The Fearless Warrior Podcast

116: How to Tell if She's Burned Out, What Pain Signals in the Brain with Dr. Nicole Woodard

• Amanda Schaefer

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For today's episode, Dr. Nicole Woodard, founder of the Symptom Whisperer and physical therapist, and I explore how pain often acts as a protective signal and why many “orthopedic” problems start in the brain. She delves into the integration of science and somatics and offers practical advice for athletes and their families, stressing the importance of rest, proper training, and holistic care.

Episode Highlights:

• Brain-first rehab transforming re-injury risk
• Anchor points and athlete language for buy-in
• Sleep, travel, and nutrition as performance levers
• Fail fast with support and shared standards

Connect with Dr. Nicole:

IG: @symptomwhisperer

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-woodard-b11068196/

Website: https://www.symptomwhisperer.com/

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Fearless Warrior Podcast, a place for athletes, coaches, and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, Koch AB, a mental performance coach automation, former softball coach, wife, and mom of three. Each episode, we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools, and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode. Dr. Nicole Woodard, founder of The Symptom Whisperer, is a doctor of physical therapy and nervous system regulation expert who has supported more than 3,000 clients, including Olympians, high-performing entrepreneurs with advanced training in NLP, life coaching, functional strength, orthopedic specialization. She blends science and somatics to transform stress into success. She's also a mom of three, loves powerlifting and getting outside. I cannot wait for you to hear what she has to share today. Dr. Nicole, welcome to the pod. Hello.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to share.

SPEAKER_00:

We have been in circles. We've talked about this before we hit record, of like, we've been in the same circles of business owners and athletes and connectors. And so now we get to connect today. I would love for you to share a high-level view. Who is Dr. Nicole? Where is she at? What's she doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh man. Okay. So, well, I'm running around chasing three kids, which um is spends the majority of my life, honestly. And in business wise, I'm working. I actually just got home from an event. Um, so one of my biggest passions is connecting with people real life in person and really being able to see how we move forward after that. Because I think you can kind of just get this big like kaboom whenever you're in person. And as adults, we don't get a lot of that anymore. We're kind of in our own little silos. So that's what I've been really working on getting on more stages, talking to more people, sharing about my methodology and how it kind of came to be over time.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing. And so we were talking before we hit record, which is a common mistake that I make with all of our podcast guests. You're a doctor of physical therapy, and we were nerding out about your trajectory and your career path. You've gotten to work with some really cool clients. Can you kind of give us a behind the scenes of, okay, you we know where you are today. You're working with entrepreneurs and working on, you know, nervous system regulation, but what was the evolution and kind of walk through those stepping stones in your career?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so when I first started in my career, I thought that I was gonna want to specialize in spidal cord injuries, which I'm so glad that that's what I did my grad school education, because those of you guys that are unfamiliar with the medical system, the medical system likes to separate out the body. So if something happens and they think it's with your brain, they're gonna send you to neuro, which is kind of the brain specialty. But if something's happening with your elbow, they're gonna send you to orthopedics and elbow specialty. And they don't do a very good job of merging the in-between, but we're actually one whole human being. So I went on this deep dive study in graduate school over neuroscience, essentially. That was the thing I nerded out about. And what I realized was then as I got the opportunity, I got this opportunity to work in a division one university, and it was all sports. It was this amazing program. We were actually in there to support the athletic trainers, took care of the day to day today, keep them on the field. And we, as the physical therapists, we would take anyone that it's like, listen, they've had surgery, they need more intensity, or this is someone that I'm just literally chasing them all the time because they've got injury after injury after injury. Let's put a pause on this and let's go on a deep dive and see what's going on. Discovered something really interesting. Most of the people were presenting with an orthopedic, a bone, a joint, a muscle problem, but they actually had a brain problem. The things were not connecting, the pathways were not going back and forth the way they were supposed to. And so I started to realize I'm like, oh, all the spinal cord injury study that I did has actually been really helpful. And so I just started integrating that and growing it more and more and more and beginning to ask myself, can I get someone better faster? Can I refine these back to sport protocols better if I start incorporating neuroscience in the brain? And I really had some amazing cases. It's it's a scary thing. I'm sure a lot of athletes know this. I know parents are very aware of this and coaches, but the re-injury rate is over 50% within the first year after a major injury. And to me, I'm like, I was really unhappy with that. I'm like, I'm kind of a perfectionist, I'm recovering. But I'm like, so one in two of my people, I'm gonna send them back out to sports and they're gonna be back in here in a year. That is unacceptable to me. That is, this is a traumatic experience when someone gets hurt. They have to sit out, even for a game or for a season. And so I found that when I started incorporating the neuroscience, these people were only coming back to say, oh my gosh, like we won the World Series. Oh my gosh, we like um did this, or I got into college and I got this scholarship because I was able to play. That was the reason they were coming back to check in, not because they were hurt again. And that was game changer.

