Calm Down? Sure, Let Me Just Wrestle My Nervous System

Pressure doesn’t wait for permission—it moves first. Before a thought forms, your body is already shifting into high gear: heart rate spikes, breath shortens, focus narrows. We dive into that hidden moment and map a practical path from panic to presence, breaking the myth that pressure is a character flaw and reframing it as trainable data from your nervous system.

We walk through the stimulus-to-decision gap and show how to win back time inside it. You’ll learn to spot early physiological tells—tension zones, shaky hands, tunnel vision—so you can deploy a plan instead of defaulting to a spiral. Breath becomes a real tool here, not a “calm down” cliché. We explain why breath training must happen before game day, how to use paced breathing and the physiological sigh under stress, and how to pair breathing with grounding cues and a simple phrase that locks attention onto what’s important now.

We also explore perception and why the same environment can hit people differently. Your nervous system responds to meaning built from your lived experience, which is why comparison is a trap. Instead, we teach you to repurpose arousal as readiness and to stress-train your skills with small, controlled doses—time pressure, noise, and decisions under constraint—so performance holds when lights get bright. From business calls to parenting moments to tactical fields and courts, the process is the same: regulate state, choose the next action, and release the outcome. We close with practical homework and an invitation to become a detective of your own system—because composure isn’t luck, it’s a routine.

If this conversation helps you meet pressure with a steadier pulse, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and tell us whether you’re team “just breathe” or team “don’t tell me to say that.” Your feedback shapes future episodes—drop a review and join the dialogue.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hey everyone, welcome back.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

All right. Today. Today let's talk about what happens when pressure hits, right? What's happening in the body before you even know what's happening in the body and what it looks like. So a lot. It's a lot. It's gonna take all of us way longer to explain it and even to you know build a habit to understand it than it ever is for the milliseconds it is that that's all happening, right? So I don't know. Uh I'm sure this last week I could bring up lots of moments where I had to go in and talk to a client or my kid in a difficult conversation. I feel like I have those on the regular these days with a a preteen.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

I mean like I like I said, pressure, pressure's everywhere, right? I we we deal we we deal with it every day.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

But are we working through it with the right mindset to to to truly succeed? And I think that is uh something that we need to train, and it's you know, I had I had to make a decision, a pressure decision, right? Do I move into office space? Do I take my business and go from my house to paying somebody money at another location to potentially grow my business?

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah, scary decision.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

It and it's and it's a and it's a lot of press and it's pressure. And I can look at it from I don't know if this is gonna work, I don't this like I my mind went all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

At the end of the day, looking at the situation, and you may not have to make a decision right away.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah, but often our brains don't tell us that.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Right. It's every day, yeah, it is truly every day. So, and again, sometimes a decision has to be made like that. You have to deal with the pressure immediately.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Because you're saying something, I I want to highlight what you're saying, right? Like something has to be done immediately for the body. You something will happen, your body will do something immediately with pressure.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

No, 100%.

Myths That Make Stress Worse

SPEAKER_02 3:37

It doesn't have to be a decision, like as in like you're saying, right? Like, but something has to occur in the body, you know. That the body's doing a whole lot of things before you have to start doing any sort of thinking or decision making. Some of us have different timelines than others, but that split second urge to make a decision will show up no matter what, right? So I think that's a great point. Okay, so so then pressure is what, right? Because what are we taught? We're taught pressure is mental. Is pressure mental?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Pressure could be a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

I don't think pressure is mental. I think that's a myth. Oh, I should be calm right now. I calm down.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Oh, I mean, I say it to my wife all the time, and I get laser shot through my forehead, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah, you're lucky it's just lasers.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I've had, I mean, love my wife, you know.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

But still, but like that's a terrible response. Everybody, that's a terrible response always.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Again, getting out your mouth.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

You know, like other people don't struggle like this. No, fun myth.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

