I mean when I say understanding your personal health data, how to use it to motivate positive behavior change, but also how to use it to assess whether the things that you're doing are helpful or not. And healing your nervous system is so critically important. Again, something that we're going to help you do in this program that we're developing, and how to train your breath, and how to train with your breath when you are exercising, that adds stress load to your system and the way that you breathe, learning how to breathe optimally when you exercise. All of this, all of this everything from intentional breathwork sessions, to just how you breathe throughout the day, to how you breathe when you exercise, can pay dividends and have huge ripple effects in your overall stress load. Translating to increased or decreased anxiety or depression symptoms. And understanding your breath mechanics as a person healing can be so helpful. This is why that education is at the heart of Rise As We. 

26:57  
But also if you're a practitioner who's ever told somebody to take a deep breath, you should probably understand the mechanics of breath. Understanding why when they breathe a certain way it helps to calm them. Or did you know that you can also use breath to help somebody come out of states of disconnection or dissociation we can help to alive in their system as well. So breath just has such an integral place in this conversation of healing anxiety and depression. And like I said, future episodes are going to get into the nerdy science and into the weeds around breath. But I want to put it on your radar today. Because I don't know that that's part of the mainstream conversation. 

27:37  
And the third "B" that I want to talk about today is belonging. Belonging is a biological imperative. Do you feel a sense of belonging in your family, with your partner, your friend group, within community at large? And if you don't feel like you belong, that is also a constant threat signal. And so what can you do to encourage that? What can you do to cultivate more of that, and oftentimes that starts with a safe therapeutic relationship. But it has to go beyond that and into the roots of your daily life. And so that is hopefully, something to consider in your own healing journey around bloodwork breath, belonging, a strategic approach to healing means that we want to consider all of the pieces, lay them out in front. And then look at that and assess and ask yourself, what do I have the current capacity to take on? Or what piece of this do I feel like would have the biggest impact and what support do I need to move forward in really tackling that stressor? And for me, I would want to start with the physiology pieces first because our physiology drives our psychology. And when the threat load inside, has decreased because of lifestyle adjustments, proper supplementation, diet changes, whatever it might be. It's when that threat load inside has decreased, that our capacity increases to take on maybe the bigger trauma pieces, limiting beliefs, other lifestyle changes in a way that doesn't overwhelm our system as much. There's more room in our stress bucket to take on that work when we have addressed our body's physiology. 

29:35  
And so like I prefaced I want to answer the question of how we how do we at Rise As We do this and we do this with three core offerings two that are currently in place and one on the way. The first one I'll tell you about is RISE. This is a mental health membership and nervous system healing space and it has been so amazing to already see a lot of you podcast listeners coming in and joining us in that space from our personal they support. And there you're gonna find an education course weekly coaching calls community events, guided regulation practices, lifestyle change support, this is such an incredible place to not only set you on a more strategic path towards healing, and nervous system regulation. But you are wrapped up in this amazing community that wants to take each and every one of those steps with you. Then we have Restore, Restore is our 16 Week One on One anxiety and depression coaching program where upon finishing that program, you actually get lifetime access to our RISE membership, there's no timeline put on your healing. And what makes Restore such an amazing place to start, is that for four months, you get to work one on one with a coach, I often explain that you kind of get to put blinders on to other people and their healing needs to really focus on you. And putting all of the pieces that we've talked about in today's conversation out on the table. This gets you from A to G in your healing journey so much quicker with that level of strategic and personalized support. And then afterwards, you get to dive into that community peace with the Rise Membership to then enhance that sense of belonging, and our Restore program. Actually, the last six months, we've worked on this incredible revision and upgrade for that program. 

31:30  
And what might be helpful to know is a lot of the people we work through in that program come to us with a similar story of I feel like I've tried everything, and this might be the missing piece, our clients see an average symptom reduction of 38% in those four months, that's huge. And it's because you learn to work with your mind body system. And when it comes to our current programs: Rise and Restore; Rise can be an amazingly supportive place to start as well. It just asks a little bit more from you in terms of initiative taking in navigating the contents and applying in a personalized way where Restore is really, really guided and supported. So if you are somebody who is currently craving a new way of healing, and getting personalized support and applying this nervous system approach to healing anxiety and depression, I would love for you to join us in one of those programs, whichever feels like a better fit for you. And I'll drop a link for both of them for Rise, you can jump in and join us today. And a link to book a consult call if Restore feels like a better fit a better starting point for you where we can talk and I can get your questions answered to see if this is the right next step for your healing. 

