Living A Full Life

Healing Your Nervous System: Breaking Free from Burnout

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 31

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Your body isn't broken—your nervous system might just be stuck in survival mode. 

Most of us recognize the symptoms: constant anxiety, emotional numbness, digestive issues, chronic fatigue, and that feeling of being perpetually on edge. What many don't realize is that these aren't separate problems or character flaws—they're classic signs of nervous system dysregulation.

This episode dives deep into why so many people feel burned out in 2025. Dr. Enrico Dolcecore explains how our bodies get trapped in primitive "squirrel mode," constantly scanning for threats instead of resting in balance. Drawing on 20 years of clinical experience and cutting-edge neuroscience, he breaks down exactly what's happening when your nervous system falls out of homeostasis—and why addressing this root cause can transform your health in ways medication alone cannot.

You'll discover the surprising connection between childhood experiences and adult health, why modern life creates perfect conditions for dysregulation, and how simple daily practices can dramatically shift your nervous tone. From breathing techniques and cold exposure to the powerful effect of human connection, Dr. Dolcecore offers a comprehensive toolkit for regulation that goes beyond quick fixes.

What sets this conversation apart is its accessibility—you'll understand complex neurological concepts through relatable examples, learn to recognize your own dysregulation patterns, and walk away with a customizable five-minute daily routine that can begin shifting your nervous system immediately.

Whether you're struggling with anxiety, dealing with unexplained physical symptoms, or simply feeling overwhelmed by life's demands, this episode provides the scientific context and practical solutions to help you reclaim balance. Your nervous system is designed to heal—learn how to give it what it needs to thrive.

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Speaker 1:

Today we're talking about the real root of why so many people feel burned out, anxious, stuck in stress or emotionally flat Nervous system dysregulation. I've seen this not just in patients, but even in myself as a doctor, parent and human being trying to navigate life in 2025. By the end of this episode, you'll understand what's going on inside your body, how to know if your nervous system is off track and, most importantly, how to heal and rebalance it. Naturally, I'm Dr Enrico Dolcecori. Thanks for joining us on another episode of Living a Full Life. This week, we're going through nervous system dysregulation and it's been amazing over my 20 year journey as a chiropractor, listening more so now than ever before people coming in more than younger adults coming in saying my nervous system's off. I'm scouring the internet trying to see where this shift in mentality has come from, because in my 20 years and in chiropractic, 135 years we've been trying to say this to the population forever, saying your nervous system needs to be in balance or else you're not going to function optimally. And it's so cool to see this now in society being said all the time. So let's dive into this more so.

Speaker 1:

But what is nervous system dysregulation? The nervous system is your central and peripheral nervous system. That makes up all the nerve, nervous and intricates. Central and peripheral nervous system. That makes up all the nervous intricates of the entire human body. The central nervous system is your brain and spinal cord. Think of the spinal cord as the tail to the brain. Both the brain and spinal cord are encased in bone. Your skull and spinal column are completely encased in bone like an armor protecting that central nervous system. Then the peripheral nerves are everything that come out of the spinal cord and the cranial nerves in the skull that come out and go to all of the points of the body organs, cells, tissues. They all get nervous sense, nervous intervention from the nervous system. So that's your central and peripheral nervous system. The autonomic nervous system the automatic some people call it is the sympathetic fight or flight and the parasympathetic rest and digest systems that you may have heard of before. Those two need to work in unison or in harmony, or, scientifically, homeostasis, in order to proliferate and to communicate properly. That's the whole point of the autonomic nervous system.

Speaker 1:

So dysregulation means it's not just about anxiety, it's about being stuck in survival mode. When we start to get away from homeostasis, the body goes into what's called a primitive survival mode. We go to our midbrains instead of using our forebrains and we live in the midbrain and hindbrain in our primitive state, which is survival. Think of a squirrel. That's what I tell people. All mammals have the same midbrain and we all share it, from a squirrel all the way to an elephant, and us as well. We all have this part of the brain and it's the primitive brain. We literally go into sympathetic mode and it's survival mode. It's like go get the nuts, dig up some worms and get back to the tree and back to our house so we don't get eaten by a predator.