If you're going to work through pressure and understand how pressure affects you, you have to have some level of awareness. Because the body is going to give you signs before your mind does. And to me, if you don't find those triggers and how your body's changing, the moment your mind gets involved, it is an up, it could be. I don't want to say it will be, it could be an uphill battle.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Well, because, right? So as I'm sitting here spouting off all the things we've been told, things like calm down, which teaches us that we should be calm right now. The idea that other people, oh gosh, look around. Nobody else is struggling right now, right? Perception.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Societal.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Yeah. If I was tougher, this wouldn't happen. If I, you know, if I was better, if if if then like these are myths because pressure is not a character flaw, right? It's a physiological event, it is data coming into your system.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Not a personality trait.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

No, and news flash, as Matt just said, right, about awareness, it is still not a common discussion education lesson in our upbringing. How it applies to you will be uniquely yours. So let's let's break that down, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

When the stimul, when the stimulus happens, right? You can say there's split, you have the stimulus and the outcome, and you have the space in between. What are you doing? It could be seconds, it could be minutes, it could be again, depending on what needs to happen in that moment. Are you locked into that moment? I have when I talk about awareness, I talk about it from a very physiological standpoint. What is happening to your body? Because you can change your physiological state if you have the tools necessary. But that level of awareness has to start with when stress happens, when pressure hits, I call it Bob. Draw on Bob. That's my that's my exercise. Draw on Bob. What are some of the things? And I'm good, I'm gonna do it again. Your knees are weak, your arms are heavy, there's vomit on your sweater from mom's spaghetti. Your body is giving you signs. It is giving you signs. Heart rate increases, respiratory rate increases, shallow breathing, fast breathing, hands are shaky, your arms are heavy, you tunnel vision. When you start to get here and it starts affecting the cognition or the cognitive, you're running out of time. What skills are you implementing when your body is starting to go? Hey, I don't know what's going on. I need help. When the bot when the body starts responding, you have to make a decision.

unknown 8:22

Act.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

You have a choice. They call it point choice. In the sports context, it's a sport lifeline. You have a choice to freak out or to respond. You know, let your body react as it is probably accustomed to, or are you working through it with techniques, breathing, monitoring your self-talk? These are all the things that need to take place that way when it is time to make the decision. Again, it's a clear decision, and you made the decision based on what is in front of you. And I've said it before, it may not be the right decision if you're in a team setting, right? We both work in the tactical population. I'm sure there are leaders out there that have made decisions under pressure and it has led to someone dying. When the decision is made, you can't go back and change it. But can you go back and reflect and be like, I I did I made the decision based on what was in front of me. My system was I was in control of my system. I was able to listen to others and I said, Hey, send it. You have zero control of the outcome. Are you able to make the decision and go, hey, I'm good decision, shit happens.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, I I think first off, a freak out is a response.

Reading The Body’s Early Signals

SPEAKER_02 9:53

So and and I I think what I also want to say too, I'm gonna go ahead and say that probably anybody who's tuning in performs well at something. Right. So when we talk about this, like the point that you're like if you're sitting here and you're like, I don't perform well here, this is where I go back to that template, right? You perform well somewhere, which means you've dealt with pressure somehow and managed it, regulated it, repurposed it. That's a a big one I'll use with clients is you know, repurposing that energy coming in, like, oh, I feel this. And the way I take control over it is to repurpose it. The science nerd in me loves to spit physics. Energy cannot be right, cannot be made or destroyed. It can only be redirected. And so that's again kind of a that's one way to look at it. And so as Matt's saying, like you can, you know, you can you can freak out, which your body will happily do and and will and will take over and and nurture that response. And that's gonna be the response that will continue to grow over time. Or you can take what likely you do somewhere else in your life and repurpose that template onto different details. And so the other thing I, you know, and and then also to add on to the other point too, big decisions, we don't have control over the outcome. I like to think that we do everything we can to influence it. And I think that when we lay out best, you know, best laid plans, you know, evaluate the pros and the cons, our body regulation is included in that. You know, like Matt was saying, like once we once the trigger gets pulled, once the decision gets made, once the you know, the play is in play, you're right. We have to give in to the fact that we do not have control over the outcome. But if we've done our best, our goal is to influence it.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

