Nervous System Regulation for Real Life: Finding Calm in a Constantly Connected World With Kristan Fiandach

Feeling overwhelmed or stuck in constant stress? In this episode of Morning Tea with Coach Kennedy, I talk with Kristan Fiandach, founder of Feel Good People, about practical ways to regulate your nervous system and create more calm in everyday life. Discover how sound therapy, vibration therapy, breathwork, and healthy boundaries can help reduce stress, improve well-being, and reconnect you with your intuition. If you’re looking for simple, effective tools to support your mental and physical health, this episode is for you.

https://www.feelgoodpeople.com/pages/about-us

https://www.instagram.com/guidingpathways2025/?hl=en

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Good morning, everybody. Today is Wednesday, July 1st, 2026. And this is your morning tea with Coach Kennedy. Last week, we learned how doing a 24-day water fast can help you reconnect to your higher self and heal certain illnesses with Dr. J. This week we are going to learn about how to recalibrate our nervous system with the Happy Matt. With Kristin Fiondock. Stay tuned. Today's guest is Kristen Flandich. Fiondock. Fiont. Sorry about that. And we are going to be talking about the nervous system regulation for real life. Hi, Kristen. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

I am good. Do you want me to call you Coach Kennedy or Sarah?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Anything any way works best for you. I get both. Sarah, Coach Kennedy. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

No problem. I'm glad that you could join us today. So would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you discovered the I'm sorry, I have it right here. The feel good people and the your mat, your feel good mat.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah, absolutely. So I probably like a lot of people, I am a sort of perfectionist, driver, ambitious kind of, you know, kid. And so growing up, I was always trying to go further, you know, be the best and you know, get the corporate job. And I after college, I got into tech and I worked my ass off. You said I could, we can use any words on the show, right? And I was, yeah, I was just really trying to like get the title and get the job and get the money and get the things and all this stuff. And I was just really stressed out, feeling like shit all the time, you know, even having all the things, right? I was just feeling really, really terrible all the time. And I realized that I was just living in this like state of complete disconnection from like myself. And I was just living so much in the approval of the outside world. And, you know, that makes total sense because I think, especially for me, like, you know, we're raised to be the versions of the people that we're told to be, right? For the most part. You know, you're told to like go to school, go to college, get a job, take care of yourself, buy the house, buy the car. Like that kind of mentality is sort of ingrained in us, and you never really stop to think, like, is that really what I want? So when I was about 35, I just turned 40 this this year. When I was 35, I was, you know, living that life and I had all the things, but I was like really miserable and really unhappy and really unhealthy. I was like drinking too much and eating too much and just doing all the things. So I really went on this journey to really understand like why was I feeling this way? Like, why was I still like so unhappy? And I I learned that I just really wasn't taking care of my nervous system. I wasn't really taking care of myself. I had was completely disconnected from my intuition. And so I went on a journey of really uncovering, you know, how do I live in a fast-paced environment? How do I live in the modern world, yet still take care of myself? And that journey led me, you know, to changing my diet, to changing my, you know, physical approach to life, you know, prioritizing getting outside, prioritizing working out and things like that. But it also got me into stress management because I would really, really struggle on a daily basis with, you know, waking up and grabbing my phone and immediately opening my emails and checking, you know, who, you know, who said what at work about what and respond, you know, just really immediately tapping into Go the second I woke up. I was like severely dopamine addicted. And I started getting into sound therapy. Sound therapy was like what I first started, like tapping into to help me. So listening to like bineural beats, just even classical music, and really trying to understand like why does that help us feel better when we're studying or when we're working or you know, whatever it is. And it's because music can really easily help our brain, like signal safety to our brain. So if you're listening to like really hardcore heavy metal music, it's gonna signal the opposite to your brain, right? You're gonna feel more like amped up, more anxious, more like high tempo. But if you're listening to like calming, soothing sounds, it's gonna help your body down regulate, you know, tap into a parasympathetic state of the nervous system. So I really just kind of started with that, like while I was working and I was being inundated with like all these, you know, chats and messages and emails and stuff. And I was like, okay, like that's really nice. And then somebody told me about vibration therapy because listening to music is great for the mind, but there's also like a physical uh soothing touch, which is through vibration therapy, it actually more instantly activates the vagus nerve, which is responsible for helping us tap into the parasympathetic state. So I bought this vibration therapy mat. I was using it, it was like I bought it on Amazon. It was, you know, it was like a hundred bucks or whatever. And I would put it on my bed at the end of work and I would just lay on it. And I was like amazed at how quickly it helped me like just kind of like sloth the stress of the day away. And so I started doing that after work, where I would put up my vibration therapy mat, I would start listening to the bile neural beats, and I would be transported almost like out of my body. Like it was almost like I was tapping into the like subconscious mind. It was incredible. And I'm really into hypnosis too, which we can like get into that, but it was really, really, it was almost like helping me tap into a more meditative subconscious state. And so my I, you know, working in tech, I just started thinking about ways that the experience of these two modalities could be combined to create a better experience for people overall. And that was when I came up with the idea for the feel good mat. And so I started working on combining vibration with sound therapy together in one tool that people could use whenever, you know, whenever you're feeling stressed out, but also you can use it anytime you are ready to regulate your nervous system. And it's something that we need to be doing on a daily basis pretty regularly, if you are working in a stressful environment, or if you're just out in the modern world where your nervous system is just being impacted by stress, or even if you have kids, I you know like we talked a little bit about, you know, children, they're really demanding and they need a lot of things, and it can really dysregulate you. And so having a tool that you can use at any time to help your help your body and your mind and your spirit really get connected back into that calmer, peaceful version of you was really the motivation behind creating the mat and feel good people, the company.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