Speaker 1:

That's the survival mode and living in that is stressful for sure, and it can lead to chronic overreaction of sympathetic or under activation of parasympathetic. So in a 2023 article of Frontier in Neuroscience, it noted that chronic stress reshapes autonomic tone, contributing to cardiovascular, digestive and immune disorders. We've been saying this forever. I can't believe the research is right there in front of my nose. Not being in academia anymore as a student, it's fun to go back and look at the research now as a clinician and be like this is amazing that it's at the forefront of research. It's the forefront of discussion and I think that's why the younger adults are hearing it more than we did as older adults and it's very interesting and I think it's pushing them down the right journey of healing the overall body. It's fantastic being aware of nervous system dysregulation. So really let's discuss how it happens.

Speaker 1:

The roots of dysregulation Early life stress or trauma. They're called ACEs or adverse childhood experiences are linked to lifelong dysregulation. So there's an ACE study from the CDC and Kaiser Permanente 10 types of childhood trauma associated with physical and mental illness later in life, and they go on and list of not just physical trauma but mental, emotional gaslighting and a list of things that can happen in childhood that dysregulate us and make us not adapt properly to society or societal normals later in life, later in our childhood, and this can lead to adult dysregulation of the nervous system. So modern life stressors are things like overstimulating environments, screens, music, news, multitasking, constant stimulation, if you think about it.

Speaker 1:

I thought about music the other day. Man, my kids are just, they're at the age they all sing all the time. I'm like man. There is music all the time. There's like no peace and I can feel my nervous system just not being able to calm down. It's constantly going on. We turn off the radio, turn off the TV, we turn off the screens and they're singing. It's great, I love hearing them sing, but that constant stimulation. I was just thinking of all the stimuli and then I started thinking about music. We have it going on all the time. I walk into my office, spotify is going on. I get in my car, the radio's on. It's just constant stimulation of noise. That's just one example. Overwork, undersleep and poor boundaries Wow, that's a basket full of stuff right there. Right, these things are modern stressors that definitely throw us off balance.

Speaker 1:

Then we got toxins, inflammation and gut-brain access issues where poor diet, mold exposure, chronic infections, gut inflammation increases, cytokines that affect the vagus nerve and back and forth, and we get caught in these negative cycles of constant overstimulation over stress. And we were just really lacking co-regulation. We regulate with others. Isolation equals dysregulation. 2020 really threw things off. I feel like there's been a major pivot since 2020. There had to be.

Speaker 1:

It was such a culture shock, it was such a world event for everyone living through it that afterwards, not only are we on guard with some dysregulation, but we're also aware of different things that we used to be from before Seeing that decrease in traffic, seeing that decrease in being able to go everywhere we wanted. It was almost like a nervous system reset, minus the news and fear of that a virus would kill everyone. Right, that was kind of stressful as well. So a 2022 nature study shows inflammation directly impacts brain regions that regulate autonomic function and emotional processing. So this dysregulation is something that, if we take a little bit of awareness and put it towards this, we can get a really good control of how we function. And if we can control how we function, we can immediately start to feel better. And if we start to feel better, we can heal better. And that's the whole point of trying to get back to balance with our nervous systems.

Speaker 1:

So some symptoms of dysregulation can be numerous and I don't think we have enough time on this podcast to go through all the symptoms, but let's break it down into three or four categories we're going to go into physical, emotional, cognitive and behavioral. I think this is going to cover pretty much everything. The physical issues are the things we see all the time Digestive issues, chronic fatigue, tension, heart palpitations. These are very common secondary things I hear in my practice. The primary things I hear are musculoskeletal back issues. That's the number one thing we hear about pain in the back.

Speaker 1:

They know who to call had a lady yesterday saying you know, I dropped something on my foot. I didn't know if I could talk to you about it, but my back's hurting. I'm like, absolutely, let's see what's going on with the foot. Did some class four laser on it, did some active release. She immediately started to walk better for the first time in six weeks. And she said I didn't know I could talk about my foot. And I said well, listen, everything's connected. You can talk about anything. It can give us clues back to the underlying source of the problem. So always talk about how you feel, about everything.