100%.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

And I so again, I as you're listening and as as Matt is is beautifully breaking down like what is going on in our system and how to take hold of it and how to control what we can. Think about where, you know, like, okay, this is working well for me. Okay, well, break down. What are you doing when pressure hits before you take a test, before you, you know, drive in rush hour traffic, before you walk in and have a hard conversation, before you make a business deal, before you go on the court, on the stage. I don't care. You trained yourself, or somebody trained you at some point. So take that, zoom out, and then use what we're talking about and break it down for somewhere else in your life.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, I absolutely absolutely. I think what also is really cool, you're you're talking about something that I also kind of talk about with adversity. Adversity is pressure, adversity is stress. You can create plans around adversity. Because what we know about adversity is it's life is hard, and adversity will come and slap you in the face. It will, it will.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

We all know this well right now.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

But the the the shitty part about adversity is you can't plan for all adversity, but you can plan for some of it. If you know definitively that this could happen, what's your plan? What's your plan if that happens? Are you visualizing it? Are you are you sensing what potential emotions could come up? The body, even if it hasn't happened yet, can still give you responses that could potentially happen. It may not be as intense, but it's giving you time to build the plan around it. That way, if it happens and you've trained it, the body could potentially automatically take over because you've trained it.

Decision Making Under Uncertainty

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yeah, so emotion, emotion can make things worse. Thanks, human brain. And then the next step is like the what, right? So building up your awareness, oh, this, this, and this is happening. It's keeping is getting the brain back engaged, and then moving into the what first and foremost is to try and control what we can, which is giving ourselves a back to a sense of safety. I'm not saying that means because we're safe, there's a lot of reason we're breaking this down for a lot of people who could be in a situation where it's not actually about a safe environment, it's about create a sense of safety through control over self. So that I I mean, again, which leads to like the role of threat perception. Why same environments hit people differently.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

It's so it's so challenging because again, it comes back to the it comes back to the human. The human, each individual is different. And each individual is going to train and perceive things differently. From a performance standpoint, it could be a mindset shift that needs to be made. We do know that science says stress can enhance your performance if perceived appropriately. And we also know that if you perceive it as a bad thing, your performance will also be affected. Not so well.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Perception, perception is massive here. And perception is something that you initially, I don't know that you initially always have control over, but I think awareness builds the ability to shift that perception to some degree, right? But I think this is also why comparison is unhelpful. Yeah. Like I and for me, I have absolutely gotten into arguments. So I'm here for the opposing viewpoint, but for me, pressure isn't evenly distributed. And because there's a perception involved that relies on the person's unique experience over time, it is, you know, their pressure versus this person's pressure versus my pressure. And I could say the same about all the things, like pressure and trauma, and you know, like my trigger responses and your trauma responses and your fear fight, flight responses, they're all gonna look a little bit different because our nervous system responds to meaning, not logic, right? So it in it's doing its job when it's doing that, but because it responds to meaning and not logic, it responds to your own unique, as I like to say, your own unique internet results. So your own Rolodex of like everything you've been through in life, you know, good, bad, and indifferent, ugly, whatever, shows up in that moment as your own personalized sense of meaning.