SPEAKER_00:

And so give us a behind-the-scenes look of pull back the curtain for us. What would like a day-to-day with a specific case look like?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so one of my favorite cases, because he also ended up becoming one of my like really good friends, and he's a very high-level mindset coach now. So I think it's really cool is I had an athlete and he was a baseball pitcher, and he had the potential to go to the MLB. So he was building up and building up. And prior to whenever I got there, he had already had two labral tears. So um, so that's shoulder, those people that don't know, shoulder labrum gets torn and um he had sat out for two seasons. So he redshirted for one season and sat out again. I come in and he comes in with a hip issue. So we don't know what's going on, but he's freaking out. I can't sit out another season. This isn't what I want to do. And we ended up spending, as you guys know, if you've ever had to go to physical therapy, spend a lot of time with your physical therapist. So my sessions are usually anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes long, they're majority one-on-one. And so we started working through first with testing. And in the testing, I found that he still didn't have full range of motion back in his shoulder. But then I also found that he had a spine problem. He wasn't rotating properly with his spine. Then we pulled up, I was like, okay, if all of this is happening now, is it just because of your hip? So I said, pull up your pitching videos from before your very first labor tear. It was already there. He was putting all of that strain on his shoulder because he'd actually always had this hip issue, his hip range motion. He actually anatomically, his hip was not shaped the right way. So then we started going through all these hip exercises, dialing in the stability. So, do you have the flexibility? Then adding the stability, then adding the strength. He was back in the weight room. Then we started adding different pitching techniques. And he was able to finish out his next two seasons. He got this huge award his senior year. And because of that experience, he went on and became a mental mindset coach inside of the MLB and several other Division I universities, because he was like having a space where I was learning about my body, but also where I was learning that there wasn't something defective about me, that there was a system and a process and a way to go through it. He said it just inspired me that I wanted to help other people that were struggling with this as well.

SPEAKER_00:

And had you never figured out that it was his hip, it's a revolving door. It's he's gonna keep coming back injury after injury. Are you allowed to share who it is?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I don't well, I probably should because I don't have, I don't know that I would like, do I have his? I mean, I don't think he would mind, but um, but yeah, so that was his that was his story, and it was a it was a really big deal for him. And if you wouldn't have found that the thing that started to click into place for him, but it wasn't just the I think this is the thing, is that it's it's usually not just one thing, it's not just one body part. It's really how is all of this showing up in your day-to-day play? How is it showing up? You know, he kept constantly going to the mound saying he couldn't get any momentum. Well, anybody that's a pitcher knows that most of your momentum is coming from your lower body and your back. And so somehow all of that had just kind of gotten missed in the mix of things. He was good enough just naturally with his arm that he was overcoming that until the injury started. And then his hips and back couldn't take the load that it was actually supposed to be taking the entire time, which is why it showed up.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you feel like this is a common case for a lot of collegiate and professional athletes because they're working their way through their career and then they get to a level where now it, you know, like in the pros, my clients that are in at the professional level, it becomes their job. They're doing this day in, day out. It goes from, hey, we're just practicing four or five times a week to we're in this every day. We have one rest day. Do you feel like this is more common once they reach that higher level?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think also they have more at stake. So they're also typically they're under a lot more stress, right? The higher we go up, the more things depend on us doing well. So at the high school level, and it's really about typically about playing time. And then it's also about scholarships. Like, can I get a scholarship to the university? Once you're there, it's can I keep this scholarship? Like, because if you can't, like if you get injured and you're not, you have no playing time, they can take away your scholarship. And then you have to figure out a way, do I have the academics to actually stay here? Do I have to transfer to another university? Which I saw happen with several people. And that was it's a very sad process. And then the next question at that level is like, do I have enough to go pro? And people are pushing, and when they're right on that bubble, it's a lot of extra practice. They're still getting extra things. And they're all the qualities that we know that go into strong recovery, sleep, good nutrition, those things go down fast at the collegiate level, fast. And most people don't get that back once they go into the pros. It's like, oh, well, I used to operate on four hours of sleep. I'll keep operating on four hours of sleep. You know, I used to be able to do this and this and this and this. Um, and when people don't go full-time pro, but even if they do, you're traveling time zones, which anybody that's um read um Dr. Mike Dubb's book, it he really talks about how even just traveling time zones, it takes um one full day of recovery for crossing one hour time zone. So if you cross three days, it takes three days to recover from that. So then if you come back, that's six days. How many these athletes don't have time for that?

