March 31, 2026 • 17 mins
In this episode, we’re redefining what a “healthy” nervous system really means and why it’s not about being calm all the time.
Instead of forcing rest, we explore how your nervous system is designed to move, adapt, and support you and how true regulation comes from being able to move through different states, not stay stuck in one.
In This Episode:
- Why calm isn’t the goal
- The myth of “rest and digest” as the ideal state
- How your nervous system is working for you, not against you
- Why getting stuck (not stress itself) is the issue
- The importance of moving through states
- Increasing your capacity to hold more of life
- Letting yourself feel the full range of emotions
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Produced by: Reese Leanne
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Tao of
Humaning.
I'm your host, Dr.
Christine, and I'm so thrilledthat you decided to join us for
today's conversation.
In today's episode, we're goingto be talking about nervous
system health and maybereimagining our relationship a
(00:20):
bit with what it means to have ahealthy nervous system.
We hear I hear this conversationall the time now of regulating
our nervous system, calming ournervous system, over-stimulated
nervous systems.
We're hearing a lot moreconversation about this in the
world, which I think is amazing.
(00:43):
And I also think there's atendency in a lot of circles to
hear calm as kind of the goldstandard or yeah, like the goal
of nervous system health is tobe calm and zen all of the time.
(01:03):
And I think this is amisconception because I think
there's this idea that we'resupposed to or we should.
In my family, we do not shouldon each other.
That's a saying that we use, soI invite you to use that also.
You do not have to should onyourself, um, or others.
(01:24):
But there's a misconception thatrest and digest is nervous
system regulation, or it is acalm nervous system.
And those are sort of maybetrue, but there's so much more
range, literally, to thisconversation.
(01:47):
And this is something that willkind of weave into the different
conversations that we have here.
Um in all of the years that I'vestudied Chinese medicine and
women's health in particular,and emotional wellness, how we
move through and interpretwhat's showing up in our lives
(02:08):
and then digest thoseexperiences has always been
incredibly fascinating to me.
I think um I think when it comesto nervous system health, one
thing that I think is reallyimportant in, and this goes more
(02:32):
broad to how I look at healthand well-being also, like our
relationship to our bodies.
But but I think that we forgetthat our nervous systems are
working for us.
There's nothing wrong when wehave a fight or flight response
(02:56):
in our nervous system, in ourbody.
And I think some of theconversations that are happening
now are challenging becausethere is this like fight or
flight is bad, rest and digestis good.
And I I really it's not you'renot talking about the same
(03:19):
systems, so that's a bit of amisconception there, because
fight or flight is oursympathetic nervous system when
it's under perceived threat.
That's a sympathetic nervoussystem response.
And rest and digest is aparasympathetic nervous system
response when we feel safety.
(03:41):
If we were looking at theparasympathetic nervous system
under threat, under perceivedthreat or real threat, the body
goes to freeze.
The nervous system will go tofreeze.
So looking at freeze versusfight or flight, those are
again, there's nothing wrongwith either one of those.
(04:02):
It's simply information for youabout how you're responding to a
certain situation or moment, orhow a loved one is responding to
a certain situation or moment.
I love learning about thesetools and and understanding how
our bodies and our emotionswork, partially because it gives
(04:24):
us this amazing sense ofourselves and understanding.
Also to be able to like look ata loved one and be like, oh,
like they're having asympathetic nervous system
response, like they're they'reperceiving threat somewhere.
They're in fight or flight.
Okay, great.
It's very different than likebeing like, oh, they're so angry
(04:44):
or whatever labels we want toput on people, or like anyway,
that's I digress.
Um but looking at like what arewe really comparing and is
anything wrong?
I think that our nervous systemsare adaptive, and I think that
(05:07):
they are supporting us and thatthey are giving us information.
I think that compartmentalizingfight or flight as bad and rest
and digest as the goal is nothelpful.
Um, for a lot of reasons.
One is that you're comparingdifferent systems, two is that
(05:31):
calm is not the opposite ofstress, and that freeze, if
you're in a freeze state, it canalso look like calm, but it's
not actually giving you anyother.
I don't know.
Like I think people sometimeslook at freeze as calm, and
that's not necessarily where youwant to stay.
(05:54):
Again, it's not that there'sanything wrong.
I think the missing part of alot of the conversations that
are happening right now, one isthis comparing what are we
really comparing?
And then two is what do wereally need?
Right?
Calm is great.