Speaker 1:

I'm not the best psychiatrist, I'm not the best physical therapist, I'm not the best occupational therapist, I'm not the best myofascial release specialist for the mouth, but if you bring up these things and we can help, we'll help. If not, we can refer out and get you the help that you need. So it's really important to look at the body as a whole. So physical issues we see this very commonly, I think digestive issues, chronic fatigue and tension are. Virtually everyone has this and it's because of nervous system dysregulation, it's because of stress. We blame stress, but instead of blaming work or what we think the stress is coming from, we need to hone in on our nervous system. We need to be able. Why am I not able to adapt to the stresses from work?

Speaker 1:

Let's say you work in a desk job and you meet quarterly ends that you have to do every quarter and you know every quarter near the end of that month. Just it ramps up. Your weeks turn from 40 hours a week to 60 hours a week to catch up, to get this done, because on the 30th of March, the 30th of June, we need to get this stuff done. It's a cyclical stress that that goes on and you can pinpoint that. As you pinpoint that, you can then use things in your life to try and regulate your nervous system a little bit more. Knowing that the hours are going up instead of being a result of the hours of going up. Make sense there, instead of just saying, okay, work's going to get stressful, therefore I'm going to suffer the stress. We can be in prep for that, to be ready, making sure that night's routines change. You're going to bed an hour earlier. You're doing things different to help modify and regulate your nervous system during that time. Eat different. Eat an anti inflammatory diet during those times of the year, whatever those things may be. That's the physical.

Speaker 1:

Emotional is irritability, anxiety, panic and emotional numbness. When our nervous system gets really out of balance, this is where panic starts to come in. So irritability and anxiety are normal symptoms that most people feel once they're out of balance and they're starting to sense that they're out of balance, whether it's conscious or not we start to get irritable, we kind of punch back, we get angry, we get a little bit anxious that anxiety can transmit other types of behaviors. But it's when we get into panic, when we start to actually panic and have that higher heart rate, higher blood pressure, it's where we're reaching a point of maybe no return on the nervous system falling out of way, out of control. So we get this emotional numbness there. These are common things. Put your hand up if you've had any of these symptoms that I'm bringing up right now. Right, all of your hands should be going up.

Speaker 1:

Cognitively, we get brain fog, forgetfulness, obsessive thinking. We start to obsessively think on the stressors which create more anxiety, which create more irritability, which create more panic. It's this cognitive change and one of the best tools you can use is the cognitive control. You can control your thoughts, and that's sometimes what people need a little bit more work on is when things start to get stressful and we start to repeat the negative stuff, saying oh my gosh, this is going to be due by this time, this finance is going to be due at this time. I don't know if we're going to have enough money. Whatever it is that's stressing us. Changing the tone in our thoughts can play a huge role in the overall effect of our nervous system and our overall health. Saying hey, god's got this is one way. Another way is being grateful, positive affirmation, saying hey, no matter how hard this gets, I've gotten this far. Everything's been provided for me. I'm pretty grateful for that and chances are it's going to work out on the next step as well. And then using all kinds of tools. And then we have behavioral too.

Speaker 1:

We talk about physical, emotional, cognitive and now behavioral overworking, shutdowns, social withdrawal, addictive tendencies. I'm going to put my hand up for that. When I get irritable, anxious, I start to overwork and shut down. As I overwork and shut down, it creates panic and the panic leads well, the chronic fatigue comes before that. Then it can lead to digestive issues and everything. I've been through this. I think we all have trying to raise families, trying to run businesses, trying to run our work, whatever it may be. We've all got through there and the only way out of it is what we're talking about today with trying to regulate the nervous system. This isn't a personality flaw, any of this stuff. It's a nervous system pattern and it can be changed. So how do we regulate this nervous system? We have to think of this as a top-down approach. The nervous system is top-down. It goes from the brain all the way to the body.