Repurposing Energy And Templates

SPEAKER_00 16:53

When you when you look from a performance standpoint, when you look at developing training, right? And perception, perception has to be trained as much as adaptability, as much as the regulating the system, the skills that are involved in the task, right? You will go, I'll go out to a training session and it's calm. It's calm. Everyone's perception is got this initial thoughts, this it's easy. If stress uh isn't uh injected into the environment the training environment, are you gonna be able to handle it when stress actually happens? Are you going to be able to perceive and interpret and implement all the skills, right? The what comes down to awareness and perception. And it has to it has to be trained. And far too many times I see that it's not being trained. And it's trained in stress. Because if stress isn't being added, when that call comes, when that big moment in a game, when you know the the gun goes off to start the race, pressure, pressure is going to smack adversity, pressure is going to smack you in the face.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that I, you know, to give like a an interesting real life experience, right? Like I grew up playing softball. I really enjoyed it. I was like on paper purposes, I was very good at it, but I sucked under pressure. But as you're mentioning that, and as I look back and and know what I know now, right? That was actually, it was never injected into practice. Practice was just simple repetition and and batting practice and fielding, and it was a very safe environment and that was never threatened. And I did very, very well there. And then, you know, if there was ever that environment in a game setting, I was also averagely, I would be fine. But the second pressure would hit that had not been something I had been, like you said, trained in, which I have other areas of performance where I was. And I think it's just interesting that you mention, you know, that and as we're, you know, even to validate why pressure is good, adversity is good, difficult moments is good, and for all ages, obviously age appropriate, but you know, that is something that we all need to be experiencing throughout our entire life.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Um I'm not saying go out and destroy your teammate in training. Don't don't injure them. You need to challenge them. You need to challenge them. One of the one of the worst things that could happen is to see two teammates start taking it easy on each other. Because when you start training like that, it can transfer uh in the game. You need to train the stress that way when the pressure hits in the game, right? It could look like familiar, yes, yeah, yes, right, keep key moments of training, key moments of games, but even drawing that parallel, again, kind of extrapolating like you know, where I experience pressure and how, because again, the body's response is still very similar.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Physiologically, the body is still doing the same thing. So if I tune that awareness in, because I want to go back to like, okay, well, what do we do, Matt and Elise? What do we do? You know, you've told me, okay, I'm very aware of what's happening, and now what the pressure I know is coming in that moment. What do I do? What's like one or two things that you can tell me I can do?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

You fucking breathe. And I mean I you breathe. You breathe because your breath is going to regulate the system because the system is in chaos, the nervous system is being ripped apart by the stress. Okay, right? Aligning, aligning the system. You have the awareness that your body's freaking out, your heart rate's probably going up, your respiratory rate's probably going up, hands are shaking. Your breath can regulate that.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Okay, but devil's advocate over here, I feel like you just gave me the, you know, you just said the exact same thing, like calm down, right? Because what's my other least favorite phrase? Take a breath. So break it down for me. Because I'm probably like anybody else out there listening, like, screw you in your just breathe.

Planning For Adversity

SPEAKER_00 22:07

I love to be honest, I love that. Because when people, when I walk into a room, a lot of people are like, oh man, Matt's here is gonna teach his breathing. Until they actually start tuning in and training breathing. You have to train breathing, you can't just do it the moment pressure hits. You can't just you have to train breathing. And you can train breathing throughout the day. Are you doing pace breathing that's going to relax you? Are you doing physiological sign during stress that could reduce stress? The are you doing your box breathing? Are you doing the breathing that is going to regulate the system? And that can be done throughout, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

I wake up, I check in with my body, I do some breathing. If I wake up, like I didn't sleep good last night. Woke up, did some breathing, started my day. If you start training the system when there is no pressure and then start layering in breathing while there is a little pressure and a little more and a little more, your body will be accustomed to breathing. It's not just breathe.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

You train breathing. You train breathing.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Just like you train on a on a bench, on a squat rack. You train the breath. That way, when stress hits, you enter in the situation a little more calm, a little more composed, a little more clarity. When the pressure moment hits, your system may not go chaotic because it's already at a lower level. Like it's already at a decent level of you know excitement. And you've trained yourself now through the adversity, the pressure with the breath. So don't get it twisted that I'm saying just breathe in that moment. No, you've got to you've got to do it. You can't you have to do it, right? And there's so many stories of from past clients that thought I was crazy until they truly started to breathe and become conscious about their breathing. That way, when it happens, pressure happens, it's an unconscious, it is now unconscious, and your body is taking over in the appropriate way because you've trained it.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah.