That is really, really good. Yeah, it's really, I find really important to regulate our nervous system so that way we can have our anxiety go down, be able to focus, organize what we're doing, make a plan. How exactly does the vibration and sound work together to regulate the nervous system?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yeah, so the physical vibration at the right frequencies, it simulates the same experience you would have of when someone's like touching you soothingly and softly. And so what that does is it activates the vagus nerve, and the vagus nerve is responsible for turning on the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and restore part of your nervous system. So if you are feeling really anxious or really wired or really kind of, you know, just stressed out, you can apply soothing vibrational frequencies. And I typically you would want something that's, you know, like a whole body, so not like a percussion gun. So this is like a different, it's a different type of vibration where it's really it's really low frequency, it's really soothing. They have done studies that you really want a frequency that's between 20 hertz and 60 hertz. So that is, and that's actually really interestingly, one of my customers told me that that is the same range of a cat's purr. And so, like a cat's purr is actually a really soothing vibration frequency. And especially when it's applied to the body, like the skin is our largest organ. So our body, our mind can really react quite quickly to like what's happening in like physical touch sensation. So alone vibration therapy, whole body vibration therapy at those frequencies is really soothing. But then if you add in music, it's very similar. It's just your brain, it interprets soothing sounds as like, hey, we're not in danger, we're not being chased by an animal, like we're safe, we can relax, we can, we can let go. So you can use them separately, and they're both really powerful, but when you combine them together, it can really take you to a very deep, relaxing, restorative state.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

And why is that important for our health and well-being?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Well, we're really not meant to live in a stressed-out, anxious state. It's really only a state that you're supposed to go into when you need to respond to danger. But our life, our lifestyle, can feel really dangerous all the time. Things that aren't dangerous, right? Like that email from your boss. I think a lot of us live in a state of feeling like we're gonna be fired all the time, right? So, like we we hear it all the time, you know, my friend got fired, my friend got laid off, or whatever, you know. And so there's this like innate fear that even when you go to work every day, you you can feel fear, like all day long, right? Or you don't want to mess up, you want to do a great job, you want to be perfect. Same thing with, you know, anything that we do in life. I think we live a lot of the time in a state of fear, and we're not really meant to live that way. Like, and so it's supposed to be like the opposite. They say that we 80% of the time we are dealing with chronic stress and we're feeling, you know, we're living in that sympathetic nervous system state, and only 20% of the time are we feeling relaxed and calm and at ease. And there's a lot of reasons for that, right? And we can get into, but it's really supposed to be the opposite, where you're supposed to feel like 80% of the time at ease and calm and you know, ready to take on anything that comes at you. But, and then, you know, 20% of the time maybe you gotta swerve out of the way because some jerk was about to cut you off on the road, right? Like, so that's kind of the state that we're supposed to live in. And that's the state where our body can heal, our immune system can respond to, you know, anything that's trying to come in. We we we don't hold on to cortisol, so that's when we can better manage our weight. Just inflammation, chronic stress causes inflammation in the body. Inflammation leads to disease and illness and you know, a ton of terrible stuff. So it's incredibly important to our overall well-being and our our mental and physical health that we, you know, really prioritize rest and relaxation and rest, like being more restorative. And, you know, whether that's through vibration or sound therapy, or it's just going outside, putting your phone away at night, you know, there's so many things that we can do to reduce the noise or the stress and protect. We were talking a little bit about this, but like protecting our peace bubble because the world is coming for you. The modern world is coming to disrupt your peace, like no matter what you do, right? You pick up your phone and you're gonna see something that's gonna trigger you. Like, I don't, it's just gonna happen. It's part of the world we live in. So you really have to implement on a daily basis boundaries and guardrails for your life to help you stay as much as you can in the parasympathetic, in the restorative state, so that your body and your mind can function at its at its best.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