SPEAKER_00:

Like they're like right back into training. Look at the big 10. I mean, now we have UCLA, we have Maryland, we have Nebraska. I mean, I'm from Nebraska. We're a little bit lucky that we're in the middle, but look at these conferences now where these 18-year-olds, I mean, 18 to 22-year-old, a college athlete, they're flying out on Thursday, playing a series Friday, Saturday, baby Sunday, and then their rest day is Monday, and then they have class again on Tuesday. And that cycle repeats all season long.

SPEAKER_01:

And then and then we we wonder why the physical body, I say the physical body is the last thing that shows up. Like, so by the time I see someone with an injury, I'm clocking that this stuff has been going on for a long time. Typically, an injury is either like mechanically, something has broke so bad that they can't move, or it's pain. And what we know about pain science is that it's individual for every single person. So we don't know where that pain came from, if it's directly correlated to this, if it came before, if there's actually something anatomically wrong when someone has pain, because you can have pain and not actually have an injury that needs to go in and have surgery or go in and actually have rehabilitation. There can just be pain there for a protective mechanism. And so when we start to see all these pieces come together, when I start to see somebody that has an injury, I'm already thinking, what in their life set them up for this? Because if all I do is like rehab their knee and they do some knee exercises, it's gonna be a matter of time before they're right back in here. So we have to talk about all the other buckets as well.

SPEAKER_00:

That's incredible. I would love for you to go a little bit deeper on that. The brain science of, you know, I was gonna go in the area of stress, but it's all related of stress, mindset, the mental side. And so I wrote down pain is a protective mechanism. I would love for you to kind of explain when did you kind of discover this? How did you expand your research on this for a layman, right? Of like, let's nerd out for a second. Like, please drop some wisdom nuggets on this. I want to know more.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so the the way this really landed for me is I actually do dry needling. So I'm certified and functional dry needling. So anybody that doesn't know, it's a similar tool to acupuncture, but it's completely different in the way that we apply it to the body. So we're looking for increased knots or densification and muscles. And then we're going in and we're needling, going through as much muscle tissue or tendon tissue as we can. And then sometimes people will hook that up to electrical stem. This was when things like in my head went like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Because all of a sudden I had a tool that it was taking me, let's say someone sprained their ankle, for example. Like they might be in my clinic four to six weeks doing recovery. Once I added in dry needling, like these people were ready for back to play, like in a couple of weeks. Like it was significant. Someone comes, my favorites are back and neck pain. Like those are my two favorite things to treat. I just find them to be so fascinating and like so literally central to everything. And so back pain, neck pain like resolved in one to two sessions, gone. And I'm like, what that doesn't make any sense. And then you start diving into the science of it, and it's actually changing the way pain fibers are connecting and how quickly pain can be transmitted. So then I started thinking and started seeing research on, oh my gosh, okay, I'm actually taking away their protective mechanism temporarily. And then that's what's prompting this quick recovery. And I'm like, what are we doing in this time frame that's actually building them up so that they're safe? And did I actually discover why they needed this protective mechanism to begin with? Because I never assume that the body is wrong. I always assume that the body is right. So if the body sent you pain, I don't say like, oh, yuck, let's get rid of that pain. That pain's awful. I say, no, why would that be the absolute best thing that the body could send you? Because what we know about the brain is the brain cares about nothing except for your survival and your success. That's it. So it wants you to survive and it wants you to thrive. If you have set a goal that you're gonna go be the best athlete in the world and you're gonna go to the Olympics, your entire being is holding on to that and it wants you to get there. So why would your body then send you crippling pain two weeks out from competition?

