Survival Mode

You’re not broken, lazy, or “just getting older.” When your nervous system gets stuck in survival mode, everything downstream starts to feel harder: sleep gets lighter, energy turns into tired but wired, inflammation creeps up, and belly fat becomes stubborn no matter how clean you eat or how often you hit the gym.

We walk through nervous system regulation in plain language, using a simple gas pedal versus brake model of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. From there, we connect chronic stress and cortisol to fat storage, gut dysfunction, and the frustrating cycle of high cortisol and inflammation. We also talk about why modern life makes it worse, constant stimulation from phones, media, and late night screens, plus the “wellness” extremes that quietly add more stress, like overtraining and under eating.

Then we get practical. You’ll hear the foundational habits that actually help your body shift into rest, digest, heal, and recover: setting boundaries around inputs, walking daily (especially after meals) for blood sugar regulation, using breathwork to downshift, getting early morning sunlight for circadian rhythm support, training with recovery days, and treating sleep as non negotiable. We also share why getting your nervous system assessed and reducing physical interference may matter, including how chiropractic adjustments can support communication and balance.

If you feel stuck, pick one regulation habit and start today, then listen, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the basics that work.

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Transcript

Why You Feel Stuck

SPEAKER_00 0:02

You're not tired because you're getting older. You're not inflamed because of bad luck. You're not stuck because your metabolism is broken. You're stuck because your nervous system is stuck in survival mode. Welcome to another episode of Living a Full Life. I'm Dr. Enrico Dolcecori. And this week we're diving deeper into nervous system regulation. I think it's a very broad topic. So when we talk about nervous system and regulation and what it all means, we dive into it a little bit, but we're just scratching the surface. So it might be better to just periodically dive a little deeper, pull the layers of the onion back each week, and talk about nervous system regulation in more detail. Because we live in a world where we're always tired but wired, where belly fat is not moving, there's poor sleep, there's anxiousness and irritability, and there's chronic tightness or pain. And I've been doing this in the community for about 20 years as a chiropractor and a natural healthcare provider. And it's almost becoming an epidemic across all ages. You're seeing it more and more and more. It used to be

Nervous System Regulation Basics

SPEAKER_00 1:16

people tired and fatigued in menopause or in their 50s, men as well. But now you're getting it people in their 20s. Uh, and it's not just hormones, it's not all these hormone clinics that are popping up on every corner. It it there's no quick solution to this. What we need to understand is how the nervous system regulates itself. So what's actually happening with our nervous systems? And maybe we can each individually take a piece of this information home and be like, I feel like it's this contributing the most to my dysfunction and my nervous system. And if I pay some attention to this, it can really turn the tables as to how you overall function in general. The body has two modes, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. They teach this in high school biology as like fight or flight, that's the sympathetic, or rest and digest as the uh as the parasympathetic or heal and recover. But most people are

Gas Pedal Versus Brake

SPEAKER_00 2:16

stuck in the go, go, go, but never repair. We're stuck in the sympathetic nervous system, partially it's our fault, partially environmental. And we'll get into this a little bit more. What ends up happening when we're, and I love the gas pedal and brake analogy. Most people know how a car works. And that's how the nervous system works. You need both the gas and the brakes to operate a car properly, just like your nervous system. And it's this balance between tapping on the gas and letting go of the gas and coasting the speed limit and hitting the brake to slow down or to completely stop. But the engine's always running. If the engine doesn't run, then the whole car doesn't work, it's dead, right? Just like the human body. Uh, so I love the the gas pedal and the brake analogy when it comes to the autonomic nervous system. So we think of it as the sympathetic as the gas pedal and the parasympathetic as the brake. The parasympathetic is always like, hey, come on, slow down. We need to rest for a second, we need to digest, we need to heal, we need to recover. And the gas is like, let's go. The car is meant to go. Car is meant to take us from point A to point B. And that's life as well. Let's go, right? And what ends it ends up happening is we we hit the gas, we have too much cortisol, we have too much stress. And what ends up happening is we get fat storage from the cortisol. We try and reserve fuel because we're like, hey, listen, this Ferrari just keeps hitting the gas. We don't know what to do. And we need we need gasoline to keep

