Your Nervous System ISN’T the Problem - Dr. Barrett Deubert

All right, so everyone comes in and they're self diagnosing them with a vagus nerve issue. Sometimes they can't even say vagus nerve, or nervous system dysregulation. And I want to say that not every symptom is nervous system dysregulation. Sometimes it's lifestyle dysfunction that's actually driving what you're feeling.

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast. Today, we are talking about a hot topic when it comes to health culture today, And we're gonna touch point on something that hits a lot of people and it's the nervous system. But we're gonna come at it from a different angle because I would say there's some frustration on my end as a clinician where we get in these hype trains, right? And let's just say a few years ago it was all about the gut, right? My gut, my gut health, there's a problem with my gut. Or now it's nervous system dysregulation.

So everyone comes in and they're self diagnosing them with a vagus nerve issue. Sometimes they can't even say vagus nerve, or nervous system dysregulation. And I want to say that not every symptom is nervous system dysregulation. Sometimes it's lifestyle dysfunction that's actually driving what you're feeling. How do we separate the two?

I want to create clarity for you and help you understand that chiropractors out there, that other practitioners and podcasters are blaming the nervous system when in reality it's usually a lifestyle problem. And as a chiropractor who's passionate about the nervous system, it's time that we have understanding of what's probably happening and it's not that your nervous system is dysregulated. There's actually very few people that come in where I say, Hey, that is a central issue within the nervous system. Most of the time it's lifestyle issues. So I know it's provocative.

I know a lot of people are talking about it, buying devices to stimulate their vagus nerve, but ten years ago, everyone blamed hormones. And then it was inflammation, and then it was gut health, and now it's the nervous system. The problem is not every modern symptom is a damaged nervous system. So let's talk about it. If you slept five hours, scrolled on TikTok until midnight, drank four cups of coffee and never see sunlight, it's not a nervous system issue.

It is a lifestyle problem. That may not be you. So how do you know when it is your nervous system and how do you know when it's lifestyle issues? Today's gonna be practical. Very practical health advice on how to improve your lifestyle to help your nervous system but help every other system of the body heal.

Hey, coming up in June we have a brain health workshop from attention deficit disorder to Alzheimer's, from kids to adults. We're going to talk about brain health. Make sure you check out our social media and learn more about how to sign up for this free workshop at our West office here in Knoxville. So why has this topic exploded? Right?

Well, I think a lot of it obviously is is people are passionate about learning, and I love that. I love that people wanna learn and wanna get to core issues and causation. And so we're seeing that like trauma awareness is becoming very mainstream and there's now social media therapists and social media coaches. There's people that get a nutrition certification in a weekend and then pretend to be experts. We're seeing it everywhere.

And if you have enough followers, well, then that should mean that you should listen to them. Well, maybe not. Right? Today, we'll get to the evidence of why there's such an explosion of this conversational topic and for the most part people are just being sold. Sold to do something, sold to buy something or you're just getting sold to view their particular page.

There's a lot of information on cortisol. There's a lot of information on vagal nerve dysfunction and buy this device for this vagus nerve to calm your body down. And a lot of it even came from cold plunging. Cold plunging and helping the nervous system dysregulate which I cold plunge virtually every single day. And so some of this awareness has been incredibly helpful but some of it has been identity culture, right?

And if you identify with some of the symptoms, well then that's your diagnosis and then therefore you make that your identity. Let me just tell you, your identity is a son and daughter in Christ. Your identity is not a diagnosis. And it's very important that we understand that symptoms come and go. Everyone in the human experiment that we're all walking through will walk through seasons of anxiety and depression.

That doesn't mean that's your diagnosis. That is not your identity. It's okay to be anxious. It's okay to be depressed. But it doesn't mean that season is forever.

Let's talk about some really important legitimate physiology. And when we talk about nervous system dysregulation, it is real. We can have chronic sympathetic dominance. We can have PTSD, right? Post traumatic stress disorders.

We can have chronic stress exposure. We see that in mice studies. There can be autonomic dysfunction and dysautonomia associated with chronic infectious load and neuroinflammatory process. We can have concussions that we see a lot in the office completely change the function and the structure of the brain. And so yeah, there's moments where we see elevated resting heart rate and sympathetic dominance on HRV studies and, sleep fragmentation.