SPEAKER_00:

Fear of fear, fear of failure, fear of injury, fear of you tell me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. It could be any of those things, right? That's where we have to start investigating. And then I'm like, okay, so what is happening in the brain? What is the mind saying right now? What's the body saying right now? Do we actually have any joints that are locked up? Do we have muscles that are locked up? Do we have compensation that's been going on for a long time? What needs to be listened to? Where does the space need to be held? Where does the program need to be created? And again, as a physical therapist, you know, 10, 15 years ago, I was like, oh, I'm lacking because I can give them all the protocols in the world about their physical body, which I'm love and I'm freaking great at. And we cannot ignore those. But then I was like, I have a big gaping hole when it comes to fear, mindset, their thoughts, their beliefs about themselves, how those things are integrating. And so I started to grow, to grow in those avenues. And what we see is when we meet a protective mechanism with appreciation rather than you need to get rid of, again, then we can properly support the body, properly support the mind, properly support the goals of this athlete moving forward.

SPEAKER_00:

That's incredible. So again, nerding out on this, is it a situation where Coach A B comes and knocks on the door and says, Okay, great, we're in the middle of a dry needling session. Coach A B, come on in. Or is Dr. Nicole saying, right, now that you have these needles in you, which is so fascinating because it immediately takes me back to being on the table with one of my chiropractors dry needling my shoulder? It is the most bizarre feeling of your body can feel as soon as he would hit on a spot. It was like, yep, there it is. And so you're in the session, your clients on the table, you're dry needling them. Do we whip out a notebook and we start talking about their fears? I mean, how how did that evolve as you evolved with your research? Like, what would that look like practically as a PT?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so now I'm really gonna nerd out. You're calling it up this. Okay, so there's something called anchor points. So in neuroscience research research, which is essentially that there can be certain parts of your body where things are stored. So let's say that you've had a chronic um shoulder injury over and over and over again, and you're having pain in your shoulder again. We go and dry needle it. People tell on themselves. They don't mean to, but when you're talking, you tell on yourself. So someone's laying on the table. Again, I make every word that they say is correct. So they'll just say, like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so like, I just get so anxious about these games and I know that I'm gonna do horrible. And at that point, most people wanna say, dude, you're so great. You're the number one player on the team. You're not gonna do horrible. I don't. I say, oh, that makes a lot of sense. What specifically do you think you're gonna do horrible at? And they're like, oh, well, you know, like I'm gonna like probably miss the ball, or I'm scared whenever line drives are coming. And I'm like, have you always been scared of line drives? Well, no, but I got hit in the face. I'm like, oh, I bet that was really scary. When did that happen? Like two years ago. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting because your shoulder injury started two years ago as well. Does that feel like it might be connected? And they're like, oh yeah. And then they start all of a sudden, but who knows where the connection's gonna be? But it's exactly you just validate. I don't ever try to disvalidate what someone's saying. I instead I try to find out where did this come from? Why is it here now? If someone comes into me and they're like, I just know I need to get into the weight room more. And I'm looking at them, I'm like, dude, you're a hot mess. You can hardly walk. You definitely don't need to be in the weight room more. That's a PT side of my brain. But instead, I say, actually, you're right. I think the weight room would be really good for you. What would you do in the weight room? And a lot of times they'll be like, Well, I feel like my leg needs to get stronger. I'm like, okay, well, we can't lift weights on your leg yet, but I think you're right. And then this is whenever I'm like, you know what? We need blood flow restriction protocols. So I love BFR for this. That person already knows what's wrong with them. They know. Whether they want to say it or not directly, they know. We spend a lot of time as coaches, as parents, as therapists, as trainers, trying to convince them to do our plan because we know what's wrong with them. When really what we need to do is validate that they know what's wrong and show them how our plan is actually going to address what they know is wrong with them. Because then they're bought in. Then they're making all the changes, then everything keeps going. So the anchor points in the body, just to bring this like around full circle, the anchor points in the body, when we start to dry needle, we start to do body work, anything like that, people will then start to talk. And as they start to talk, I am taking notes. So I'm sitting over there and I'm like, oh yeah, that fear. Oh, your face getting hit. And I'm like just taking all the notes. And then I'll bring that to their coach. So if their coach isn't in there, I'll just say, Hey, these things came up in session today. See if any of this stuff lines up with stuff that you're seeing in practice too. Or with the weight room. Hey, they really talked about how they wanted to be in the weight room. I think they're really looking like they want to get back with the team. They need to see incremental progress. What can we do to get them back in here together so that they're safe? But that this is happening. Communication is key with all members of the team. With the athlete, is the leader. I think that's what a lot of people forget. And myself too. Like early in my career, I wanted to be the leader. I was like, listen, I went to school for seven years. I have 50 certifications, I know what's going on. No, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Which is a huge shift because I can count how many times, even it's only Wednesday as we're recording this. And I can already count so many clients when you're having that session with them and the light bulb goes off when you say, Look, I didn't, I didn't do anything. You're doing this mental work, you're working through these beliefs, you discovered this. I'm just your guide on the journey. And so, oh my gosh, Nicole, like this makes so much sense. And and the question that I had for you is if you are dry needling these anchor points, do you feel like the physical release, once you get into that physical release of the pain, the emotional floodgates, it's just allowing the body to be safe and seen with probably the first coach that has actually validated their experience? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that was whenever I went and started getting a lot of these other skills in neurolinguistic programming, which is essentially just like, oh girl, we're just gonna pause right there.