It's lovely to feel calm, it'slovely to feel the safety side
(06:15):
of the sympathetic system too,which is activation, motivation,
movement.
We need that.
We need the rest, we need thecalm, the rest side, we need the
activation movement side, right?
In um looking at what's needed,it's like we want to ultimately
(06:35):
be able to move through any ofthese states and not get stuck.
That's more of the goal, one ofthe goals, or goal, goal is not
the right word here.
Um useful tools, usefulness ofthese tools, under usefulness of
learning about the nervoussystem, is being able to see
(06:58):
when we're stuck and then helpsupport ourselves into movement,
right?
The same thing that we talkabout with acupuncture.
That's what we're ultimatelydoing, is we're finding those
areas that we're stuck, andwe're providing what's needed to
help encourage that movementagain, right?
(07:19):
So, same thing with the nervoussystem.
We want to be able to experiencefreeze, for example, if we feel
that's the perceived threat andthat's the response that's
needed.
And then we want to be able tomove from freeze into activation
and movement, right?
(07:41):
Um, not being able to move outof different situations is
what's going to cause imbalancesin the body, in the emotions, in
our interactions with otherpeople.
You know, all of these differentaspects start to play together
(08:05):
when you start to see all ofthis in a bigger way.
It's like we need the full rangeof all of our nervous system.
There's not a part of ournervous system that's bad.
It's all adaptive and workingfor us.
And, you know, we can have someother conversations about that.
I'd love to bring in some otherum resources and have some
(08:28):
conversations around that, Ithink would be really fun.
But being able to increase ourcapacity to hold more of life.
And I've seen this over theyears in my work in traditional
Chinese medicine, also my workin more of the Taoist and
(08:50):
spiritual communities is likewhat you know, we're not doing
this work again to be calm andzen all the time.
We're doing it to be able tohold more of life and to be able
to move with what's showing up,right?
It's the same as nervous systemwork.
(09:11):
It's like we want more capacity,we want more range, we want to
be able to move with life andwhat's showing up for us.
I hope that's making sense.
We want to be able to ultimatelycomplete these cycles.
So, what happens a lot of timesis we get frozen or we get to
(09:32):
fight or flight, and then we getstuck.
And then that expression nevergets to fully flow, it never
gets to be completed.
And so then there's almost Ithink of it sometimes almost as
like, you know, when you leave atab open on your computer, not
that I do that, but it's likeit's still taking some energy
(09:54):
and some of those things that Idon't know the terms of, but
like RAM memory things.
Um, it's still draw, it's stillpulling attention, right?
Is how I think of it.
Still pulling attention of mycomputer, right?
We do the same thing when wedon't complete these cycles in
our lives of our nervous system,when we stop the flow of things,
(10:18):
or you know, when we feel like,oh, I'm not supposed to feel
angry or I'm not supposed tofeel sad or whatever it is, and
we suppress that, we're stillkeeping, and it's not like that
goes away unless you have anintentional clearing system,
which we could also talk aboutin another episode.
But having some kind ofdedicated clearing system for
(10:40):
your emotional hygiene is sogood.
Um, but being able to movethrough these cycles.
And I think when I first heardum I learned with Kimberly Ann
Johnson, she has a great bookcalled Um Call of the Wild, and
(11:01):
then she teaches classes andthings on nervous systems.
She's you know, one of the kindof OGs of nervous system health.
And specifically, she coinedthis term of the female nervous
system and relating it to, youknow, estrogen being more of a
connecting um hormone.
(11:23):
So women are more likely to beaffected by changes or stressors
in our social circles or ourcommunities than men are, and
part of that is how we're wired.
And I really found thatinteresting because in
traditional Chinese medicine,you know, we have these
(11:44):
different cycles, um, Westernmedicine too, you know, the
cycles that a woman goes throughin her physiology every month
sets up a different level ofenergy and a different um, I
think of it really as like wehave different capacities for
(12:06):
how we can show up and likewhat's really going well.
Like if you schedule um speakingthings or whatnot, like during
your ovulation, or if you dolike pitches or marketing stuff,
like near a woman's ovulationtime, she's gonna be naturally
more magnetic because that's theenergy of ovulation, right?
(12:30):
Whereas after, well gosh, we'lldo a class about that too, or an
episode about teacher hat isusually like, oh, classes.
Um, but yeah, we can have anepisode where I talk more about
the different phases of awoman's cycle and how that plays
into energy and what's um usefuland what's harder, I guess, at
(12:51):
each phase.
