I am stoked to have Tanya Kelloway joining me on the episode where we talk about stress and burnout. Tanya is a doctor of acupuncture at Calgary Integrative Medicine. Over the last twelve months, I have come to know her heart and I am truly blessed to call her my dear friend. We have journeyed together through a remarkable program to get bold and visible. I am impressed by her expertise and story. I love Tanya's ability to partner with her patients on the healing journey, helping them move the needle on their health. She takes you from living with day-to-day pain, stress, anxiety, and digestive upset and living in a balanced system where you can show up as your best self.
Tanya brings such richness to my life, and I know that without a doubt she will leave you, listeners, with tangible things you can do to care for yourself. Her story of living in a body whose nervous system was easily overstimulated had her compelled to learn more. Our bodies are the best teachers we must listen to them.
We talk about Stress, productivity, burnout and three ways our bodies handle it: Ventral, Sympathetic, and Dorsal Branches. She gives us tips on how we can self-regulate through gentle kindness. Hand on your heart and stomach while breathing in, and surround yourself with safe loving people, meditation, acupuncture, massage, and exercise are great ways to help combat your fight, flight, and freeze responses.
Ventral - when we are regulated into the ventral aspect of our autonomic nervous system, we feel our best selves. Safe loved, rested, stable.
Sympathetic - this is when we feel uncomfortable in our bodies, we may feel anxious, stressed, agitated, and aggressive. We tend to overeat, or have no appetite, we easily gain weight, struggle sleeping, have digestive problems, and have pain and tension in our bodies.
The dorsal Branch - is the oldest branch of our nervous system and is activated in times of acute or chronic stress. This is the protective mode, different than the sympathetic. This is the part of the nervous system where we can experience burnout. Our bodies go into shutdown. We are weak, everything is hard. A great example is a gazelle and how they collapse in a lion's mouth. That is what our nervous system is doing. To have the best chance at survival.
Stress in our nervous system is telling us that something is wrong, consider it like an alarm that tells you if you are offline. It needs your attention. Get curious and lean into where things are showing up in your body and dig deep to discover why. The key is to pull yourself in with compassion and love. Talk to your inner child whose nervous system is dysregulated. Speak kindness and gently to them.
Be sure to follow Dr. Tanya Kelloway and check out her website www.tanyakelloway.com