SPEAKER_00:

NLP, like let's go there because I wanted to, yes, yes, yes. Okay. NLP. What is it? Why does it matter?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so NLP, just like at the most basic level, is how do you communicate with someone else? That's all it is. So it's literally just, I honestly believe this should be taught in education. Every single year of education should just be a building block of NLP because we are missing basic communication as a human being. And what you're doing is you're essentially noticing how to listen to someone, how to actually understand what you're trying to say, and they can move forward in their life. That's what NLP is. It's like understanding what they're trying to say to you, understanding how to get them to hear what you're trying to say, move forward in life to higher, higher perspective. So when you're talking, and also underneath NLP is a lot of hypnosis and those pieces. So anybody that's ever done hypnosis, I also I love, so I love doing hypnosis. I do it on almost all of my athletes because it allows you to get out of your own way. Like, how can we just people are like, I don't want to keep thinking that way, but I can't stop it. I'm like, well, well, we can hypnotize you to stop thinking that way if you actually want to stop thinking that way. And with NLP, we can figure out why you're thinking that way, what is actually spawning those pieces. So that's essentially the crux of NLP. I think every coach should have to go through it. It's it's just foundational.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think people hear these things or we hear this hypnosis, and then we immediately go into what we think we know it is. And at the core of it, NLP, hypnosis, somatic breath work, all of these things that we're working through, we're all trying to get to the subconscious. And as high-performing athletes, we're expected to pull yourself out by the bootstraps. We're expected to just figure it out. Figure it out on your own. Well, guess where that lives? In your conscious brain. We try to rationalize our emotions. We try to, I can tough it out. I don't need to go into my emotions, I don't need to go into my subconscious. And then we wonder why we have these repeated habits. And why I'm nerding out on all this is we're in the same world. And a lot of our coaches, we've invested thousands of dollars to become better coaches. And in our world, we practice what we preach. So I have hired coaches to work me through some really big beliefs where I hold this belief, I have these really big goals, but something about my subconscious is saying that that's not safe. And so my actions aren't aligned, aligning with what my conscious brain is actively trying to work towards.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yes. Okay, so this all of this is like when I'm building out these things, the first thing that I think, because again, we're validating every part of the experience, the first part is inside of like regulate. Does your do you actually have the physical capacity to even deal with some of the stuff that's coming up? So um I do testing for CO2 tolerance, I look at HRV, I look at people's sleep stats, I look at their movement patterns, all of those pieces. Then the next step is all of this like NLP. It's like, what do you need to release or integrate within yourself to actually get to the goals? Because if you knew what to do with that, it would be done. Like if you could consciously figure it out, this is why so many people are buying into the I just need the the coach with the six-step better lifting technique, and then everything will be fine. Or I just need um a new um pitching program, and then everything will be fine.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's more reps. That's the biggest the parents come to me. We have the best instructor, she has the best bat, she has everything she needs, and we're still not there.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yep. That is why this conversation matters. So you were like, I was gonna go into stress, and but the the thing that most people don't understand is the word stress, the words of like states of anxiety, the words of like neuroscience, mindset, it's all the same thing. It is, does your human body have the capacity to hold the level of stress, whether that's physical, mental, environmental, whatever it is, for you to get to the goal that you want to get to? If the answer to that is no, because you're hitting roadblocks, whether that's injuries, whether that's um panic attacks, whether that's just thought loops and getting like um, I know some sports call them like the yips or whatever, where you're like not performing well. Right. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. All it is is the same signal that there's too much stress, which stress is a great thing, when you have the capacity to hold it. But you're holding too much stress to get to your goal that your body can't hold. So it's like, okay, how do we keep moving forward and grow our capacity inside this body, inside this mind to actually hold what you need to hold for these big freaking dreams and goals that you have.