But starting to understand thatwomen are, women in particular
are cyclical.
And actually, I'm gonna takethat back.
People, humans are cyclical, andfemale physiology and male
physiology have differentcycles.
(13:14):
So men cycle, men are moresolar, they cycle in a 24-hour
um range, and women cycle moreis more lunar, and so we cycle
in roughly a 28-day cycle.
And but having those naturalebbs and flows is something that
is actually consistent with themales and females.
(13:34):
That's a human, that's somethingthat we have the same.
And again, being able to honorthis and have space for all of
the range, right?
So the activation is needed andthe calm is needed, right?
Calm is not always gonna be theright response for you, and
(13:57):
that's okay.
And I think having givingyourself permission to feel the
full range of your humanness issuch a gift.
And when you can do it in a waythat is giving voice to
something that has needed avoice or is asking for a voice,
(14:19):
it moves through us a lot morequickly than when we try to make
it look a certain way or sound acertain way or whatever it is,
right?
When we allow these differentresponses to show up, we can
receive the data and theinformation and our our bodies
are set up to know what to do.
(14:40):
And that's the most incrediblepart is like when we get out of
the way, when we get our likeconscious overthinking minds out
of the way, our bodies, ournervous systems will naturally
regulate.
They'll move from rest anddigest into that activation and
movement, and then they'll cycleback into rest and then go back
(15:04):
into movement.
And the length of time might bea little bit different depending
on where you are in your life,but the the cyclical nature will
be there, right?
And it's uh it's really aboutlooking at where is where are
your resources most useful.
(15:27):
And I think having having aspace where you can feel that
that permission and thatallowing is really pretty
incredible.
I think allowing ourselves to bemore and more human is such a
gift because we forget sometimesand we think we put unrealistic
(15:50):
expectations on ourselves and onthe people around us to show up
in these weird constructedperfect ways that are not
actually perfect.
So this is your invitationtoday.
If you were feeling like restand digest, calm and zen is not
(16:12):
working for you at the moment,try some movement, try some
activation, try shifting fromthat calm zen into movement, and
then vice versa, and startallowing yourself to have those
cycles a little bit more.
But if you're feeling like calmis not attainable in certain
(16:37):
areas of your life, maybe that'sokay.
Maybe there's nothing wrong.
Maybe it's just not a calm restand digest moment in that part
of your life.
That's okay.
So for today, if this hasresonated and if parts of it are
interesting and useful, I hopethat you carry those with you.
(16:59):
And the parts that aren't, justleave them behind and then just
let things simmer and see whattakes bloom later on.
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Tao of
Humaning.
I'm your host, Dr.
Christine, and I'm so thrilledthat you decided to join us for
today's conversation.
In today's episode, we're goingto be talking about nervous
system health and maybereimagining our relationship a
(00:20):
bit with what it means to have ahealthy nervous system.
We hear I hear this conversationall the time now of regulating
our nervous system, calming ournervous system, over-stimulated
nervous systems.
We're hearing a lot moreconversation about this in the
world, which I think is amazing.
(00:43):
And I also think there's atendency in a lot of circles to
hear calm as kind of the goldstandard or yeah, like the goal
of nervous system health is tobe calm and zen all of the time.
(01:03):
And I think this is amisconception because I think
there's this idea that we'resupposed to or we should.
In my family, we do not shouldon each other.
That's a saying that we use, soI invite you to use that also.
You do not have to should onyourself, um, or others.
(01:24):
But there's a misconception thatrest and digest is nervous
system regulation, or it is acalm nervous system.
And those are sort of maybetrue, but there's so much more
range, literally, to thisconversation.
(01:47):
And this is something that willkind of weave into the different
conversations that we have here.
Um in all of the years that I'vestudied Chinese medicine and
women's health in particular,and emotional wellness, how we
move through and interpretwhat's showing up in our lives
(02:08):
and then digest thoseexperiences has always been
incredibly fascinating to me.
I think um I think when it comesto nervous system health, one
thing that I think is reallyimportant in, and this goes more
(02:32):
broad to how I look at healthand well-being also, like our
relationship to our bodies.
But but I think that we forgetthat our nervous systems are
working for us.
There's nothing wrong when wehave a fight or flight response
(02:56):
in our nervous system, in ourbody.
And I think some of theconversations that are happening
now are challenging becausethere is this like fight or
flight is bad, rest and digestis good.
And I I really it's not you'renot talking about the same
(03:19):
systems, so that's a bit of amisconception there, because
fight or flight is oursympathetic nervous system when
it's under perceived threat.
