Reframing Self-Care As Nervous System Stewardship

What if self-care wasn’t about pampering at all, but about learning to steer your nervous system so you feel safer, clearer, and more present? We explore how to reclaim self-care from clichés and make it a grounded, daily practice that builds resilience where it matters most—in your body.

I share the moment that tested my beliefs: committing to a week-long breath work retreat while juggling clients, costs, and an eight-year-old who asked how leaving could possibly make me a better mum. That gut punch opened a bigger conversation about guilt, cultural conditioning, and the myth that caring for ourselves is selfish. We unpack why regulation is maintenance, not indulgence, and how a well-tended system transforms how we show up for family, work, and community.

Together we map out simple, free regulation tools—long exhales, shaking, sunlight, short walks, boundaries you can say out loud—and show how to stack tiny practices into real change. We talk honestly about the paradox of motivation: you often don’t want to do the thing that helps until after you’ve done it. So we focus on reflection, tracking small shifts, and building a bank of lived evidence that your efforts work. Expect practical steps for mornings, mid-days, and nights, ideas for navigating resistance, and a framework for making self-care a priority without drama or perfectionism.

If you’re tired of quick fixes and ready for steadier energy, better sleep, clearer focus, and a calmer mood, this conversation will help you turn self-care into nervous system stewardship. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs permission to rest, and leave a review so more people can find their way back to their bodies. What small act of regulation will you choose today?

Transcript

Welcome And Core Belief

Naomi Mills 0:01

Welcome to You Are the Answer, the podcast that helps you reconnect with the most powerful healer you know, your own body. I'm Naomi Mills, chiropractor, healthcare professional, and believer in the natural intelligence within us all. In this podcast, I explore what it means to trust your body, decode its signals, and take ownership of your well-being without quick fixes or health fads. Whether you're just beginning your journey or deep in transformation, I'm here to guide you back to the truth. You are not broken. You are the answer. Welcome to episode 19 of You Are the Answer. I am delighted that you are joining me today.

Redefining Self-Care

Naomi Mills 0:51

Today, I really want to talk about reframing self-care. So, first I'm going to ask: when you hear that phrase self-care, what does it mean to you? What associations or assumptions are you making about that phrase? Because I would guess that you're either in the camp of I'm completely on board with it, I love to do my self-care, I see it as doing things that make me feel healthier, safer, better. Or you could be in the camp of that's just one of those phrases that are here on the internet, and it's one of those wishy-washy, silly things that's kind of been made up, and life isn't, you know, made for self-care, and we didn't used to talk about that before. For me, the term self-care is both underused, sorry, I should say overused and misunderstood. And if you're already listening to this podcast, it tells me that you are already interested in this topic in some way. But we're not talking about taking bubble baths and reading a nice book.

Nervous System Stewardship

Naomi Mills 2:13

It's really about using self-care as a way of stewarding your own nervous system, as being the guardian of your own health and resilience and life. And that's where I want to take this concept, reclaiming it from just the wellness industry and bringing it back to you, your nervous system, your body, and your daily life. So you're probably already practicing quite a bit of self-care. It can be going to bed earlier, saying no to somebody, making sure you eat properly, allowing yourself to release your emotions through anger or fear or crying, moving your body, leaving the house and getting outside, asking someone for help, or learning to have a difficult conversation and laying down a boundary. Because self-care is not always comfortable. And more often than not, it looks like changing something that isn't quite working for you. And I wanted to share a very memorable moment for me when I started not just going through my daily lifestyle and doing the things that we know are recommended and I recommend all the time as a primary healthcare practitioner, trying to keep an eye on what I eat, making sure I move my body every day, making sure I

Real-Life Practices Beyond Comfort

Naomi Mills 3:40

don't have too much screen time and I'm out in nature. I'm doing all the things. And then I started going on some retreats and experiencing some of the self-empowerment activities and exercises that I've talked about on previous episodes: walking on broken glass, sweat lodges, firewalks, meditations, breath works, all of these things. And they're actually the uncomfortable things. Self-care can very often be something that's going to challenge your status quo, to make you feel more alive, more present in your body, more resilient, to teach yourself that where you have avoidance and fear, you don't need to anymore. And all of those are really powerful tools of self-care because they bring better nervous system regulation.

Retreats And Uncomfortable Growth

Naomi Mills 4:37

And so I might start going for a couple of hours, and then it was an evening or a day or a weekend until eventually, after a few years, I did my first one week away. And the week was really around breath work, and it was very challenging physically, emotionally, and mentally. And I came away from that week feeling probably one of the most profound senses of peacefulness and connectedness and joy that I've ever felt, having processed quite a lot of stuff that I'd picked up over the years. But that's easy to say once I've done it. Before I left, as a full-time working parent, I had guilt around leaving my family, around not earning money that week, around not being there for my clients. There were so many barriers I could put in front of myself. It's inconvenient, it's the wrong time of year, it's too long, it costs too much, I don't want to be away from a week, and I don't know who's gonna be there, and I'm gonna have to share a room with people I don't know, like so many little barriers that my brain could put in front of me. And they might not feel little, they might feel big. And probably the biggest one was when I'd made the commitment to go because I believe, because I know that doing this stuff is ultimately good for me, and what's good for my health and my nervous system is also good for my clients, and it's really good for my family, because the way that you show up and operate in the world really affects those around you, of course. But the killer for me was my daughter,