SPEAKER_00:

Which leads to my next question is how, right? So a lot of our parents that are listening, some of the parents that are in our world, that are in our programs, listen to the podcast, some of these athletes are as little as nine, eight, nine, 10 years old that are playing travel sports year round. I get laughed at in these communities when I say professional athletes have an off-season. Why are we not letting these youth athletes have an off season? Why are we not giving them rest days? Snaps, yeah. And so, what's your advice for a parent that might be, you know, feeling the pressure to play year round? And then we're looking, wondering why our 10 year olds are lacking sleep or they're not emotionally regulating, or even a 16 year old or a 26 year old. Like there's gotta be some give and take. What would be some practical tips for parents that might be hearing you saying, Yes, Dr. Nicole, like, yes, this is amazing, but how?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So first one is um CO2 tolerance. It's super easy. Um, anybody can do it. It's literally takes no more than five minutes to do the test. So um how I do it, because there's a couple of different ways to look, it just is gonna tell you kind of moment to moment, but you can also track trends. So I would tell people it's kind of like resting heart rate. I would look at it first thing in the morning to see where your baseline is at, and then you can kind of get an idea. So, what you're gonna do is you're gonna do three breaths. The first two don't necessarily matter. They're just kind of like reset breaths in through the nose and then out through the nose or mouth. When you feel the need to take another breath, you're gonna do your second breath in through your nose, out through your nose or mouth. The third one, this is the one that matters. You're gonna grab your, you can grab your phone or your timing device, whatever you have, a little stopwatch, and you're gonna take a big deep breath in through your nose. You're gonna start your timer, you're gonna breathe out your nose only. Mouth is closed for as long and as slow as you can. Any interruption in air. So you run out of air, you swallow, um, anything like that, the test is done. So you're just gonna look at the timer. What this will tell us is how our body is able to adapt to stress. How sensitive is it to stress right now? So if you go, if you wake up in the morning, let's say, and you do the test and it's like 48 seconds, which is fairly good. I'll go over the results here in a second. And you go and eat like a McDonald's Big Mac, it will plummet. So if you check it like an hour later, it will be significantly lower because of the stress of digesting food, high calorie food, um, very highly processed food, all of those pieces. You may have gone through the line and the people were yelling at you and they were like, we don't have that, we don't have that. And you got frustrated, all of that. We only have a certain amount of stress that we can handle before a breaking point. The breaking points can be small and then they can get bigger, right? Not everybody's gonna end up with an injury, not everybody's gonna end up with a massive case of burnout where they're like, no, I'm done for the season. I like mentally can't play anymore. Yet we all have these micro fraction points that sometimes we're like, let's just keep working through these. CO2 tolerance tells us, how long can I keep working through these? So when I first did CO2 tolerance, mine was a seven. This was after I went through a massive burnout and I actually shut my entire business down. And the whole time, what I kept saying to myself is, I know I'm a hard worker. Like I don't understand what's happening. Like I work hard and yet then I reach these breaking points and I just can't do it anymore. And I'm like, maybe I'm not a hard worker. Maybe that's all just a lie. Maybe I'm actually pretty lazy. And I'm like sitting with all of this stuff. And then I get the CO2 tolerance test and it's a seven. Zero to 20, you are highly sensitive to stress. You live in a high anxiety state majority of the time. So I get this test that's like, oh yeah, you cannot handle stress. And I'm like, oh, that explains why I feel like I'm constantly walking on a tightrope and like just waiting for the gentlest of breezes to like just throw me off into oblivion. Because that was the reality. That was my physical body. That's why I don't use mindset schools tools to scapegoat what's happening physically in someone's body. So I was doing all of the belief work, I was doing all the trauma work, but my physical body still could not hold more. So I started working on my CO2 tolerance. And now my CO2 tolerance hovers around like 43 to 48. So 21 to 40 is where most people here in the United States live. It's a moderate state of anxiety. You're moderately sensitive to stress. That's where most people live. 41 to 60 is where we want to see the average human beings at. 61 to 80 is for every single person on this podcast, the coaches, the parents, the athletes. Like if you want to live big exceptional lives, if you want to travel, like I don't even, I mean, I'll be honest, if you want to travel and not have an offseason, that's fine. But you better be checking yourself to actually make sure that you're going to get what you think you are going to get at the end of that. Because most people think that they're going to open up a big prize and that their kids are going to get a division one scholarship or their kids going to go pro or their kids going to get accepted into this really big elite league that maybe has payouts or sponsorships or whatever. I want to make sure that you actually get to that. Because if you go through all of that, the thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, the stress, the sleeping in hotel rooms, the your kid breaking down, like the athletes breaking down, the game didn't go the way they want. And you go through all of that and you don't actually get the big fancy prize at the end. You're just like, no, what I got was a case of exhaust exhaustion and anxiety, and my kid stopped playing two years later because they hated it so much. Well, then that wasn't worth it. And there are actually researched ways to check that you're headed in that direction. And CO2 tolerance is one of them. And joint mobility is another one. Your actual overall flexibility is another one. Finding where you're at, then I look at strength numbers, right? I'm looking at those pieces. So you guys have all the tools. Most people that are listening to this podcast, you guys probably have majority of the tools. Most people don't have a CO2 tolerance one. That's the one that I shared you, showed you. Start looking at trends. Are you actually getting better? Or is foundational stuff falling off? Is your flexibility getting worse? Are your strength numbers getting worse? If so, then your body is compensating mentally and physically for performance for performance gains. You're living unlimited time. Borrow time in that game.