32:50  
And I want to just add one more quick thought before I peel the curtain back drumroll and announced the program we're developing. I talk about a refer to my coaching often in this podcast. And my hope is that it always feels like a really heartfelt invitation versus some sales bit. And I just want to make it really clear. So please know that if you ever reach out about coaching, by sending me a question via email, a DM on Instagram or by booking one of these discovery or console calls, my promise to you is that you will be met with compassion that you will never feel pressured. It will not feel salesy, and you will be talking directly to me, not some sales team. I want to hear your story. I want to feel your frustration. I also want to help you evoke a greater hope for healing. And I want to answer your questions. So if it feels like a good fit, then let's talk and my promise is that if it isn't a good fit, I might be able to help point you into a different direction for your next step. 

34:01  
Now, what is coming next is so exciting and it really completes our whole human whole life approach. And I think I'm going to call this program Reset. You can tell I really liked my alliterations like my R words. And this will be a program where you are supported in ordering and interpreting labs in doing detailed lifestyle assessments to really help you pop the hood and see what's going on inside and zoom out to consider all of the things that might be contributing to nervous system dysregulation. And I believe there are so many people out there so many of you listening that can heal without ever talking about that awful thing that happened to you 10 years ago ever again, because physiology has been such a neglected piece in mainstream mental health support. If you feel like you have tried everything. My guess is that the nervous system maybe bloodwork taking a really good luck at understanding your physiology and working with it just might be the missing piece. Personal health data is becoming more and more accessible. And this is really exciting. And we want to be on the forefront of leveraging that to help you heal in personalized ways. Because waiting 17 years for this research to become standard practice is just, it's too long. And so with this new program, we will be bringing on a nurse practitioner, and a behavior change specialist to not only help you assess all of that information, but then to help you figure out exactly what to do with it to decrease that stress load on your nervous system to decrease the stress physiology that we often label or significantly can contribute to anxiety and depression. So I know we are super, super excited about this. We've been talking about this with our Rise Members for a while now. And if this sounds exciting for you, I would love for you to join us because this is where we're going. A true 21st century mental health approach to support a 21st century mental health problem. And I would love love love for you to be a part of it. 

36:12  
All right now for our three tangible takeaways. Because whether you choose to join me inside races we or not, I want you to be able to take what you have heard today and put it into action in your life. 

36:26  
Number one is an encouragement to get bloodwork done. And if you can save up to have them assessed by a functional medicine doctor or naturopath, I think that you are likely to get more than a simple like, Yep, you're within normal range. But anyway, you can try to get that data. And as I firmed up some more of the details about our reset program process with our nurse practitioner, I will be happy to share with you a list or even an exact script of what to take to your doctor, what blood tests to order, and how to advocate for yourself and getting those results. I wish I had that for you now. But if nothing else, I just want to put on your radar that blood testing has a huge role to play in potentially healing your anxiety and depression. 

37:15  
Number two is to be curious about and pay attention to specifically your heart rate variability on your Apple Watch or an aura ring. I have an aura ring where and I absolutely love it for a million reasons that I'll share in another episode. But heart rate variability is an accurate measure of overall nervous system health. And as you engage in certain changes, like breath work trying to get more sleep. Get curious and see how that might influence your heart rate variability over time. 

37:45  
And number three, is that if you feel like you have been trying so hard to heal for so long and falling short, I just want to remind you that it is the system falling short and not you. I want to offer a heartfelt invitation to join us at whatever entry point program that is the best fit for you financially or support wise. With our sliding scale, you can access the membership and over I think it's like eight hours of live personalized coaching for as little as $47 a month. And because coaches can't accept insurance, I am currently finalizing some really creative financing options for restore our one on one coaching program. So if you've previously thought maybe that was financially out of reach for you, please reach back out because I am doing everything I can to make that as accessible of a starting point for people as well. 

38:39  
And just thank you for being here, friend. Thank you for showing up week after week after week to take a proactive role in healing mental health. I hope that with each conversation we have, there's at least one small nugget that you can pull out and apply in a personalized way. And like usual, I will drop the links in the show notes. The link to preorder my book to join us inside rise or to set up that console call and explore restore and if that's going to be a better fit for you. Because I would love to offer some personalized support for any of you inside our programs. And until next week, friends sending you so much hope and healing. 

39:17  
Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside Rhys, my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here. And I'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai