The Truth About Self-Care, Burnout & Nervous System Regulation | Dr. Melissa Sonners | Ep. 148

Opening and Guest Introduction 0:00

I had a hard time remembering my kids names. I couldn't handle their voices. They felt like screams. If I woke up in the night, I would make sure that my husband stayed awake because I thought if I fell back to sleep, i wouldn't wake up ever. Did anyone else around you notice these things happening? You know, a lot of us get really good at hiding. Today we have Dr. Melissa Sonners. Dr. Melissa Sauners is a chiropractic physician, a practitioner for over 20 years and the author of The Connection Code.

She specializes in helping women completely rewire their physiology to conquer severe burnout, brain fog, and chronic exhaustion. When we take a nervous system in a brain that's running in the state of chronic overload, that brain cannot apply, integrate, or remember information. And so what starts to happen is we look at this like, is this a motivation problem? Is this the discipline problem, neither it's a physiological problem. Before we get into addressing it, I want to talk about what happens when you don't address it.

What happens? When you're living in this. So we got the book A Connection Code. my experience of needing to ask the question, can we do self care in the micro moments of the day? In the book, you've got the tools, the ability to rewire your nervous system, to upgrade the program that you're running your life on so that as you hear that voice telling you, You're not good enough. You can actually, again, instead of trying to push beyond it or quiet it down, and you can pull up a chair and in doing that, your whole self.

How does meditation play in all of this? I would say meditation. Welcome to another episode of a Healthy Point of View podcast. I'm your host, Sam Tahata. And as usual, we're bringing experts from all over the world to talk about health, wellness, beauty, and mindset. Today's guest, We're gonna be talking about women's health. We'll gonna talking be about regulating the nervous system. Now, you guys get exposed to all of this stuff that's out there on social media. Do this, do that, control your nervous like this.

Does it work? Today's expert is gonna go into the details about what you should do, what shouldn't do. What are the best practices? Today we have Dr. Melissa Sonners. Amazing. You're a nice welcome. Thank you. Welcome, welcome to Healthy Point of View podcast. So glad to be here. It's amazing. Absolutely. I love how it feels in here, feels really good. Awesome. We try to make it nice and welcoming. And it's a happy place. Yeah. Fun environment. That's what we represent, right? I'm a firm believer that health and wellness should be hip and cool.

Coming from the traditional medical system in emergency medicine where everything's very paramilitary and Most of the people that are walking around are walkin' around with a white stuffy coat, you know, and a stethoscope over their neck. Like, health and wellness shouldn't be that way. It should be something where it's like, it feels inviting, right? It feels fun. So that's what we represent. But enough about me, this is all about you. Today's podcast, we're gonna be talking about the nervous system.

We'll also talk about your book, the connection codes. But before we start any of that, I want the viewers and listeners to get to know who you are. And I wanna go way back, your upbringing from when you were like about five years old. What was that like and how did it lead you to where you're at today? Gosh, interesting question. Okay, the first thing that comes to mind is my nickname when I was five was Missy Mouse. I had was very quiet and it's interesting, you know, I think people around us don't always realize that the words that they say and how it impacts us, right?

And so I as Missie Mouse and I quiet, and so, was labeled shy. So for my entire life, everyone with that story that I shy, You don't seem shy whatsoever at all. Not today. Yeah. So, you know, that grew into stage fright and things like that. Like, I would never go up in front of any group of people and speak. And I got to a point in my adult years where, based on some of the stuff I was studying and learning, it got really clear that I'm here and I have a powerful message to share. And so I did, I've done some deep personal work, some alternative work and in the process of that I realized I was never shy.

I'm quiet, very internal, love to hear my own thoughts, daydream, spend time in theta, where we get our best ideas, clarity,

Childhood, Shyness, and Finding Her Voice 4:17

insight. So I spent a lot of my young years living in Theta, like children do. You know, it's interesting how, again, the stories that people tell us is what we can step into if we're not careful. Right. And so, you know I've gotten the opportunity to have this rediscovery of who I actually am through this nervous system work and kind of have a do-over. know that and recognize that in my children, I've got three kids and my daughter's a little bit internal and I'm always just very careful with the words, right?

I wanna empower her and want her to step into who she came here to be, not who I am telling her she is through my observations. Absolutely, absolutely. So to get into it here, what is the problem in today's world when it comes to actual nervous system? Yeah, so I'm a chiropractor. I've been a Chiropractor for 20 years, which is insane, because I was telling you, I am 26. Wow. So you started when you were six years old. Back when I as Missy Mouse, yeah. No, no, sorry, 44 I graduated Chiropractic School in 2006. What college did you go to for that, what university?

I went to New York College of Chiriopactic in upstate New I always see a lot of chiropractors, Life University. Life, yes, very good school. So ours, NYCC is very heavily based in the science and neuroscience in particular. And so, you know, a lotta people don't know chiopractor are nervous system practitioners. If you put our school curriculum next to say like a medical school, they're very similar, the hours of anatomy and physiology. We typically have more hours in physiology and we have hours more of neurology.

Okay. Then we just do nutrition instead of pharmacology. So we come out with like a deep understanding of the physiology and the nervous system. And so in the 20 years that I have been in practice and worked with thousands of patients, my focus has always been women, particularly mamas. I've noticed in that time that there's a gap. There's major piece missing in how we're treating and how are supporting burnout and brain fog and cognitive fatigue in women. It's not that we lack information. We're swimming in it.

The one thing that we lack is space to integrate that information. So what's happening, and you see this today, because again, we are no short of information, you can look up any topic and get an answer, right? So you know what happens when we take a nervous system and a brain that's running in a state of chronic overload, that brain cannot apply, integrate, or remember information? And so what starts to happen is we look at this like, is this a motivation problem? Is this the discipline problem, neither it's a physiological problem.

So what we can actually do is start to address the physiology in real time. And this is so powerful when it comes to nervous system regulation, which is like the topic of 2026, if you haven't noticed. It really is. So before we get into addressing it, I wanna talk about what happens when you don't address it and time goes by, more time and more and you're not addressing this issue. Yeah, so what happen when your living in this chronic state of overwhelm and overstimulation is the nervous does what it's designed to do.

it reacts, it goes into a survival, essentially like a survivor loop. And so what happens is everything feels urgent and important even when it's not. Everything feels louder even if it is not and so for a woman today that might present as like the clutter on the counters is driving me nuts. Can't focus until that's gone. or my husband's breathing and chewing is driving me crazy. That's an overstimulation rewiring or nervous system wiring mismatch. And so it looks like snapping at your kids and your loved ones and then beating yourself up with guilt and shame.

Wow. Again, wondering what's wrong with me. When there's nothing wrong, your nervous is doing exactly what it's supposed to do in that state. Right, right. That can really turn into something drastic in a family and a relationship.

Chiropractic Background and Nervous System Basics 8:49

If that keeps on going, that mindset doesn't change somehow. You're going to just continue to beat yourself up personally. you're not going really understand what the issue is that needs to be addressed. So where do we start? Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, I think just also touching on what you just said, You know in all the women that I work with today There's basically like one main fear That what's that that they're gonna look back at this life and they were gonna regret that They didn't live it or that.

They missed the seasons and moments with their loved ones Because they are not in it in real time. So they not living in the present, right? It's, it's those moments where you lay next to your child at bed and like you're physically there, but you mentally replaying what happened two hours ago. Or you are foreseeing all the things that you need to do tomorrow, you know? So over time that can wear down your relationships. So talking about this specific, what you're talking, about in the traditional world that we're in and looking at the allopathic way of treating people that are going through this, What are some of the ways that these issues are being treated in allopathy medicine world?

I mean, I think there's, you know, there is a time and a place for everything. So I want to be very clear with that. Right. And, um, You know I, think anyone that's dealing with anything mental health wise, like it's always important to have a provider and make sure you're covering all the bases. But, again, this in a lot of people is coming down to a physiological issue. The way to address root cause, which as a chiropractor, as the natural practitioner, Why not do that first? And then see how far you can get.

And what else do I need to add? But why not address the physiology? 10 years ago, I was living this way. I a woman, like many women today, doing it all right. Waking up, having my power hour, getting my workout in, biohacking myself, optimizing, measuring everything. when I was tired, doubling down on caffeine, fasting, you know, all the things trying to get it done. And what started to happen for me is that there were these little whispers showing up at the times when i couldn't carve out an hour to Get on my PEMF mat or go in the sauna or do my breath work session.

For me, these times were showing either when was in middle of the day with patients or at end of day when cooking dinner for my kids and actually needing a break, right? And so I didn't have a tool in those moments to regulate my nervous system or to feel like I was self-caring. And what happens when we hear a whisper and we don't listen long enough, it becomes a scream. So what happened to me is I had a complete nervous-system shutdown. I got meningitis and encephalitis. At the time, I have had six-year-old, a four- year- old, and a one- years old and full load of patients in the practice.

And so the way that it presented for me was I would drive to work, which is two miles from our home and office. I had gone almost every day for the last 15 years. And I was literally have to pull over and open my map. Luckily, for whatever reason, I'd remember the address and I type in the addresses to get to where. Wow. Eventually, I had a hard time remembering my kids' names. I couldn't handle their voices. They felt like screams. If I woke up in the night, and I would make sure that my husband stayed awake, because I thought if I fell back to sleep, that I wouldn't wake up ever.

Did anyone else around you notice these things happening? People that were really close, but I think a lot of us get really good at hiding the stuff that you can't see. And so I would have caffeine and some ibuprofen and I double down and do what I had to do to get it done. And what i started to realize is that wasn't working. How far down this hole was I going to go? And so we got a diagnosis and what had happened actually in my case was I got to tick bite and mold toxicity at the same time. And for me, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

But ultimately I was setting my nervous system up for just anything to happen, right? And once we knew what I had, we came up with a protocol. We had access to some great tools and I get better really fast, but I needed to zoom out. I need to figure out were there tools that I could use in those moments. in the drive to work, in a drive home, when I'm cooking dinner for my kids. And that's what I've spent the last decade researching and doubling down on. The cool thing is there are, and they work really well, these two-minute tools.

Because going back to the traditional allopathic world, sometimes you know medical providers are very quick to put you on some kind of synthetic chemical drug right what you're still not fixing the root cause and you we all know that if you don't fix the cause you still got to be dealing with the same issue either sedating, doing certain things, it could be certain vices, or some of these drugs, and it can cause further chemical imbalances inside of your body, which make the healing process even a little bit more difficult when you truly want to fix what the root cause is.

Now, when were going through this, through your own journey, right? And I don't want label you as sick, but obviously there was something going on within your Would you blame this on potential burnout? Oh, 100 percent. It was burnout. How would you define burnout of how would I define burn out? I would define Burnout. I mean, I think a lot of women are walking around in a state of burnout today. You think they know that they're actually walking in the state I think more people do now more than in the past because it's become such a hot topic.

And I a lot of women are just realizing what we're experiencing isn't working. So thanks to podcasts and conversations like this or elsewhere, I it becoming more known. I over stimulation and high cortisol and burnout are becoming way more common. But I would say burnout is hearing and feeling that something isn t working and doubling down and just pushing through instead of coming back and returning to yourself and giving you what you need. I think a lot of it happens because in a of the marketing for self-care and the way that we're supposed to take care of ourselves when we do experience burnout is not accessible to a lots of women in the lot the moments and men too.

On paper, those things take an hour appointment. And so their time, their money, for a mom in particular, it's, okay, so I'm at work all day and now what am I supposed to choose? Time with my kids or that one hour appointment? And a lot of those appointments, even though I love a massage, I've loved a facial, a mani-pedi, they're not actually addressing the nervous system. They're are not downshifting you. If you go in to a massage and you're feeling overstimulated, yes, you might get into your parasympathetics, but you also might sit on that table playing out the same busy brain that you went there in.

So you leave that appointment in most cases and haven't actually shifted anything. You haven�t learned something that can apply in any moment. So a lot of times I'll say, you know, anyone can achieve peace when you're out meditating on a mountain, or anyone feel regulated when doing yoga on your mat. But can we create that same feeling? Can we downshift when we're in the car, our babies are crying, we are late for work, and our coffee spilled? That's the challenge. Challenge accepted.