Cortisol Belly Fat And Inflammation

SPEAKER_00 3:41

this thing going. So we're just gonna keep reserves of energy stored on the car so that way we never run out. It's a smart survival technique. So let's store fat. And then we get uncomfortable with it because it's annoying. It's belly fat, it's abdominal fat, it's uh visceral fat. Stress also leads to gut dysfunction. We just don't feel good. We try and eat healthy, we don't feel good. We eat junk food, we don't feel good. We we try and not eat, we don't feel good. Our guts are just irritated all the time because of the stress. And then it leads to the inflammation. And it's a cycle, just high cortisol inflammation, high cortisol inflammation. You can eat clean, you can go to the gym, you can take supplements, but if your nervous system is fired, your body won't change. And we need to let that part sink in. And that's what this episode's all about. Your body will not change unless you make changes. There's so much you can do in the environment. We talked about sleep regulation, your home, filtration, uh, thoughts, Thomas, toxins, pollutants, carpet, air filters, purifiers, your windows, morning light, circadian rhythm. I've got podcasts on everything. All ties into nervous system regulation. So that's how we control the environment. A dark room, a dark, cool room to sleep in, um, noise modification, blue light uh usage, uh turning off the screens before bed. These little things. We talk about it. But nervous system regulation is worse than ever.

Environment Sleep And Constant Stimulation

SPEAKER_00 5:14

It's absolutely worse than ever. And I remember 20 years ago doing lectures. We used to do, you know, clinic lectures when people used to come to lectures before social media and Netflix and apps. People be like, Oh, you're doing a lecture on exercise and fitness and cancer killers and uh raw food, and they they loved it. Or movie nights, documentaries. Now you have access to everything by your phone. And we used to do these for the for the community, and we built we built a great community around that. And people come in and we'd have great discussions about it. That's gone, that's no longer there. And nervous system regulation was better back then because we didn't have all that access. The constant simulation from phones is trickling down to the younger generations, to our young kids, and it's causing a lot of issues there as far as behavioral, social, and emotional regulation. We're seeing that. It's probably the most common thing I get calls now, uh discussions on the phone with parents, and they're like, Well, how, what, what do we do? We've tried the medications, or we're gonna try medications, we don't want to do medications, and there's really no other options out there. Uh, we get to the nitty-gritty. Poor sleep cycles. That's affecting everyone from kids all the way to adults. Overtraining. And there's this thing now where people are trying to get back in shape and the gyms are full and people are doing all these fitness stuff. Peloton changed the game by bringing things in-house, uh, home workouts, boot camps, online programs from your phone. You can do these anywhere. You can do them from your backyard or your living room. And overtraining because the 50-year-olds think that they're 25 and they feel like they can they should still be doing five workouts a week of heavy lifting. And that can cause stress. Undereating, dieters, they're constantly dieting. Dieters

Burnout From Overtraining And Dieting

SPEAKER_00 6:58

are always dieting, that causes stress as well, and emotional stress, work and life and everything causes emotional stress as well. So even wellness trends are shifting away from extremes because people are burning out. The gut stress connection, the gut. Gut health is exploding in awareness right now because everyone is hearing all the functional doctors talk about this. Stress literally changes gut bacteria and digestion. The gut bacteria are a balance of good and bad guys. We have E. coli in there, we have seminella, we have all the bacteria that are in there, but then we have the good guys too. We got flora in there, um helico baxter, lactobaxter. We have all these bacteria and viruses in there that help us digest our food as well. So poor gut equals inflammation, mood issues, and weight gain because of this dysbiosis. You can't fix your gut if you don't fix your stress. We go through all these gut protocols, we go through all these um supplements that you can take, diets, and uh anti-inflammation diets, reducing the stress, reducing the inflammation. But if there's a conic stress that's going on, you can't fix your gut unless you do that. So, how to actually fix it? This is where you know you win. You got to control the inputs, reduce constant stimulation and set boundaries to the news, to the media, to social, to Instagram, to all those things, setting those boundaries

Stress And Gut Health Connection

SPEAKER_00 8:36

and limiting your exposure to that because that's where the constant cycle of stress comes from. Regulate daily. You have to walk every day, especially after meals. Huge. This is huge for blood sugar regulation. Incorporate walking. I love the 10,000 step thing that's now socially acceptable. We we have this goal that everyone knows about 10,000 steps. It's really great. Before these trackers, we used to call it go out for a walk or 5K. 5K was the goal every day. And if you, you know, add out for the average person, 5K is about 10,000 steps. Three miles. So you do that each and every day. That's how much we should be walking. Um, breath work, working on breath. We have three podcasts on breath work. Type in in the search bar uh breathing, and you'll see three great podcasts that we've done in the past on that. And sunlight early in the day without your sunglasses on. So this means the sunrise. That ultraviolet um light that's coming in at that time stimulates the entire hormonal cascade and your cortisol levels as well. It kind of starts to diminish them at the right time during the day, getting you cyclical for that 24-hour pattern. Train, but don't destroy your muscle. We don't have to go crashing out with our trainings because that causes a lot of stress too and hormonal imbalance. So recovery matters just as much as the effort. If you're putting in three great workouts every week and really pushing the limits and really putting a lot of resistance on those tendons and lifting, then you need three rest days in between each one. So you need uh Monday, Wednesday, Friday workouts, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, not working out, not doing that resistant stuff, but still getting your 10,000 steps. And sleep is a non-negotiable. If sleep's an issue for you, you can't sleep, you can't get to sleep, you can't stay