What are some signs that your nervous system is dysregulated and how can people start to balance it?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

So it's different for everybody. For me, for example, I know that I'm in a stress state when my breathing starts to get shallow. So, like chest breathing is like a sign of like you're having some stress, some anxiety going on because you want to be breathing from your diaphragm. So, like from just below your ribcage. And that's actually a tool you can use is if you start to feel yourself taking like shallow breaths, you can visualize your diaphragm just below your ribcage and start taking like deep belly breaths into your diaphragm and then slow exhales, and that will actually help activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Some people they get headaches, some people they just feel wired or they feel really like uppity. So it's important, it took me a long time to really uncover what mine was. And, you know, this is some somatic work that that people could could dig into to really uncover, like most of the day, we're not thinking about how we feel, like maybe in all like emotionally, but not like like the physical sensations, right? Like when you get angry, where do you feel it? When you get sad, where do you feel it? Like some of these things like aren't really taught to us, but they're really powerful to like really uh try to uncover and learn. And stress is definitely one of them. When you are feeling stress, like notice where it is in your body. And then tools are different for everyone again. It's it's really for me, they've evolved over time. I think you know, you have like you have to uncover what the tools are that help for you. Again, some people, the belly breathing can help sometimes you can even like look. This is an interesting one, but some people say if you look into the corner of like a ceiling, there's something about the the visual of like the periphery of like looking in that direction that or either side that helps your brain kind of feel less like it's in danger. So a lot of it is just safety signaling. That's all you're doing because all your nervous system wants is to feel safe. It just wants to feel that it's not it's not in any danger. So you just have to signal safety to it. When I was working, I would light a candle, I would have a cozy blanket, I would a heating pad, I would use now. I use my mat. But there's a lot of things that you can do, even if you're, you know, sitting at your desk and doing work in your car. I travel with essential oils, even just smelling some grounding scents, Palo Sando or Clary Sage, these things signal to your brain like safety. I get a lot of anxiety when I drive. It's actually like one of the only times that I get really like, I don't know, I just I it it scares me a lot. So anyway, um, but yeah, so I think it's a journey and it's one that you have to prioritize and you know, not not ignore, like you're not meant to feel stressed out, you're not meant to feel like live in fear on a daily basis. So these are these this is something that I think is incredibly important for people's well-being to like uncover where do you feel distress and like find the tools that work for you.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Perfect. Why do you suppose so many of us struggle to relax even when we want to?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

You know, I I think some of it is taught. I think some of it's is is nature, right? Or nurture. So, or it could be some nature too. I think, you know, how did you see your parents living on a daily basis? Like, was your mom able to sit down? Was your dad able to take a break? So I think a lot of us have this like kind of baseline of like, I don't feel comfortable just being. I don't feel comfortable just like sitting and being still and like that's why meditation can be really powerful, but meditation is really hard, especially I think it's getting harder for us to do because the idea sometimes of just sitting down actually feels unsafe to my nervous system because I grew up in an environment where like you just didn't you just didn't stand still, like you needed to be like ready for like whatever was gonna come at you. So I'm trying to create a different environment for my child, right? So like I trying, I try to do things like let's put our phone away an hour before bed, like no TV, no device, no iPad, no nothing. And that's already a big challenge in today's world, right? Because he's constantly asking to watch stuff on YouTube or whatever. So I'm like, okay, at least an hour before bed, and we go and we read a book, and reading is very soothing, right? So I think I'm sorry, I forgot your question.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