Burnout, Overstimulation, and the Cost of Ignoring It 16:40

We can. And that's what the burnout woman actually needs. She needs those tools. Man there's a lot to unpack here, you know, because the thing is is Women will get into, I'm speaking specifically in today's world. We live in this go, go mentality. Sometimes I feel like people in general, not just women, but men also, it's just like, you just keep on going. And sometimes you don't even know that you're hitting that burnout. Truly, can you get to the point to really quiet the mind? Right, I mean, there's a lot there.

So one, a lots of us are addicted to chaos. A lot of are us addicted too busy-ness. a a of tether our worth and productivity to how much we're doing. Our nervous system will pull us into a familiar hell in any moment. Because to our nervous, what's familiar feels safe. Yeah. In a the women that I work with, if they actually go to put their feet up, it's one of the hardest things for them to do. I'm burnout, I need to relax. I sit to do it and I can't. Why can you? Because all these thoughts come up.

How dare I do this? I needed to be working on this, that and this thing. What if my husband walks in and i'm sitting down? What is he going to think of me? And so what do we do? We get pulled back into our to-do list. Not because we want it, quite the opposite, but because it feels safe. And so one of the most important things in the work that we all need to do to untether from this lifestyle that's burning us out is to create safety in regulation. in micro moments, I call it, like I say, a love to micro dose, but I'm not talking about, you know, plant medicine, and I am talking connection.

So can you take little hits of two minute regulation and down shifts so that you can start to teach your nervous system it's safe here. And so what we're doing every time we are doing that is, it is like a regulation rep. You know, so just like if you had no biceps and you start going to the gym, you mean, You're very fit. At first, it feels like you're doing nothing. And it Feels awkward and You get sore and your not seeing results. So these two minute shifts that I teach women that you incorporate throughout the day, not at the end when you can finally relax because that doesn't work.

You've trained your nervous system all day to go, go go. What happens when You do these regulation reps? Every 90 minutes, take a two-minute break. We can get into that later. What happens is all of a sudden your bicep pops. All of the sudden you've got a muscle. So all the suddenly what that looks like is that woman at 1230 in the middle of her day can actually sit and catch her breath for two minutes. and feel safe in it. And that's really important because we can sit here and say, we're all overstimulated, and we are all doing too much.

We got to sit down. we got a do less. But you literally put someone who's a high achiever in that situation and they can't. So then yet again, We feel like we were doing something wrong. It's not a motivation or a discipline problem. it's physiological problem and We can fix that through these tools. So a lot of women in today's world are working themselves to a level of physical exhaustion. Sometimes they don't notice it. At the point in time that they do understand some of the signs and symptoms that like, hey, that's me, right?

Someone listening or viewing the podcast right now is like my God, you know? I'm forgetting things. I am not able to focus. My immune system is the lowest it's ever been because I getting sick frequently. And getting these colds and coughs. All kinds of things are happening. Snapping at my husband can't handle his breathing right the chewing at the table and they're becoming very anxious and irate towards people The the next step from there because obviously you have your different steps that people have to go through What would you say is the step at that point in time where they actually recognize like something's up?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would simplify. So this is where we could be, you know, really confused because of all the information out there. Is it my hormones? Is that my cortisol? You know all of the things. We're not going on TikTok, right? We can't go on Tiktok or Instagram and start searching because there's going to be a lot of crazy information. Let's talk about some of this information that's out. What are some things that you've seen on social media that are probably not the thing that should do? Yeah, I mean, a lot of them in the mindset world are things like get beyond it, push through it.

Adversity is really important, double down, get, beyond your ego, which is essentially your inner narrator. I think that's a very masculine approach. And that doesn't work for the feminine body. So I really recommend women go internal. It's like doing less. Quiet the outside noise, you know, and this is a lot about getting back to to your voice. So one of the first things I have women do is they change up their morning routine. I could tell you what that is, if you want me to go through it. Yeah.

And we should absolutely talk about the the gears in our brain and our nervous system, because that's your roadmap to follow. And this is how things become really, really simple and an overcomplicated, overwhelming, uh, world and online, you know, platforms when it comes to our nervous system. So I'll start there if that's okay, because it'll help make the morning routine more simple. so our Nervous System base basically operates like it, it essentially is the operating system of who we are. And so in any moment, our Nerva system is a lens through which we see and experience everything that we're, we'r sitting through.

And there are gears in our nervous system, like gears and a car. And so just like in your car, you wouldn't wake up, go out in car and go into gear three, right? You would do a warmup. Right. Then when you go to park your card at the end of the day, You don't go from 80 miles per hour on the highway into park. you would destroy your car. And in that moment, you wouldn't say, God, what's wrong with my car? You'd be like, What did I do to my card? And so when we look at our day and we can use the gears of our nervous system, like gears in a car, and just make sure we're spending a little bit of time in gear one, gear two before hitting gear three.

So gear 1 and 2 are where we regulate, they're where integrate, there where are in present time consciousness and flow. Gear one is theta, and theta is our intuition. It is where we get our clarity, our best insights. Thomas Edison, famous inventor and a really famous artist, I'm blanking on his name right now, knew and appreciated the power of theta. And so these two gentlemen, when they would sleep, they'd put metal balls or utensils in their hand. So they would drift off to sleep, drop the thing, and it would wake them up.

And the reason that they did that was they wanted to spend as much time as possible in theta because that's where your ideas come from. So the number one first thing I have every woman do is spend time in the morning in Theta.

Micro-Moments, Regulation Reps, and Daily Reset Tools 24:10

We wake up in theta, it is magical. It is what resets our brain and closes down all the tabs. All you got to do to spent time and theta is not do two things. One, go on our screen. Two, turn on artificial lighting. Wow. That's like everybody. Everybody does that. Yeah. You had to force yourself not to do that? Yeah, yeah. And you know, I'm a realist, right? So if we need to go in our screens, put a red light filter. There's, like, super easy shortcuts that you can do. So, if your alarm is on your phone, you could have a Red Light Filter.

Every time I tell people to that, they're like OK, but what do I do? Right? We're doers. Right. so the action step in Theta is just to listen. So spend five minutes in the morning. This isn't your one hour routine. A lot of us don't have time for that. It's five minute in gear one and listen. That's not that difficult. I mean, most people snooze for more than five. Right. Yeah. The hardest part for a lot people is to sit in a quiet. So if the action step is listen, this isn't listen to a podcast.