Speaker 1:

Right Breath work Box breathing, psychological sigh taking and pausing during the day, even for moments, can make a big change in how we regulate because you can influence normal patterns like your down, your breathing, taking big, deep breaths in and breathing out. We have two breathing podcasts that you can go back. Just go in the search bar, say breathing under the full life living a full life podcast, and you'll see them pop right up to the top. Listen to those. They're great breathing podcasts on how to do breath work and it can really help regulate in the moment. So if you're working at the office or at your desk, you know eight to 10 hours a day. This is a great one to just add in randomly throughout your shifts. You can do as much as you like, but it's 15 seconds to just stop and breathe.

Speaker 1:

Mindfulness, positive affirmations focus on present sensations. Affirmations focus on present sensations. Reduce default mode network activity so you don't fall into that overstimulation or panic or anxiety, but just being mindful of some of the things that we just said. And then cognitive reframing reduce that perception. That's the thing. Reduce the perception.

Speaker 1:

Mindfulness-based stress reduction reduces amygdala volume and this is from Harvard from 2021. It's called MBSR mindfulness-based stress reduction. Look up into that and how you can just reduce the amygdala volume. And your amygdala is your fear center of your brain that when it gets overstimulated, you fall into a chronic fear state and fear creates high blood pressure, high heart rate, all these things. Because what are you fearing? It's definitely not the bills that are being due on Friday. It's definitely not the workload. We perceive that that's our reality currently, but our amygdala is stuck in 4000 BC. It's worried some panther or something's coming around the corner to eat them. Right, that's where we're stuck in. It's a pretty stressful life to live thinking every moment that you're about to be eaten by the lion. Pretty crazy to be in that state of nervous system, so we want to use as many tools as we can to change that state.

Speaker 1:

Then there's the bottom-up approach, the body-to-brain approach, things we can do to our body or for our body to help regulate our brain. Chiropractic care, believe it or not, in the research, shows to be at the very top. For the first time in my life, when we search things, it's always the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, medical medical, medical medical procedures, maybe some drugs, then physical therapy. Then physical therapy comes in the movement, the rehab, and very rarely does chiropractic get talked. And then, when I went down this rabbit hole over the last month about nervous system regulation, chiropractic research is sprinkled all throughout it, just because I guess, being 130 years saying the same thing over and over again, it's trickling in and falling to the top of the search results.

Speaker 1:

And we found a reference study in 2022 in the Journal of Clinical Chiropractic of Pediatrics showed significant parasympathetic activation post adjustments for both kids and adults. And we can use this. And because so many chiropractors are measuring HRV and vagal tone, the research is all there. So chiropractic adjustments immediately within seconds after being adjusted, uh, show significant parasympathetic activation. So if we're very sympathetic and stressed, it can pull us back to that homeostasis by stimulating the parasympathetic and getting better parasympathetic response meaning gut and digestion, which is very cool in the literature.

Speaker 1:

Cold exposure, like cold showers, cold plunges, if you're brave enough, trigger the vagus nerve and they work very well for some people. Uh, some high performing athletes, some high performing um entrepreneurs that you know work crazy hour a hundred hours a week. Uh, have shown that when they bring these things into even daily or five times a week, when they hop in there for even three minutes, uh, it does make a change in their nervous system regulation and they can feel it, they trust it, they believe it and they incorporate that into their lifestyle and it's made a big change for them, which is great. So that can work for you too. But simple things like walking, yoga, pilates all these mindful movement exercises are absolutely wonderful for regulation.

Speaker 1:

What about co-regulation and safe connection? We can actually use each other, other humans, to help co-regulate our nervous systems. Our nervous systems, actually, the human brain actually thrives on human connection. It's a part of it that it's almost like a cheat code. You can use other people to help regulate your nervous systems.

Speaker 1:

There's a great podcast on the blue zones we did over a year ago and we were looking at people that live to 100 or more years of age in Japan, sardinia, greece, california, all the blue areas around the world, and they were trying to look for overlap and commonalities, even though these are very different cultures around the world. They're trying to figure out. Diet was the the number one. Diet was the big thing Plant-based seeds, a little bit of meat, plant-based diet, low inflammation. But guess what? The second biggest thing was Human connection. They were all part of a village or connection of people that was required on a daily basis to be with other people.