Daily Inputs That Calm Stress

SPEAKER_00 10:23

asleep, you gotta work on this and change the pattern a little bit to try and improve it. Change beds, change bedrooms, move around, sleep in different places, sleep on different mattresses, sleep on cows. Yeah, we have to change it because you have to get improved uh sleep. And the nervous system interference directly correlates to nervous system regulation. So if we have too much interference in our nervous system, that does it as well. And that's why chiropractic has always been at the forefront of nervous system regulation. And we lead the charge on this with all the research, with what adjustments do, with what poor posture does, with what improved posture can do for your nervous system, which uh removing misalignments, removing interference along the nerve roots, and what this can do for your overall nervous system. That is a great tool to add for overall health and wellness of our nervous systems as well. Adjustments help restore communication and balance. They always have, they always will. Most people are chasing hacks, and that's what this podcast is all about to filter the blur and make it more clear for you in simple podcasts with just facts that you can take home and be like, okay, I got some sourceful information. I'll take on, I'll take it home and I'll work on it. Because these things will only help you and not hurt you. So the hacks are dangerous because there is no hacking, there's no shortcuts to any of this. Improving your sleep, there is no shortcut to that. You know, I don't know what drugs or alcohol are out there that might knock you out, but you can't do that every single night to get a good night's sleep. So when what we really need to do is slow down, regulate, and fix the basics. Stop the overcomplication, stop the supplement obsessions, and stop the social media misinformation. It's stressing us all out. We're doing a little bit too much of the wrong things and not enough of the good things. If you feel stuck, inflamed, tired, or like your body just isn't responding, stop asking what should I add? Start asking, what do I need to regulate? So, one, get your nervous system checked. If you're not getting it checked at

Train Smarter Sleep Non Negotiable

SPEAKER_00 12:35

all, you need to get it checked. How do you know if you're getting it checked? You're going to a chiropractor that actually takes some x-rays or does some thermal scans or does something to measure your nervous system. If they're not doing that, I really don't know how they're regulating your nervous system. Adjustments help. You can go to anywhere and get an adjustment, and it will help. But mapping it out properly will give you better outcomes. Join your health communities, tons of stuff online. That's the stuff you should be a part of. And then download a daily regulation guide. Just use something that or guide somewhere that you like that you agree with from a book or from a from a blog or whatever you follow online or someone on Instagram and use a nervous system regulation guide to help you. We talked about this. You can build your own from this podcast, uh, improving sleep, maximizing cortisol, increasing uh recovery time, and getting your 10,000 steps per day. I mean, that's a guide right there. If you ever need any information or have any questions, you can reach us at info at fulllifetampa.com. We love helping the community in these ways. We have tons of programs that we use to help people, but the what makes it unique is the assessment. It's every patient is a person with a unique history. And you need someone that's going to listen to that history and then write check for the right things, do the right testing to fill in the gaps of the unknown. This is where blood work comes in, hormone testing, saliva testing, gut testing, stupid testing, all the tests

Chiropractic Checks And Closing Steps

SPEAKER_00 13:59

that are out there. You don't have to do them all, but you guide them in the right direction. You get the answers that you need to fill in the blanks to complete the story. Once you have the story, you can find the problem. And once you find the problem, you can treat it properly. Some things take a while. Some things take a while to treat, recover, and heal from. Other things can be quick. We can feel good quite quickly. Patience is virtue when it comes to our health. Our health is something we maintain. We're always moving towards wellness, or we're moving towards illness each and every day based on the choices that we do. It can be this sway left and right of ill choices and well choices, but health is a non-negotiable. It's not something you can buy, attain, or get back. Health is what you were given. It's your job to maintain it. I like sliding towards wellness with my choices as much as I can. Do I ever make uh choices towards illness? Absolutely. Sleeping, uh staying up late, using my phone too much, getting too much social media, reading a bunch of garbage. We all do it. So that's the balance of the dance that we need to do in life between illness and wellness. And you can do that too. So if you have any questions, info at fulllifetampa.com. See you each and every week right here. Thanks for tuning in. See you next week.