This isn' t listen t a meditation app. Th is is listening to you. And this is getting familiar getting connected to who you are. But this i listening t yourself and your needs before the world gets loud, because all the men in here, they can probably attest to this that women are drowning in everyone else's needs. And then we get resentful. But how can we not be drowning in everyone else's needs if we don't even know how to carve out time to hear our own voice and our needs again? So theta isn't just powerful for us.

This is so powerful. For your relationship, this is where you can say, here's what I need. Can you help me create it for a man? I mean, you guys are fixers, right? You want to know what's the problem? How do I solve it? So it creates deep connection in ourselves, creates connection and our relationships. So first thing in the morning, spend some time in theta listening to you. Next thing you go into gear two, it's alpha. This is present time flow. this is where we connect. Alpha is what we feel after a great workout.

So alpha is really important for relationship, being completely in presence with someone, but also in the morning, completely present with ourselves. So your next five minutes, again, keeping artificial lighting off, keep screens off. This is a great time for journaling. It's like a five minute, I call it a call and response. You ask yourself questions about what you heard in theta. Okay, why am I overwhelmed today? What do I need? How can I make this day easier? Where can it ask for help? Right?

And it doesn't have to be this beautiful like gratitude journal. This is again, creating reconnection with what you need before you go serve the day. Then we go into gear three, which is where we all live. this is beta. Beta is meant to our nine to five. She's our get stuff done gear. I love beta if you love checking off lists. If that makes you feel worthy and productive, beta is your jam. But if we spend too much time in beta, we will hit overstimulation. We will have chronic fatigue and overwhelm, and we'll wonder what happened.

Is it my hormones? Is the cortisol? You know, whatever. Go down that list. Overwhelming on all the podcasts or all of the chat GBT conversations to try to figure out how to fix it. So beta is really important for like hitting your prime tasks for the day. Like these are your biggest targets, your heaviest hitters. And the big thing to do in beta, is to turn your phone on, do not disturb. This is not where you wanna be task switching. It's linear focus and every 90 minutes you want to microdose. this is where we get those reps in.

And this is what- How many minutes? 90 minutes. Every 90 minute you wanna go ahead. You gotta take a break. Yeah, and this what's really cool. Think about this. Your body will tell you you need a brake. If you're, say you have like a digital world job or you are in your focus task. Probably about every 90 minuets you gonna wanna snack. you going to wanna brain break and what do we do? Doom scroll. Which keeps you in beta. Screens and bright lights put you into beta And that's why it never feels good after.

This is pretty cool. You know, like, my aura ring tells me when I have to stretch my legs. Like, every like 45 minutes or whatever it says, hey, you've been sitting a little bit too long. I don't know how it does that because it's on my finger. But it it'd be smart to have something that just gives you that little notification. Yeah, yeah. And ultimately, again, you know, my goal with the women that I work with is to get you to a place where you don't need anything else and you hear your own voice.

You hear it. Yeah. Because you will always, You will be getting these signals. We've just learned to override them. Right. and the power when you can get back to, Oh, wow, that's me needing a brain break. Oh wow. That's the annoyed at the clutter because I spent too much time in beta. You can then in any moment where you're feeling chaos, you can stop for a beat. What is it that I need right now? And instantly get the answer. You turn that whisper into very loud, very clear voice. And that's really starting to understand and knowing yourself.

That's knowing your self and that self care. Because what you do in those moments is you actually downshift from beta into alpha. Right. that that the rebrand that Self Care needs. It's a powerful thing. Very powerful. Yeah, I like that. So let me ask you this. So when people get into this overdrive, this level of exhaustion, just so much is happening within them. How does, like, for example, childhood trauma, right? When people go through a healing process, many of the times they have to go to a breakthrough, and a lot of times the things that are affecting them at that level are things from previous, other type of traumas.

It doesn't necessarily have be childhood drama, but any kind of trauma that have just built up. Can you speak on that? Yeah, I mean, i'm definitely not a trauma expert. I'm not trained in trauma. Uh, um, a nervous system girl and that's, that my area of specialty. However, you know, our nervous is our hard wiring and a lot of it is inherited from our mother's father's teacher's preachers and the environment that we grew up in. And so what happens in those cases is we learn and basically understand how to read our environment based on the situations that we grew up in.

And, so how that will present in someone is, you know, unconsciously, how do you react in situations when you are overwhelmed or stressed? Do you snap? There was a woman I was on phone with today. She withdraws. she shuts down. Because to her that feels like safety. because when she was small, that's what she had to do. And so for her now in her marriage and with her stepchildren that she inherited through marriage, she doesn't want to withdraw anymore. And, so the, you know, the experiences that we go through, traumatic or, and big T, little T right, really trauma is anything that there's a perceived lack of control.

So a lot of us are experiencing some form of trauma quite often. But 100% it shapes the way that we react to everything in our environment. And so the that I look at it and the the I work with it is making the conscious choice to carve a new path. We do that through some of the intense work, right, with people that are trained in these therapies. Again, I'm not. This is not what I do. Um, and, you know, deciding to, like, I love to talk about the power of the pause in any situation.

Trauma, Reactions, and Creating a Pause 32:10

I visualize like a path in the woods and the path that we've always taken, the reactions that, we have always done based on how our hard wiring has been programmed is, is the, path on the left. And that comes through reaction. That's us living a script. There's a fork in, in that fork is. the ability to pause. And Viktor Frankl has an amazing quote and it's something like, between stimulus and reaction, there's a pause and that's where our power lives. So when we stop at that fork in the road, we create awareness and we can catch ourselves, oh wow, look at, I was about to snap the way that my dad did.

But instead, imma take a minute. And when you create that awareness, you activate your prefrontal cortex, the CEO of your brain. You quiet your amygdala, your security guard that told you withdrawal is safe or told that reaction is see. And instead you get to carve a new path. Right. and that happens through the reps and the work. Now what happens just like, a path in the woods is the more that you walk on that path, The smoother that becomes. So you start to make that your default reaction. Do you use any data tools like neural feedback or any kind of like brain mapping tools or even like any kinds of wearables where people can manage their or have visibility of their HRV?

Yeah, a lot of the people that I attract are in the biohacking world. And so a of them come to me with, you know, the aura or the whoop or what's that on the card? Heart, heart math, like the HRV readers. Okay. and ultimately, again, I want people to get back to just knowing themselves. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of times it's, you know, we'll use those as guides and to get data. I think data is really powerful because what you measure you manage. so, I know a of people with the aura ring. It's like if you're not sleeping well and you are starting to realize, OK, when I eat late, i'm not getting deep sleep and REM.