It was why do so many of us struggle to relax even when we want to?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Okay, yes. So yeah, so I think some of it is just hot, but then also I think some of it's habitual, it's habits, right? So, you know, don't grab the phone first thing when you wake up. I do, I try to do a phone fast. So like from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., I don't touch my phone. If you text me, you're gonna hear from me in the morning. Because the phone, it it creates like a dopamine response. And we're also, I think, all severely dopamine addicted, like myself included. I'm like, I want to know what's going on, right? But then I find out and I'm like, did I really need to know? Like, was that really worth like the hit? Like it probably wasn't. And then I think a lot of us just really struggle to communicate our needs. I think asking for help can be really hard, especially if you did grow up in an environment where you felt safe by being independent and doing everything yourself. So I think, especially, you know, I don't know, but like women, I think we do struggle to ask for help a lot of the time. And so I do take a really keen interest. I mean, obviously, I'm a woman and all my friends are women, so or not all my friends, but most of them. And so we have a lot of conversations. So I don't mean to say that this isn't doesn't apply to men because I'm sure I'm absolutely sure they feel a lot of pressures and the same types of things that we feel. But my conversations a lot of the times are around that and just motherhood and like how much of a struggle it is to feel like a sense of of individuality and identity because you're just kind of responding to the environment of needs all the time. And it's the same thing in the corporate environment, you're just responding to the needs of your boss or your employees or whatever's happening, and so I think a lot of it is about creating the boundaries and the rituals and sticking to them. And if you mess up, getting back on it the next day, it's really the only way that we can really sort of implement those things in our lives.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

If somebody had a feel good mat and wanted to use it to relax, how would they go about using it? Does it have different settings?

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Yeah, so the way that most there's a couple of ways that people use it that I would say like there's two real predominant ways. So one is just the vibration, and I would say this is kind of like this is like the gateway. So, like you like to binge watch shows at night, or you like to read books, or you like to, so we're still doing things that are kind of distracting in a way, right? They're not really sort of like meditating, but you want to signal safety to your to your body, to your brain, and you want to be soothed and You know, that will help you sleep better at night. So a lot of people use it in the evening when they're just laying on their couch or laying on their bed watching their shows or reading a book. And then I would say for my people that are like more they're into meditation or they're into like motivational, you know, tapes in the morning or podcasts in the morning, whatever, they will lay on the mat in the morning and make that a part of their morning meditation because it helps you tap into your body, right? Because you're not just like sitting there or just laying there, you're feeling like a physical sensation. And the mat does have different vibration patterns that offer frequencies that help your brain waves either be more energized, more calm, or like more prepared for bed. So we offer three frequencies, and you can you physically feel it. I think that's kind of one of the main differences is sometimes people will be like, oh, is this like a PEMF mat or a grounding mat? It's not in the sense that you actually physically feel the vibration. So we have more energizing my vibrations, more you know, soothing vibrations, and then we have more like help you like really get into a deep sleep state vibrations. And then for the people who are like, I want to transport to a different world. And I have had people tell me that they've been able to like have out-of-body experiences, that's when we pair it with the sound, and so we offer three binaural sounds that pair with the vibration patterns, and so you listen to those sounds while you feel the vibration, and it it, I mean, it's trans, it's trans uh, it transports you in a different way. I don't know if have you ever done a sound bath.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

I have not.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Okay, so I've done a couple sound baths, and I and it's it would be very similar to like that experience where you're like you lay down on it and your your brain's fighting you when you do them the the sound with the body, and you're let's say you're really stressed out. You lay down and and you're like your brain is like, oh god, okay, okay, here we go. Here we're gonna do this now. All right, all right, fine, fine. And then after like 10 minutes, you well, it feels like 10 minutes, but it's maybe it's been like an hour. You wake up and you're like, wait, what just happened? It's like a time it can time warp you. So if you're into that sort of thing, the Matt can take you there too.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

That's funny that that you mentioned about like it will feel like 10 minutes, but it's been an hour. I did a master class actually when and they were playing bowls. And then we were supposed to be meditating for 45 minutes with the bowls that they were playing. And I actually I was so out of it that I woke up and the bowls were done, and I was like, what just happened? Where am I?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

That's a sound, so you've got a sound bath. That's a sound bat. Yes, yes. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

I didn't know that that was a sound bath, but yeah, I was just like, wow, that was intense. Like, I didn't even know what was going on. I I woke up and I was still on camera, and they saw my head go and then I went back to it.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Did you have any visuals? Like, did you like see anything or what's it?

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Well, I mean, it was supposed to be a guided meditation, and they were telling us to like go down the steps and like to picture this. I forget what it is, and that's what I was trying to do. And then the next thing I know, it was just completely just I don't know, I can't describe it. Unreal. Apparently, so because I I I really I don't know what happened. I can't recall how long I was out. I was out for at least the duration of the time, maybe, but but then when I went back to listen to the recording because they allowed us to download it from the master class, it turns out to where it was like only like 20 minutes, 10, 20 minutes, but it felt like much longer.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

And so then I just I was groggy, I was disorientated. I didn't even know what room I was in when I came back to down to earth. It was weird, but it felt real very relaxing, and I guess that was the whole point of it. It was supposed to have us have like inspiration and get ideas and some other stuff to see where we are what we're supposed to be doing on Earth and what our true calling is. Not sure I got that message, but I'm here figuring it out.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