That's a sympathetic nervoussystem response.
And rest and digest is aparasympathetic nervous system
response when we feel safety.
(03:41):
If we were looking at theparasympathetic nervous system
under threat, under perceivedthreat or real threat, the body
goes to freeze.
The nervous system will go tofreeze.
So looking at freeze versusfight or flight, those are
again, there's nothing wrongwith either one of those.
(04:02):
It's simply information for youabout how you're responding to a
certain situation or moment, orhow a loved one is responding to
a certain situation or moment.
I love learning about thesetools and and understanding how
our bodies and our emotionswork, partially because it gives
(04:24):
us this amazing sense ofourselves and understanding.
Also to be able to like look ata loved one and be like, oh,
like they're having asympathetic nervous system
response, like they're they'reperceiving threat somewhere.
They're in fight or flight.
Okay, great.
It's very different than likebeing like, oh, they're so angry
(04:44):
or whatever labels we want toput on people, or like anyway,
that's I digress.
Um but looking at like what arewe really comparing and is
anything wrong?
I think that our nervous systemsare adaptive, and I think that
(05:07):
they are supporting us and thatthey are giving us information.
I think that compartmentalizingfight or flight as bad and rest
and digest as the goal is nothelpful.
Um, for a lot of reasons.
One is that you're comparingdifferent systems, two is that
(05:31):
calm is not the opposite ofstress, and that freeze, if
you're in a freeze state, it canalso look like calm, but it's
not actually giving you anyother.
I don't know.
Like I think people sometimeslook at freeze as calm, and
that's not necessarily where youwant to stay.
(05:54):
Again, it's not that there'sanything wrong.
I think the missing part of alot of the conversations that
are happening right now, one isthis comparing what are we
really comparing?
And then two is what do wereally need?
Right?
Calm is great.
It's lovely to feel calm, it'slovely to feel the safety side
(06:15):
of the sympathetic system too,which is activation, motivation,
movement.
We need that.
We need the rest, we need thecalm, the rest side, we need the
activation movement side, right?
In um looking at what's needed,it's like we want to ultimately
(06:35):
be able to move through any ofthese states and not get stuck.
That's more of the goal, one ofthe goals, or goal, goal is not
the right word here.
Um useful tools, usefulness ofthese tools, under usefulness of
learning about the nervoussystem, is being able to see
(06:58):
when we're stuck and then helpsupport ourselves into movement,
right?
The same thing that we talkabout with acupuncture.
That's what we're ultimatelydoing, is we're finding those
areas that we're stuck, andwe're providing what's needed to
help encourage that movementagain, right?
(07:19):
So, same thing with the nervoussystem.
We want to be able to experiencefreeze, for example, if we feel
that's the perceived threat andthat's the response that's
needed.
And then we want to be able tomove from freeze into activation
and movement, right?
(07:41):
Um, not being able to move outof different situations is
what's going to cause imbalancesin the body, in the emotions, in
our interactions with otherpeople.
You know, all of these differentaspects start to play together
(08:05):
when you start to see all ofthis in a bigger way.
It's like we need the full rangeof all of our nervous system.
There's not a part of ournervous system that's bad.
It's all adaptive and workingfor us.
And, you know, we can have someother conversations about that.
I'd love to bring in some otherum resources and have some
(08:28):
conversations around that, Ithink would be really fun.
But being able to increase ourcapacity to hold more of life.
And I've seen this over theyears in my work in traditional
Chinese medicine, also my workin more of the Taoist and
(08:50):
spiritual communities is likewhat you know, we're not doing
this work again to be calm andzen all the time.
We're doing it to be able tohold more of life and to be able
to move with what's showing up,right?
It's the same as nervous systemwork.
(09:11):
It's like we want more capacity,we want more range, we want to
be able to move with life andwhat's showing up for us.
I hope that's making sense.
We want to be able to ultimatelycomplete these cycles.
So, what happens a lot of timesis we get frozen or we get to
(09:32):
fight or flight, and then we getstuck.
And then that expression nevergets to fully flow, it never
gets to be completed.
And so then there's almost Ithink of it sometimes almost as
like, you know, when you leave atab open on your computer, not
that I do that, but it's likeit's still taking some energy
(09:54):
and some of those things that Idon't know the terms of, but
like RAM memory things.
Um, it's still draw, it's stillpulling attention, right?
Is how I think of it.