That's powerful information that you can make changes from. SO I do love some trackers and wearables. But again,I just think we've swung so far in that direction and gotten so disconnected to be able to hear, okay, maybe I don't need an alarm every 45 minutes. Maybe I can start to realize, oh look, that's when I grab my phone. So the idea is to not need anything because a lot of the women that I'm working with need these tools to work when they don' have access to things. When they can't look up the data, when can get in the sauna.

Again, it's, its when their slinging carpool or their kid is having a meltdown. What do I need, right? Right, right. What are some of the things in the wellness, when it comes to wellness that's completely misunderstood by a lot of women that you work with? That's a good question. Like specifically when they're going through their healing process. Uh huh. There's a lot that come to mind yeah, I mean You have a of different experts and professionals out there that you know have different type of healing techniques, right?

You know you're a chiropractor, so there's just a a different Techniques just in the world of chio-practic you got the guys that have their own technique you have other guys, that are chiropractic neurologist that you know focus on the nervous system you got other guys that like to use other technologies like they do decompression you lower body upper body they have the t-rex you so like even in the world of Chiropractic. Even in that niche, yeah. You have so many different ways of treating the patient.

Yeah. And then you got people that are going more of the holistic route that have been born to Eastern medicine, right? Doing acupuncture and touching the patients a little bit more and feeling them through a lot of energy medicine type of stuff. Looking at the chakras and everything else. You know like with the way that you practice right and provide guidance and coaching to your clients What would you say are some of the things that the women are coming to you that it's just they're completely They're misunderstanding What to do with themselves?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing that most women aren't getting wrong when it comes to health is that healing is something outside of them And they're going to all these different external sources. Yeah. I can see that being a big problem. Even with other things that people have to heal from, they are not tapping within. That's a good one. And I will say, I use these tools and I love these tool and they absolutely have a place. They are very important. The biohacking industry has grown at such a rapid pace because what we're seeing is people that used to turn to drugs or medicine with side effects are now going to these other tools, which actually do get us into parasympathetics so that we can start to reignite healing from the inside.

And when you do that, you don't usually get side affects. You get sides benefits. And so we're seeing a new wave of health and anti-aging and longevity. And I think all these things are really powerful. The pendulum has gone too far. Yeah. So I'm hoping it's going to settle somewhere in the middle where we can get back to the power of sunlight. I tell a lot of the women that I work with, follow what feels good. Follow what feels good. When you're in the car and you are listening to an amazing song that you grew up in and feel so happy, recognize and stamp that as your self care.

Follow that. Let's get back to that." I think we've gotten to a place where it has to be so big and so complicated for it to work. And we're missing these beautiful moments of opportunity that we all have within our day, no matter how busy we are. Yeah, you just putting that emphasis on you have to go within, completely important. It goes back to how you said we gotta focus on the root cause. And you see a lot of this. You see so many people talking about, oh, I gotta do my weekly detox, gotta take my binders, my activated charcoal.

But they don't switch their lifestyle, right? They're still drinking out of plastic. They are still going out drinking every single night and exposing themselves to all these toxins. It's like you're just feeding the problem. So it doesn't matter how much glutathione and all of these antioxidants that you are taking and detoxing, if you continue to not avoid practice the avoidance part of getting rid of these toxins, you're going to continue to have the problem. So going within and focusing on the root cause is definitely important.

I want to talk about ego. We all have an ego, some are big egos, other smaller egoes, but it doesn't matter who you are. What can you tell us about egot and how we should handle our ego? Yeah, I love ego so ego is essentially your inner narrator. And if you're listening to this and thinking I don't have an ego, that's your ego. And when I went to write this book with Hay House, I told them, everything that I can find, most of the things that can I find when they talk about this inner narrator and the ego a lot of it is about getting beyond it.

What does that mean, getting behind it? Like distracting yourself away from it, powering over it. Your ego? Your inner narrator. Inner narrator? So I think a lot of people when we hear ego think it's what makes you like overly confident, right? There's that version of ego. Ego is essentially our inner narrator. Right. And so ego will chime in when you're in a room that you don't think you are good enough for, imposter syndrome. Okay. ego's aim is to keep your identity safe. So there's a part of our brain called the amygdala.

Wearables, Biohacking, and Misunderstood Healing 40:30

That's to keep us physically safe and our egos to our identity safe. Don't go over there. don't want stage. What if you embarrass yourself? Right. And so we can try to push this down. There was a perfect example I wrote about in the book with my daughter. She was her cheer squad was going to perform at the Miami Heat game. and she was scared. And so in those moments, you know, we could power over that inner voice. I'm scared, I shouldn't do this. Well, let's just get through it. Let's do something that makes us feel good.

Lets get beyond that voice, lets go out there and crush it, and instead I say, amigo your ego. Befriend your Ego. Create a conversation. Amigo your ego, like that. Yeah, that's not my phrase, but someone said it and I was like, oh, thats great, i say befriend you ego, But amigo you're ego is very cool. So anyway, my daughter Kaia, who was eight at the time, I asked her, like, what's coming up? You know, What is your inner voice telling you? And she said, you know I've practiced my back walk over on grass and I have never done it on wood.

And so I'm scared I am going to fall on my head and embarrass myself. So she sat with her ego, she got data and from that she was able to practice on And had she just pushed through, gotten beyond, distracted out of, she wouldn't have gotten that potentially crucial piece of information to help her feel so confident. And so especially when it comes to us women, our inner narrator is at least half of who we are. It's constantly running in the background. I'm so sick of and I think a lot of women are so thick of hating and shaming aspects of Who we Are.

So when we can actually pull up a chair, and create space for our ego, it just wants to be seen and feel safe. Kind of like a kid. It's like, if your kid is tugging at your arm and tuging at you arm, and you're like ignoring them in a conversation, they'll start tugting harder. And if you are just with them, like fully with, them for a minute, They don't usually mean much. and our egos the same way. A lot of times, this is some inner child work that comes up. Okay. So you should definitely embrace your ego, befriend your egos.