SPEAKER_00:

This is a full circle moment for me. Where were you two years ago? So this is this is part of my story, and I've shared this on the podcast. Is a year ago, we have our biggest event of the year, which is the retreat. We housed 40 athletes in the dorms for a whole week. We're feeding them, we're supervising them, we're flying my staff in, we're teaching them mental skills. And the day before I was supposed to leave for this event, I was diagnosed with pneumonia and strep, or I think the strep was two weeks prior. I had strep three times in one year, and then the final like nail in the hammer was pneumonia. And when you talk about this CO2 tolerance, I don't know if that's a correlation, but these big business goals, these big life goals, I took that as a sign. And then I started working out again. I started lifting again, I started walking again. I've lost 15 pounds, and my business and my mental state has changed so much in a year's time compared to where I was a year ago. My physical body, and I'm I'm I do this work every single day. I was doing the thought work, I was doing the journaling, I was doing the beliefs, just like you said. We were doing all of the mindset work. My physical body, I was running on low sleep, I was eating processed foods, and I was stressed out of my mind because I didn't delegate to my team. This makes so much sense. My physical body could not keep up no matter how much thought work I did. This is a light bulb moment. And so I'm thinking about the athletes, the girls that are in college. You get to college, nobody's telling you what time to go to bed, nobody's looking over your shoulder, telling you to get three meals, nobody's telling you you have to prioritize protein. And then they wonder why they're burning out or why they're getting injured. This makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and the hardest part though is that most people don't actually sit around and wonder why they're burnout. They blame themselves. So, like, I don't know what happened for you when you got pneumonia and your body's shutting down. But most people say, like, I should have known, I should have been doing better, I should have gotten more rest, I should have done these things. And they start beating themselves up for data that they didn't even have. Because we would be remiss to just say, like, this is society. Society says, like, you better do more, like get doing. And so people that are big dreamers, people that have big goals, they try to do and do and do and do. And then we've got kind of the mindset side, and we've got like, or even more spiritual side, and they're like, just be, just be. And it's like, yeah, but but my goals require some doing too. And so there's this friction. And the beauty of these tests that actually look at the physical body and how it's responding to the stress is just to say, right now, today, you can't take on more doing. But I know that you want to, and I know that actually your dream's probably gonna require a little bit more of that. And let's build up so that you can hold that extra doing that you need to do rather than trying to do and just waiting for the breaking point and then blaming yourself or the people that start new habits. You know, they're they're like, okay, I'm gonna start going to the gym every single day. And then they're like, oh, I sucked again, I didn't do it. And they go through these loops of self-blame and they're like, I oh, I never show up. This is why I don't have any of the goals that I want. This was me, so I'll just call out my own self. But then, and then I got my CO2 tolerance of a seven. Like, I did not have the physical capability to start a new habit. Like that just wasn't even on the radar. I mean, I started like walking for 10 minutes with mouth tape on. Like, can I do that? And then as that grew and grew and grew, now like I can pretty much start any habit, but I always check my CO2 leading into starting a new habit because I'm like, if it's not freaking high, that thing ain't sticking.