The architecture of your sleep is disrupted and you're not getting into deep restorative sleep. But where it goes too far, and this is really the heart of the episode, where it goes too far is that I feel like every symptom is blamed on that, right? Every symptom is blamed on cortisol, for instance, the stress hormone. You're fatigued, it's what we call you're burned out, right? So fatigue is associated with burnout or when we look at people searching for these exotic nervous system treatments, they're not fixing the core basic fundamental lifestyle issues.

So before we go into buying a device and going into these extremes let's focus on the pillars. Let's focus on the foundational components to what builds health the forgotten basics. We got to get back to it. This is what allows our bodies to heal. You can't out supplement or vagus nerve hack a terrible lifestyle.

That's never a good option. Could you feel better momentarily? Sure. But the reality is the foundational components to what you're feeling in nervous system dysregulation need to be supported first. So this is where things get practical here.

So I'm gonna ask you a few questions. And these are questions you need to ask yourself. And these are the questions I ask my patients. How many hours are you sleeping a night? Is it five, six hours or is it consistently seven to eight hours?

Are you going to sleep at the same time and waking up at the same time? How much morning sunlight do you get? How much sunlight do you get even just during the day? How much muscle mass do you have? Would you call yourself strong with good amount of lean mass?

How much body fat do you have? Is it over 20%? So these give us practical understanding of how your hormones are functioning. Are you walking and moving your body every day? How much processed food are you consuming?

How much do you consume alcohol? How much stimulants do you consume from a caffeine standpoint? And then do you ever just sit in silence? Do you ever just allow your body to process rest? How much scrolling are you doing on your phone?

And the core issue is that it's maybe not your nervous system that's broken, maybe it's just overloaded. So overloaded nervous systems can be traced back to lifestyle modification and reality is social media has a massive role in why our nervous system is overloaded, right? And so let's talk about what actually regulates the nervous system. Instead of gimmicks, there are some core fundamental principles that should be established in your health routine. The first one, it is essential to have sleep consistency.

A consistent sleep pattern where you go to sleep and wake up at the same time to get seven to eight hours of sleep a night is vital to a healthy nervous system. Number two, you gotta be strength training, resistance training. It's essential to a healthy nervous system. Number three, you have to have adequate protein intake. How much?

Well, it's about 0.6 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of lean body weight. And if you don't know that, that's something you need to figure out. How much sunlight exposure are you getting? Sunlight regulates the nervous system. Are you getting adjusted weekly?

Chiropractic adjustments are one of the best ways to build a resilient, adaptive nervous system. Do you ever experience, blood sugar crashes? So a stable blood sugar, number six, a stable blood sugar is critical to a healthy nervous system. Do you find yourself in a purposeful season? Are you serving others?

Or are you focused on yourself? I mean, there's times where obviously we need to take a look at ourselves and invest in ourselves and heal, but we are called to serve others. And another component to regulated nervous system is you have to reduce stimulation. There are seasons where I remove caffeine just to reduce the stimulation, the stimulants that I take daily. Walking, breathing, and spiritual practices like prayer are all essential at regulating the nervous system.

The nervous system often responds best to boring, daily habits and not trendy hacks. That's how you build a robust, adaptive nervous system. So when you look at examples like not every tired person has adrenal exhaustion. True adrenal exhaustion doesn't come into the front door of my office very often. Just like leaky gut syndrome.

Leaky gut syndrome, not everyone has leaky gut. Most people will blame their symptoms of digestive dysfunction on a leaky gut, but leaky gut is a very small percentage of the population. Healing your nervous system, it won't work until you sleep six, seven, eight hours. And so when we look at it at building a robust healthy nervous system, one, I wanna make sure that we're not just blaming, oh, just have a dysregulated nervous system and that's my identity. We wanna make sure that we're looking through those 10 things I just mentioned.

Sleep, chiropractic care, blood sugar regulation, getting bored, spiritual practice, gratitude, serving others, protein intake, sunlight, walking. And listen, if you're checking all those boxes, I had a consultation with a patient this morning, and I said, hey, you are checking every box that I've asked you to check. And the reality is your nervous system needs help. So if you're checking those boxes and you're still stuck, let's have a conversation, right? Work with a practitioner.

Dive in. Figure out what's going on. Usually there's issues like infections and concussions that have been untreated. But for the most part, most people, if they work within those 10 modalities, those 10 domains, and they're checking those boxes, Most people that are walking around are going to have a healthy, regulated, balanced nervous system. Don't just blame your symptoms on what you see on social media.

Check those boxes, create daily habits that will build health over time. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Real Health Podcast.