Amigo your Ego. Pull up a chair, just like you would for a girlfriend, right? If your girlfriend was like, I'm going through some things, i need to just verbal process. Like you just sit there and you will just listen. You'd be present, you're not here to fix it. Just letting it off gas. That's what we need do with our ego. And that goes back to listening to yourself, tapping into it? Yeah. Now, when it comes to listening to myself, there's another part that lives within me. I'm a Christian and the Holy Spirit lives with me and that's something that I listen to as well, too.

Where does your spirituality come into play with all this? Where is it for you? For me, it's one of the most important parts, my connection with God, listening to God and living a God-like type of life, a Christian- like life. So I'm always listening to make sure that I am living life through the word of God, but not everyone's a Christian. But me personally, I believe that everyone should have some kind of spiritual belief or a belief in a higher power. So now you as an expert, what would you say people should, where should people place having a spiritual believe or belief and a power?

I mean, I don't want to should anyone and I'm definitely not an expert. I just walk in this path, you know, with everybody. What about you personally? I think having a connection to something bigger than us is really important. That's when we're in theta, that's where we connect to that. So that is the super high way to source, whether it's God or your spirituality or quantum or universe. I think that that really important because it helps create instant connection when things can feel chaotic. Having that practice that ritual, I thing it is one of the most important things that there are out there.

However it shows up for everybody is I was always turned off by religion, to be honest, as I growing up. And I've come to find a relationship with God that works for me. But a couple of things did that. I felt that in the churches that I sat in with some of my friends and families, I felt like it created a separation between people who had different religions. Oh, I agree with that. And between families, you know, my dad wasn't around a lot. He worked really hard when we were little. and sometimes Sunday we would go to church and I'm like, wow, how I get to be with my Dad.

But my father would be here and my mom would here. I am here, and like I want to do with dad. And to me, I feel like the goal of what they were saying in our church was connection. And I'm like, i'm not feeling that right now. That's crazy you say that because, you know, same thing. I got family members that are very into the religion, but they alienate themselves from everyone else. It's like. Yeah. Religion says the complete opposite. Means that we're supposed to come together. So I've seen that.

So, I grew up Catholic. And, you know, no longer I wouldn't say I practice being a Catholic, having been to a catholic church in years. I go to non-denominational church because I didn't feel connected at the Catholic church. But I grew up, my grandmother and one of my aunts were Jehovah Witnesses. My family, I grow up Catholic. And then I had other parts of the family that were Mormons. So we go to these family reunions, you got Jehova Witness, Mormon, Catholics, and then you've got the ones that just don't do anything.

It was just like... Chaos like this person can't do this. This person. Can't drink this first. We can gamble, you know, we all eventually got along and everything But I'd always ask my father like it's like not everybody not all of these religions can be correct Like what what is it? Right? Yeah, I always felt like if it was such a contradiction and that was just my experience like If you love God and are connected to God then doesn't that connect us to each other? Aren't we? All good here? And then the other thing is I had a lot of experiences with friends when I was a child.

I lost one of my closest friends in eighth grade, and then in ninth grade my first love got killed in front of brother. So there were just a lots of experience that made me question God from an early age. Why would God do this? And now as I sit here as a grown woman, I understand. And I have a faith and I believe in God. But I still feel my personal take, so don't knock me in the comments. I feel, my experience growing up was that religion created a separation between person and God. So I define religion as religion is man-made.

This is me now. Religion is a man made. Christianity is straight from the Bible and it doesn't include all of these other things that cause a lot of that separation. I've always questioned it, and I got a little bit distanced from it. And today, I kind of go back to what you said earlier about you have to go within. So it took me a lot of going within to find that true connection with God. I have always had that spiritual connection, with a higher power. There was always something. But I didn't feel like it had to be through a certain specific practice.

You can't eat meat on this day, you can do this. You know, I just knew that there is a connection with the higher power and that's what i've embraced and it's worked for me You don't know when you're connected to god. Are you internal like are you connected? To yourself? Is that all the same? Yeah. Yeah, yeah I feel like it gives you an internal root. It gives You an anchor. I can feel it like, you know i'm i'M the person that like Anything that I've done that's bad in life I knew that it was bad.

Ego, Spirituality, and Inner Connection 48:40

Something was talking to me knowing that, I shouldn't have done. There's nothing that if there's any sin that have I done throughout my entire life, You just didn't listen. No, I just did not listen, you know? But you've had that connection. A hundred percent, yeah. I've always had a connection, and I know the good from bad. You know, just have free will. And I have to make that decision of if I want to do it or not. Sure. Growing up I made the decision, the wrong decision. But, but you created a pause and there was an awareness and you made a choice and that's the power because you now, okay I had the information and chose and now I face this consequence.

But I would say just to answer your question, like what should spirituality be for anyone? It should be that, if I were to that from my heart. It's should that deep internal connection to something bigger than you, but that comes from an inside anchor. Because God is in all of us. In all us? Yeah, it's a beautiful world. There's so much more to what was created here. So talking about going within, I want to go into something else. I wanna go to meditation. And what you think about meditation, because when we're talking about going into these different states that you brought up, meditation has been shown to put you in certain healing states, et cetera.

Now, I've heard people say, oh, well, Prayer is not meditation for me. Meditation is meditation, prayer is prayer. It's me communicating with God, speaking to God. meditation is where I go into this total relax mode. When I'm praying to god, my brain is going. when I meditate, I am relaxing my mind. I try to think about nothing. How does meditation play in all of this? Well, meditation means to become familiar with. So I would say meditation, the goal of meditation is to be come familiar you. With your thoughts, with your patterns, oh, look at me, I'm sitting here trying to be quiet and there's my head going to the to-do list, right?

The goal is to get into the nothingness or the clarity of being able to hear your own voice if you haven't heard it before. Do you meditate? I do. And I would say what that looks like to me might be very different than what someone else calls meditation. Yeah. Me personally, for years, I've tried to meditate on my own. Very difficult. I feel like I could never get there. And it wasn't until I actually started implementing BrainTap, which is guided meditation, where it really brought me to that. Now, when I don't have the Brain Tap, Which I always have it on phone, but if I, if, If I Don't Have it, like, i can just sit and kind of do the consistent practice of utilizing Brain Tap.

i Can force myself to Meditate. So you've done the reps and you can downshift now in real time. Pretty much. So I would say meditation is the ability to do that, to get into, you know, alpha from beta, like from our go, go go busy monkey mind to drop into present time consciousness and to just be in the moment, which is really hard, can be really, hard. Actually a great tool to meditate with is to look at a flickering flame. So Dr. Patrick Porta, the founder of Brain Tap, actually taught me this.