Perception, Comparison, And Meaning

SPEAKER_02 24:48

You know, something that stands out. And I think I think a problem that happens with the way that a lot of information is put out there is that for a lot of us, like I will I think taking a breath becomes synonymous with calm down. And I think there's a a distinct difference here where what you just said, and I really want to highlight this. What you just said had nothing to do, really, had nothing to do with the emotional idea of calm down and had everything to do with the physiological ability to calm down, right? Like you guys can't see me putting quotes around it, but like I really wanna, I I think what I just heard you say, all right. It it's not that you need to be calm, it's that you need to be be present. And so, you know, and I'm gonna hold, I'm gonna hold Matt to this. I think we're gonna maybe we'll put out a bit more information and maybe maybe he can give us one of his amazing breathing exercises on a side for you guys this week. But you know, I think awareness, treating breathing and breath pattern like a routine, creating a habit around it. Just like, you know, you plug in your favorite music before you get into your go to work or your, you know, game or these little micro routines that we do that, you know, the the baseball player before he steps into the batter box, like I think is what I'm hearing you say. It becomes a routine, it becomes a habit. It has nothing to do with the the stigmatized idea of calm down. No I think that's I think that's a really great takeaway.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

You're you're also pairing it with other things.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Right? If I'm breathing and then I'm telling myself to calm down, you're calming down, you're not you're not becoming more composed.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

I'm just pissed off.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Right. If you are pairing the breathing, right? We talk about like right, what's gonna bring us to the present moment? The breath could absolutely bring us to the present moment. A grounding, a cue word, a phrase that is meaningful to you, that can get some energy and put into the body, right? What is something that is going to get you locked in?

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Your parent, you're you're starting to layer in the mental skills, you're starting to layer in the tools that's going to keep you locked in to the external task. We don't want to go internal. I've regulated the system. I have locked in to now. What do I what is the task I need to do right now?

SPEAKER_05 27:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

What what's important now? When, right? That acronym. What is the one thing that I need to do right now? And am I locked in on it?

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Breath is about being present and taking back control. To turn your brain back on, to figure out what's important now.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

To to lock into your mission, your internal values and the external task.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

There's your homework for anybody who wanted homework. Homework.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Do the task, find the ways to incorporate these things. This is a real world exercise that you can do throughout the day and you're preparing the system, you're preparing the human to perform when it matters most.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

Yeah, you know, if you're if you're nodding along like I am, and if you're if at any point in here you reflect or watch your breath go in or out, if you're a little bit more conscious of it, right? Like I would encourage the takeaway. Watch your breath for one or two seconds, right? Just get to know it. Hey breath, how you been? Followed me around my entire life. Like let me get to know you a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Literally, literally. It's with you every day.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

It's everywhere, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

And you have control and you have control over it.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

You do.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

You truly do. It's involuntary and voluntary. I can't remember what the hell that term is called, but you have control over it. So use it to your advantage.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Yeah. Follow your breath one or two cycles and get to know it. And then, you know, put it into practice just a few more times, right? Like, I mean, like I said, I'm I'm gonna hold Matt, possibly myself. We'll see how the week goes, but maybe we'll, you know, we'll we'll throw we'll throw up a couple of other breath exercises because it really it's not one size fits all. There's a lot of different options that you can then take and and customize down to fit you and your needs. And but think about what you talk to yourself. Like, what do you say to yourself? And did you know that you could change it? Right. So I invite reflection. Get to know how breath feels in your body and see what you can do with that information, you know. Matt taught us to breathe today and why breath is so important. I I send you all out there to be detectives of your own systems, and we appreciate you sitting down with us today. We hope you pulled something away. I know I did. I'm already sitting here being very aware of my breath.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

No, I I invite all questions.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Yeah, you guys send us a question, send us your comments, tell us what you like, tell us what you don't like. If you're like me and you're like, don't tell me to take a breath. You know, if you're like Matt and you say just breathe, tell us what side you're on. We look forward to continuing the conversation. But until next time, thanks for listening to us on Under Pressure.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Thanks. See y'all.