Speaker 1:

Unfortunately, us here, especially North America and in the Western world, we can go days without other people, which is crazy, which is absolutely crazy. So hugging someone, petting a dog, being with calm people can actually regulate your nervous system. Being around abrasive people, loud people and dangerous people can do the opposite, and if we're constantly around them, we wonder why our nervous systems can never regulate. So abuse, trauma, all these things and being around that daily can be very, very toxic to our nervous systems. The polyvagal theory states the same thing Safety, facial expressions, tone of voice can help regulate us. Listening to someone's voice that you enjoy podcasts can be great. Pop one of those in that someone, a narrator that you love listening to those can be great.

Speaker 1:

And then lifestyle and supplements Omega-3s, magnesium, adaptogens like ashwagandha, rhodiola these things can help the nervous system. Make sure you talk to someone before adding all this stuff in, but omega-3s and magnesium are pretty safe to take and most people are depleted in them anyway, so taking them is only going to help regulate sleep and reduce inflammation. I'm a big fan of omega-3s that should be daily and magnesium every night before you go to bed. That can really help as well. Prioritize sleep before you go to bed that can really help as well. Prioritize sleep circadian rhythm and eat real food.

Speaker 1:

This isn't about doing everything. It's about starting with something consistent. Choose the things that you need to try and help regulate your nervous system and go from there. So here's just a daily regulation routine and I think this is something maybe you write down or just hit the pause button and these are three, four, five things that you can do on a daily routine every day to help just naturally regulate your nervous system.

Speaker 1:

Five minutes of deep breathing in the morning, just taking a moment as you're pouring your coffee, to stop and deep breathe, big breaths in hold. That's the key. Hold and slowly release and doing that for one, two, three, four, five minutes. Whatever you can do, walk outside in natural light. This is huge for some of you that work indoors or from home. You know how important this is. One minute of cold exposure this could just be at the end of your shower, just reducing the temperature as cold as you can handle or close to as cold as it can get, and just spending 60 seconds finishing your shower like that, just giving that vagal response. A little bit of time, 10 minutes of connection Even a smile or eye contact, is great, but just sitting for 10 minutes talking to your spouse, talking to your kids, talking to people that you love and trust. Trying to find that 10 minutes every day is really important.

Speaker 1:

And set a two-minute reset alarm midday for body awareness, just sometime in the middle of the day, just before your lunch break, after your lunch break mid-afternoon. Just a two-minute alarm that goes off on your phone where you just stand up, walk away, go to the bathroom, whatever it is, and just reset Body. How am I feeling right now? How's my breath? Check my pulse Is it high, is it low? You can look at your watches now. It tells you everything and just go from there.

Speaker 1:

Regulation is not a one-time event. You just don't do this for one day. It's a lifestyle, it's a rhythm. You have to keep your body in its rhythm because everything around us throws us off. Okay, you're not broken. You're living a tonal-based clinic that does activator torque release upper cervical these nervous system-based techniques that can actually chiropractic. Just chiropractic is a nervous system technique that can just help you. So find a good one in your area. If you need any help, reach out to us and thank you for listening.

Speaker 1:

Share this episode with people that maybe you've been thinking about and are don't know about nervous system regulation. Think that this stuff doesn't exist. Uh, I can think of so many of my family members that I'm sending this to because it's it's flu. Flu, it's new age, it's uh, but it's really not. The research about our nervous system has been around for hundreds of years and how it functions, and we're just learning more and more and more. And as more and more people live in stress, they're just speaking out about it. They're just like listen, I'm constantly anxious. This isn't right. I don't want to live like this for 90 years. What the heck's going on? What can I do to help myself? And I think that is so healthy and that's amazing. So let's create a series on this. We'll talk about the nervous system over the next few.

People on this episode

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host
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Dr. Crystal Corona

Co-host