We have mirror neurons in our brain. That's why if I smile at a baby, that baby smiles back. If I sit like this, pretty soon you'll do the same. And so the frequency of a flickering flame is the Same as the Frequency of Alpha. And so if your mind is really busy and you can't shut it down and get present in the moment, you could look at a flame and it essentially like hacks your neurology into alpha, which is more of a meditative state. We want to go down deeper into theta which more like the nothingness and then even like hits of gamma which are incredible insights which, is beautiful when people can achieve that and I do a lot of, Dr.

Joe Dispenza and he's really cool. He shares the science and we'll have some people, you know, being monitored in the sessions and you see people had these high waves of gamma, which is like, holy insight. So, to me, meditation is about becoming familiar with and I think the most important thing for you to become familiar is you, Source, got that interconnection. And you can do that through meditation. That's where we do. Meditation is alpha theta. It's being able to be present and to quiet the future and the past.

Do you add breath work throughout that process? I think breathwork is really powerful for getting back in the body. A lot of times when I'll have people do breath, we'll just do a few breaths. We usually do like a four second in, an eight second out, and then I have to people hum on the out because you stimulate the vagus nerve, which helps downshift pretty efficiently. Now, in the wellness space, we're starting to see all these little tools and gadgets and all of these devices. So we talk about the nervous system.

We know that there's a lot of new tools that are coming out there, for example, like the Pulsado, Vegas Nerve Reset. What's your input on some of the Vegas nerve reset tools, and buds and stuff that people are utilizing? Yeah, I get a lot of them sent to our house to try out and they sit on the shelf. Really? And I don't know if it's because I'm a recovering biohacker, but I just am so turned off by all the tools and gadgets. Because again, you know, not to sound like a broken record, But I am working with and talking to the woman who does not have access to that tool when she's in her minivan and her kids are crying in the back.

I will say, like you said about Brain Tap, is something that is amazing about the tools is that they teach you how to access it. So if you're someone who hasn't been able to do that on your own, if your someone whose so ramped up that you can't even get there on you own. Then yes, we need to create a bridge and there's a lot of great tools out there to it, I love Brain Top. I think Patrick Porter is a genius in what he created, that's one of my favorite tools. The other tools that I really like, there's very few of them, but I love some red light tools because they help create the environment that's required for us, our physiology, to do what it's meant to, right?

To stay in theta and alpha in the morning. So I loved some good red lights. I love a PEMF grounding mat that kind of replicates that human's frequency of the earth and gets us back into that state if you need a crutch. I don't know, the wearables and things like that, I've just gotten really turned off. We've gotten overly reliant on an app telling us how we feel. And I just want to get people back to knowing it from the inside. Yeah So dr. Melissa song How powerful is the mind So powerful so powerful when I was younger I wanted to prove that to myself and Ironman was was my challenge because I knew that the body taps out after a certain point and for me I Two and a 2.2 mile swim, 112 mile bike, followed by a 26. 2K, 20, what is it?

26, is that miles or K? I can't even remember right now. A marathon. Two miles, okay. Was enough to do it. And so I realized if I could get through that, that's the mind, you know? And I've always been really, really into the power of the minds. Because it can get us through anything, anything that's humanly possible that anyone out there can do, we can all do. And it's just our mind limiting us. I love mindset work. That's why when someone broke, what was it, the five-minute mile, four-minutes mile?

Bannister? I forget the amount and the time. But as soon as one person did it a lot of other people did because we knew it was possible. Right. It's not the physical body, that the mind. The mind is incredible and that why too I loved these tools because We, you know, so much of what we're trying to do is control the outside environment. It's not working. And when we can not control, but shift the inside, through the mindset, though the regulating of the nervous system, by getting out of beta and into alpha, everything becomes easier.

So this is less about fixing the situation and more about what gear am I in? And what gears do I need to be in for the task at hand?

Meditation, Breathwork, and Nervous System States 57:50

Am I in beta but I want to be present with my child for bedtime? Great, get an alpha. Downshift. Mom, it's time to relearn how to drive the vehicle that you're in. Yeah, 100%. That's awesome. All right, so we got the book, The Connection Code. What made you put this book together? What made me put this book together was my experience of needing to ask the question, can we do self-care in the micro-moments of the day? Digging through the neuroscience and pairing it with our intuition. I wanted this to be really easy.

More of a reminder for women, you've got this. You just forgot how to access it. So let me tell you how get there again. Let me crack the code for you. Your code is different than mine. But now you have the ability to turn that on in any moment. And so this was really fun. I mean, it was probably like a decade in the making. It took way shorter when I sat to write. Even the cover was very intentional. ''I want this book to feel fun and light and easy and simple.'' Yeah, I like it. It looks very inviting.

So yeah, now I don't want to give away everything that's in the book, because if people really want a tap into this, i do think that they need to purchase the Book and read it and understand it in full. But when it comes to taking that first, first step back to become yourself, What are some of the things, because I know you've already talked about the two minute break throughout the day, after 90 minutes. What else can you share with the listeners and viewers that they can make that first step?

Yeah, I really look at it like being in alignment, being connection, and being our body. And again I'll use the analogy of how you feel after a great workout. That's connection. And so the first part of the book is basically, part one is misalignments. It's like, how did we get here? What stories have we told ourselves? what are the myths of womanhood pulling us out of that connection? Whether it's all the things that we feel we have to do to be worthy or that feel that have do keep up with all of other women.

Or why, you know, what's wrong with me? Is this a personality flaw? No, it is physiology as we've discussed. And then these, these really simple ways to get back into alignment, right? How to shift from beta to alpha, listening to a great song that you love is an amazing way to do that. And then part three is staying in alignment. So how do we get to this place when the schiznit hits the fan? And so, all of it really comes back to like when you ask what step one step is recognizing. Okay, here's what I feel like, when things feel really good I'm in flow I mean alignment naming that anchoring it right, and then starting to recognize and create an awareness when your getting pulled out of that awareness is one of the most powerful first pieces.

that we have the ability to access and it doesn't take any extra time. So step one is awareness. Because when we can create awareness, if you remember that path, we create a pause, and our power is in that pause because we make a different choice. In the book, you've got the tools, the, ability, to rewire your nervous system. to upgrade the program that you're running your life on so that as you hear that voice telling you you are not good enough or you aren't organized enough, or things aren t perfect enough and beating yourself up over it, you can actually, again, instead of trying to push beyond it or quiet it down, pull up a chair and in doing that, ignite your whole self.