SPEAKER_00:

That that makes sense. I mean, you're thinking about I want to change my sleep habits, I want to read at night, I want to open my Bible, I want to journal, I wanna go on dates with my husband, I want to prioritize time with my kids, and I want to work out five days a week. None of that happened until I prioritized one thing. And so, like you said, I'm gonna walk for 10 minutes. Now I lift probably four times a week and I'm at the gym, you know, five to six days a week. I didn't start there. I definitely didn't start there. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. Where do you want to take this conversation? I do want to be mindful of time. If we had five minutes and you had to say, okay, if you forget everything else in this podcast, one of the questions we ask our guests is what's the best piece of advice you've ever received? And I'll kind of get open the door for you. You could also say, instead of the best advice you received, what advice are you giving to the world? So you can pick receive or give. Can I do two?

SPEAKER_01:

Heck yeah. Okay, I'm gonna do one that I know is gonna land for your audience, and I'm gonna do one that I think will push your audience. So the one that I know that I think will land is um fail fast and fail often. The the truth is that every single piece of research, every single person that's ever made it big, they failed faster and failed more often than other people. So just get used to that. You need your 10,000 hours, but it's not just like clocking 10,000 hours by being there, you need to be clocking 10,000 hours doing great things. You need to be, okay, if I want to um be a pitcher, your 10,000 hours are on the mound or building things in that direction, right? Which also means that you probably need another 50,000 hours in the weight room with the mindset coaches, those things just failing greatly. And so that would be the first one because I think we get in our mind with perfectionism. So fail, fail often and fail big. And then the other one is you cannot do it by yourself. We have got to have communities of people speaking the same language. So if anything that we talked about today hit anybody, get a friend. Like send them this podcast. No, you did not pitch me to do this. And someone else has to speak the same language and hold you accountable because we live in a stressed-out, high-paced world that really praises hyper-individualism and we know it doesn't work. So get a friend, get a friend that's going to start holding you accountable to some of these things. Like if you're an athlete, get a friend that's calling and telling you, like, go to bed. Um, and they're going to bed too. Get someone that checks in to make sure that you actually got your protein that day. And if not, they're literally carrying around a baggie of chicken breasts. Like if you're a parent, get around other parents that are speaking at a higher level, that are speaking in the language that you want your kids to hear. That is so freaking crucial because you will, you will fail if you try to go by yourself. And not in the way of like failing greatly and failing often. Like, not in not in that way. You will just fail because you're not surrounded by around people who are viewing success in the same way. So grab a friend, bring them on this journey. Have them grab a friend and bring them on this journey. Get freaking robust. This world is requiring this now. Get five, get 10 people, get people with different lived experiences, get people from different financial backgrounds, get people with different cultural backgrounds, and start to talk this talk together. And you will go so far and you will take your kids with you if you're a parent, if you're a kid, you will take all of your friends with you. If you're a coach, you'll take teams with you. It requires community.

SPEAKER_00:

And I am so glad you're in mine. Me too. This has been so awesome. Where's the best place to follow you if parents want to continue to, you know, invest in their research, connect with you, follow your experiences in the research that you're doing? Where is the where are you most active?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, most active on Instagram, Symptom Whisperer. Um, you can also find me on LinkedIn if you want to like dive deep on all the research content. You want to read more like articles and those types of content from me. I'm over on LinkedIn, Dr. Nicole Woodard, and I would love to connect with you there.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing. And we'll link both of those below. Dr. Nicole, thank you so much for your time today. This was incredible. Thank you as well.

Contributor

Amanda Schaefer

Host