Still pulling attention of mycomputer, right?
We do the same thing when wedon't complete these cycles in
our lives of our nervous system,when we stop the flow of things,
(10:18):
or you know, when we feel like,oh, I'm not supposed to feel
angry or I'm not supposed tofeel sad or whatever it is, and
we suppress that, we're stillkeeping, and it's not like that
goes away unless you have anintentional clearing system,
which we could also talk aboutin another episode.
But having some kind ofdedicated clearing system for
(10:40):
your emotional hygiene is sogood.
Um, but being able to movethrough these cycles.
And I think when I first heardum I learned with Kimberly Ann
Johnson, she has a great bookcalled Um Call of the Wild, and
(11:01):
then she teaches classes andthings on nervous systems.
She's you know, one of the kindof OGs of nervous system health.
And specifically, she coinedthis term of the female nervous
system and relating it to, youknow, estrogen being more of a
connecting um hormone.
(11:23):
So women are more likely to beaffected by changes or stressors
in our social circles or ourcommunities than men are, and
part of that is how we're wired.
And I really found thatinteresting because in
traditional Chinese medicine,you know, we have these
(11:44):
different cycles, um, Westernmedicine too, you know, the
cycles that a woman goes throughin her physiology every month
sets up a different level ofenergy and a different um, I
think of it really as like wehave different capacities for
(12:06):
how we can show up and likewhat's really going well.
Like if you schedule um speakingthings or whatnot, like during
your ovulation, or if you dolike pitches or marketing stuff,
like near a woman's ovulationtime, she's gonna be naturally
more magnetic because that's theenergy of ovulation, right?
(12:30):
Whereas after, well gosh, we'lldo a class about that too, or an
episode about teacher hat isusually like, oh, classes.
Um, but yeah, we can have anepisode where I talk more about
the different phases of awoman's cycle and how that plays
into energy and what's um usefuland what's harder, I guess, at
(12:51):
each phase.
But starting to understand thatwomen are, women in particular
are cyclical.
And actually, I'm gonna takethat back.
People, humans are cyclical, andfemale physiology and male
physiology have differentcycles.
(13:14):
So men cycle, men are moresolar, they cycle in a 24-hour
um range, and women cycle moreis more lunar, and so we cycle
in roughly a 28-day cycle.
And but having those naturalebbs and flows is something that
is actually consistent with themales and females.
(13:34):
That's a human, that's somethingthat we have the same.
And again, being able to honorthis and have space for all of
the range, right?
So the activation is needed andthe calm is needed, right?
Calm is not always gonna be theright response for you, and
(13:57):
that's okay.
And I think having givingyourself permission to feel the
full range of your humanness issuch a gift.
And when you can do it in a waythat is giving voice to
something that has needed avoice or is asking for a voice,
(14:19):
it moves through us a lot morequickly than when we try to make
it look a certain way or sound acertain way or whatever it is,
right?
When we allow these differentresponses to show up, we can
receive the data and theinformation and our our bodies
are set up to know what to do.
(14:40):
And that's the most incrediblepart is like when we get out of
the way, when we get our likeconscious overthinking minds out
of the way, our bodies, ournervous systems will naturally
regulate.
They'll move from rest anddigest into that activation and
movement, and then they'll cycleback into rest and then go back
(15:04):
into movement.
And the length of time might bea little bit different depending
on where you are in your life,but the the cyclical nature will
be there, right?
And it's uh it's really aboutlooking at where is where are
your resources most useful.
(15:27):
And I think having having aspace where you can feel that
that permission and thatallowing is really pretty
incredible.
I think allowing ourselves to bemore and more human is such a
gift because we forget sometimesand we think we put unrealistic
(15:50):
expectations on ourselves and onthe people around us to show up
in these weird constructedperfect ways that are not
actually perfect.
So this is your invitationtoday.
If you were feeling like restand digest, calm and zen is not
(16:12):
working for you at the moment,try some movement, try some
activation, try shifting fromthat calm zen into movement, and
then vice versa, and startallowing yourself to have those
cycles a little bit more.
But if you're feeling like calmis not attainable in certain
(16:37):
areas of your life, maybe that'sokay.
Maybe there's nothing wrong.
Maybe it's just not a calm restand digest moment in that part
of your life.
That's okay.
So for today, if this hasresonated and if parts of it are
interesting and useful, I hopethat you carry those with you.
(16:59):
And the parts that aren't, justleave them behind and then just
let things simmer and see whattakes bloom later on.
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