No wonder we are exhausted. We are coming at the world half full. This is how we partner with ourselves again. This is the time for it, self-care needs a rebrand, it's an inside job, and so that's all the tools that are in there. I love it. And we got a little brain there, squishy brain. So we're going to have a lot of fun here. Mm-hmm. What if I don't know them? Um, hopefully you know, it's, I'm going to get a name like, yeah, you can say pass, but I'll do like a handful. Uh, Andrew Huberman. Amazing neuroscience.

Ben Azadi. Love Ben. He's my neighbor. I think neighbor bike rides, bike ride to his house. Yeah. Is my buddy. Dave Asprey. Definitely created a really powerful movement that hit a tipping point that needed to happen. Awesome. Joe Dispenza. Love, love Dispenza. What do I think of? I thing of, God, he's one of my favorite, I thinks he is a good guy. He's doing it right. Yeah. Brian Johnson. Ugh, God. My detest of data and tracking, he is the walking example of that. Although he's doing some mushrooms and has had some shifts.

I don't know if you noticed that, I think he was getting back to connection. He was living in a silo and not really living, so who cares if your hacking longevity and you're going to live to a certain age? He's not fully living or at least he wasn't. Ben Greenfield. Ben, good guy. Good friends with his wife, love Jessa. He's an outlier, I think he's interesting. Like he is never gonna be PC, he gonna tell it like it is and I that's really refreshing. And last one here, RFK Jr. I don't follow politics a lot.

So I am not up to date on the latest and the greatest. But what I think of when I thinking of RFK is that, you know, he comes from like a really interesting lineage of loss and tragedy. And I he has a fascinating story. I admire what he's trying to do for the health of our children big time. Our kids are sicker than ever. devastating. I think what he's doing is very brave and he is a target. And, you know, he has said himself, like if he makes these changes, He doesn't he doesn' care what that does to him.

and I respect that. Wow. Yeah, totally. You knew everybody. Yes, I did. Awesome. Here. The next thing. One of my favorite podcasters is Steven Barlet with the diary of a CEO. So he came out with these conversation cards. l'll have you grab that I love these games. Open that up and they just grab two cards out of the middle anywhere. You'll read the cards and then answer them Oh, I answer then I thought I get to ask you. Oh no. I'm the host. And I've heard a lot of crazy things of those cars I am not trying to answer.

Okay, what scares you the most today?

The Connection Code, Final Advice, and Closing 1:04:50

Oh I don't feel like I was scared of much today. Um, oh What scares, okay, I'm a mom. I mean, what scares me is my kid's getting hurt. That would be the most vulnerable thing. A lot of other things I have the ability to not control but impact. Again, my first love died when I was 15. And so I think the greatest gift that came from that is that if something seems really bad, it's never permanent if it not death. And so I've always realized and recognized that I could get through anything as long as it's not that.

That would be my biggest fear. I do the other one. Yeah. It's blank. No way. All right. You got to figure another one for another. When you are near the end of your life and looking back over it, what will you be proudest of and what would you regret the most? OK. I will be proudest of the way that I show up for my kids. I'm a really good mom. Nice. And I learned that from my mom, for sure. What will I regret then? I mean, a lot of my north star every day is to make sure that i'm as present as possible so that, I don't do that.

Like I said, in all the women I work with, their number one fear is, to look back with regret. And I really feel that the antidote to that is the ability to not enjoy every moment, because I don't think every moments enjoyable, but to be present. Because if we're present, we always have the answers. That's the right answer for us. And we are not missing the moments. But does that mean I always show up that way? No, it's, the work I'm here to do. I teach it because it is my most important work. Like I'm the person, I am teaching the tools that are the things that I needed growing up.

And one of the best ways to become an expert at something is by teaching it. Yeah. So. I don't know if I'll ever be an experts.I don' think I want to be, but hopefully, you know. You are an expertise. Truly you are. Always want to be learning more, you know, I never want feel like we all are gonna learn but we're all experts in our own kind of way You know you didn't go and get a doctorate's degree and not be labeled as an expert Yeah, but in the 10,000 hours So Dr. Melissa as we wrap up here And if there's anyone who's listening or viewing this podcast that truly resonates with today's message, what is the last thing that you can leave them off with?

I would just want to remind you that, you are extremely powerful and that a lot of the tools that we've been searching for to create a feeling and we'd been reaching outside and it's actually inside. And a of it is probably in the work that your avoiding and its not hard, it can actually be very simple when you have the right tools. This is our job as today's women. We're really living in very busy times, and we are powerful women that are here right now. And we're here to change this for our daughters, because it's too much.

And so what's really cool is that we don't have to teach them through our words. They get to watch us. Our actions speak so much louder than our word. And for the mamas out there, this is one of the best things, if not the thing that you can do for your kids. It's not selfish, it's self-worth. When we can re-anchor in who we are and step into who came here to be, that shifts everything. Wow, amazing. If people want to find you, where can they find? Yeah, DrMelissaSauners.com is my website, drmelissasoners .com.

I've got a master class, a 15 minute masterclass that I created and we'll drop in the links perhaps for this group. This is an instant, it teaches you instantly how to downshift in real time. It's called the urgency reset. So this is something that they can use in any moment. And then the links to my book are on there as well on DrMelissaSaunders.com. Which will have all the link down below. Sounds good. So Dr. Melissa, appreciate it. It was a pleasure having you on a healthy point of view podcast.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Guys, you heard Dr Melissa here. Actions speak louder than words. For the moms that are out there, lead with that. Make sure you tap into this, the connection code. Get the book, it's online, order it. These are things that you need to do on a daily basis. You have to make time for yourself. We have the tap in within yourself, listen to yourself be present. Guys, if you have any friends, family that we think will resonate with today's message, make sure share this podcast.

Make you like, subscribe and do all that other fun stuff and we'll see you for the next one.