Barriers, Guilt, And Family Tension

Naomi Mills 6:24

who was only eight at the time, said, I failed to see how you leaving me for a week makes you a better parent. And that was like gut punch. That was like, oh, you know, I know that taking this opportunity will be good for me. Oh, but is that selfish? Is it selfish for me to do something that's good for me? And then the head just takes over, doesn't it? So I had to take a very deep breath, and I just smiled at her and I said, I know, but you will, and I'll miss you. We'll miss each other. But it's going to be really good for me, and it's going to make me better for you. And that was her thing. I was like, I fail to see how that will make you better, of course. And none of us will see how leaning into this work does us any good until we've done it. But that is a myth we need to release that self-care is indulgence in some form. Now, if you've read my book, if you know anything about the central nervous system, if you've listened to any of these other podcasts and how living in this constant state of stress is affecting everything from our sleep to our digestion to our behaviors to our moods to our productivity to our focus to our concentration, it can only be true that taking time to do something that helps you become more regulated

Self-Care As Necessity Not Indulgence

Naomi Mills 8:05

is maintaining your nervous system. And that is not indulgence, that is necessity. And with what my daughter said, it can feel like, well, it means I have to put myself first all the time. But when you make it a priority, so you're not going to be first all the time. Let's just go with being first most of the time. Or for some of you, it might be a huge challenge to put yourself first some of the time, if ever. So let's go with putting yourself first. Does allow better connection and contribution. You become a better parent, a better partner, a better work colleague. And yes, I talked about when I built up to my week away. But most regulation practices can take 30 seconds, a few minutes. I share a lot of them on this podcast. There are so many of them out in the world when you understand what it is that you are trying to create, then you can think of many, many ways yourself.

Small, Daily Regulation Tools

Naomi Mills 9:14

And they are short. It doesn't take a long time, but it does require you making self-care a priority. And here's the kicker: we should all feel motivated to do it. We all know more things we should be doing and less things we should be doing, and that ultimately we'd feel loads better if we did. But as I just shared about that one week away and all the benefits I got, and how incredible I felt at the end. And it really genuinely created a profound shift in my nervous system for months, if not years to come. It was so worth it. But regulation often needs to occur before you see its benefit. That's to say, you often need to do it and look back on reflection to really see the value. And that's how our nervous systems trap us, because you want to feel motivated, and we don't when we're tired and we're overwhelmed and we've got enough on. So we put it off and we put it off. And so it really takes that leap of faith to know if I stop and breathe for 10 minutes, if I go for a 15-minute walk around the block on my lunch break, if I put my phone down and just stare out

Motivation Lags Benefits

Naomi Mills 10:41

the window for 30 seconds instead of scrolling, I know on some level, on some theoretical level, I'll feel better. And then you do it, and then you reflect back. And it's certainly for me, it's only in the lived experience and building up enough bank of experience that these things have become easier. I'm not going to pretend that nervous system regulation or self-care is easy. If you're stuck in that sympathetic drive, that survival state, it's biologically diff difficult because we're often in a state of urgency and everything needs to be quick and easy and it needs to be now rather than nourishing or challenging. We don't feel like earning anything because we are so depleted. And that's why you look at your phone instead of going to sleep, or you push through instead of stopping, and you allow yourself to numb and distract yourself rather than feeling how you're feeling. Because when your nervous system feels unsafe, it will want to cope. And then there's our conditioning. And many of us were taught that our worth relates directly to our productivity. So not achieving something externally that someone else can see doesn't feel very productive in

Biology, Culture, And Conditioning

Naomi Mills 12:06

our culture. We're told that if we lie down or rest, we're lazy. And that putting yourself first is selfish. These are just facts. Nobody spitefully came to bring them to us, but they are a fact of our culture. So many of us have learned how to look after everybody else before we looked after ourselves. And then the third big barrier is just making it too complicated. You think it takes time, money, it's complicated in itself to find a way to regulate your nervous system. But most effective nervous system regulation tools are free and they're simple, and they're the most effective because it's what you can do in any given moment at any time, and it doesn't rely on anybody else. The way that you breathe, stepping outside, shaking your body. If you listen to the last episode and we played with some embodiment practices, just putting some music on and moving the way your body wants to move, all of these are free, easy ways that you can start making yourself a priority. You can start making self-care in terms of nervous system regulation an important part of your life because you understand that part of our jobs here on this planet is to take care of ourselves as well. And that should not be a revolutionary thought or a revolutionary

Keep It Simple And Free

Naomi Mills 13:40

act. But in a world where you're rewarded, consciously or not, for putting others first, for battling on, it can be very difficult to feel like you have permission to take the time that you need. That feeling our feelings can be challenging. And so take some time to reflect on self-care, what it means for you, and what you

Permission, Reflection, And Closing

Naomi Mills 14:35

would like it to mean in the future. Create your own definition and remember that you are the answer. Thank you for joining me on You Are the Answer. If today's episode sparked something in you, share it with someone you care about and leave a review to help others find their way back to their body too. For more tools, inspiration, and resources to support your journey, head to www.uareanswer.co.uk. And until next time, stay connected, stay curious, and remember, you are the answer, and you always have a