I know. It's so interesting, like how sometimes you go, you can go there and like other times. Like I I did a hypnosis once and it it took me to a place where I I'm positive I saw past lives. And I've but I've never been able to get back there, and I'm like, oh, I just want to go back there. Like it'd be so I've like, I have so many other things I want to see, but I've I haven't been able to, and I don't know if it's time in your life or the way I don't know that it could be probably a litany of things, but those experiences I think are really special, and it's like it's it's cool that you had that.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yeah, I I tried to go back because I wanted to see if I could actually see what happened, yeah. Like how you just said, but I can't, and I just said, Well, I guess that was not meant for me to see at that time. Yeah, yeah. You often say that wellness should fit into your life, not add to it. What does that look like in your practice?

SPEAKER_01 27:39

You know, I think it kind of just comes back. Well, there's a couple things, right? So if you're a type A, which I I'm sometimes a type A, I think it depends, but my brain is always like, I should do this, and I should do this, and I gotta do that, and what about this? And so I think what I really mean by that is I've really noticed a lot of peace and a lot of grounding in like not necessarily stopping myself from doing that thinking, but not always having to react to it. So not always having to be like, okay, I need to wake up and brush my teeth, and then I need to tongue scrape, and then I need to drink my water with my lemon, and then you know what I mean? Like there's a list constantly of wellness things that we're supposed to be doing, right? I mean, that's just the way the media works and the way marketing works, and people are always trying to like, and here I am, you know, I do sell a product, but like I also understand I'm also a consumer, and I also understand that like you're being pushed to feel like you're supposed to be living this certain way and do doing all these things all this time, and that just adds more stress to the situation. So I'm really trying to practice um on opening and connecting more with my intuition and being more of an intuitive wellness like mover, right? So, like, okay, someone says that I need to eat 100 grams of protein a day, but like, do I feel really good when I eat 100 grams of protein? Do I really feel like I need to eat a hundred grams? You know what I mean? So I'm I'm really always trying to kind of like reconnect with my intuition and like what my inner, my inner wisdom is telling me of what I actually need to be doing and not doing. And it changes on a daily basis. So yeah, like I think that that's really what that's all about is just really figuring out what is true for you, what resonates for you. And the more of this work that you do, the more of this regulating work that you do and the boundaries and disconnecting from the noise, the more that inner wisdom will come out and will speak to you. And it just becomes louder and louder and louder over time. And then you get better at responding to it, right? And like listening to it, and then you know, because we hear it, it's there, it might be really quiet. So then you you sloth off a lot of stuff and it starts to get louder, but you still have to make the choice to listen to it. And then the more you listen to it, the more you you'll that will just become a part of your life and a part of your habits. So that's really how I think about it. It's really personal for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Yeah, it truly is. What and what might work for you might not work for me. And like, say if something works for both of us, it might not work for the next person. So it all really truly does depend. Is there anything else that you would like to discuss with the audience?

SPEAKER_01 30:38

I just this was such a great, I really enjoyed this conversation. I think even for me, I think it helped really solidify a lot of the things that I even myself have to be reminded of, you know, and that's why people podcasts like yours, I think, are so important and so powerful, because it only takes like that one time that you listen to that one thing that made you rethink how you're living on a daily basis, that changed the trajectory of your entire life. So I I always want to be reminded of the importance of connecting back with yourself and like your path and like how do you live a whole full life? And so I think this conversation and what you're doing in general is going to help people progress on that path or get on that path. And so I just think you know, I'm all also I am always so happy to connect with people and talk with people about their journey, about nervous system, or just like general life well-being and management and all that type of stuff. So I'm on Instagram at Kristen underscore feels good. And then my company, Feel Good People, is also on Instagram, feel good people underscore. And I am in the DMs. I will respond to any questions or connect with anyone there. And yeah, just to continue the conversation and keep highlighting the importance of an intentional life, which is really what this conversation was about. So yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you so much. And I hope that you have a wonderful day and keep doing what you're doing with feel good people, and I hope that you have a wonderful holiday coming up. Yes, you too. Thank you, Sarah. All right, bye, Kristen. Bye. There you have it, folks. If you want to work with Kristen and learn more about regulating your nervous system with feel-good people or learn more about the feel good mat, feel free to check out Kristen on Instagram. And if you want to work with me one on one and get more coaching tips and tricks, feel free to check me out on Facebook or Instagram at Guiding Pathways. This has been your morning tea with Coach Kennedy. Take care.