How Stress Changes Your Brain and Body
Season 4- Episode 43
In this episode, Lauren dives into how prolonged stress impacts the brain and body. She explains how chronic or traumatic stress rewires key areas of the brain—such as the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus—shifting us into survival mode and making it harder to thrive. The effects extend to the body, as ongoing stress floods our system with stress hormones, disrupting vital systems like the cardiovascular, immune, musculoskeletal, and hormonal networks. She also shares actionable strategies to reset your nervous system and reduce stress.
If you haven't already, check out Five Ives to see how strategies like this can be applied to adults, especially in the workplace. Five Ives works with staff in high burnout jobs to help them incorporate regulation strategies into their daily routines.
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Transcript:
“Back to talk about things that are slightly unpleasant but worthy of talking about. I am here to discuss with you all how stress changes the brain and body.It's not fun because it's a little bit of a downer of an episode.”
“Most of these nervous system ones are down. Here's why. It feels like when you listen to this and you kind of like check or don't check things off, you're like wow, I, I feel attacked by this episode. All I do all of those things, I'm experiencing all of those things. I don't know how to get out of all of those things.It feels overwhelming. That's great because the first step to making change is being self aware or stepping into a state of self awareness.”
“So I talk about the nervous system a lot and I'm talking about stress and how stress impacts the nervous system and the brain and the body a lot because I want people to step into self awareness.”
“This type of work has changed my life. I have been through very hard things all throughout my childhood, all throughout my young adulthood into my adulthood. And as a continually aging adult it seems like the trauma doesn't go away. And I have used these traumatic experiences, so many of them to help others to show up in this world and bounce back from hard things. And in many ways my traumas have been a gift and it hasn't been easy and it's affected my body and my mind and I'm working on all those things. But I'm a true testament to doing this work can help mitigate the effects of stress and trauma. It can help heal you if you are stuck in patterns. Like it's such beautiful work and just being aware of the science behind the mind and body work might give you a bit more motivation, might help you to understand, be more clear,not feel like all of this is so woo woo. I laugh. My business partner Jessica Doring and our organization Five Eyes. I'm like a little bit woo. I like some of the homeopathic holistic things but I also like a good dose of science too. So like I'm not full woo woo. Just like a little woo.”
“So let's jump in here because we're going to talk about stress and the reality is that stress is a normal part of everyday life. It, it's something unavoidable and I feel like it's even more unavoidable today than it is has been. There's it's fact, I mean even micro stressors. So like sensory information can be a micro stressor. Too much sensory Information can stress out your body. And I think about like the world today is so overstimulating. So we're all kind of in a micro stressed state all the time. It's like prolonged micro stress state all day long, every day. Unless you live in a homestead out in the woods. And some of your lives may be less stressful than others as far as like environmental factors go. But woo, I mean, stress is helpful. Stress helps us grow, stress helps us learn. Stress response has saved us. But chronic stress, is that really helpful? How do we deal with it? How do we mitigate the effects of it? Because prolonged stress can have serious effects on your brain and body and specifically through your autonomic nervous system. And we talked a lot about the nervous system and we'll continue to talk about the nervous system because it is nervous system work that you all can do to break patterns, to heal, mitigate the effects and to just change so much in your life. So we're going to dive into the physiological, physiological changes. I'm trying to talk too fast. Which is a sign of nervous system disregulation that occur during chronic stress. And we'll talk about what are some actionable things that you could do right away. Whether you were dealing with work pressures, family responsibilities, crazy toddlers, crazy teens, or unexpected challenges that have just come up in life, this episode is going to help you understand and manage your stress better.”
“All right, so let's first talk autonomic nervous system. What are the basics? Why does this even matter?Why are you talking in so many high level sciency terms? It's important. The ans ANS Autonomic nervous system is part of your nervous system responsible for regulating involuntary hearts like heart rate, digestion, breathing. And it's got two parts to it. Sympathetic side, parasympathetic side. I talk about this all the time. Sympathetic side. If you view it like a visual, it's like a box in the middle. That's what we call your window tolerance. How much can I tolerate before I get knocked out of my like happy zone into the upper tier or the lower tier? The upper tier is the sympathetic side. That's your body's gas pedal and it activates that fight or flight response. And it, it, it's basically saying I perceive a threat. And even if the threat is like micro, like get a text that kind of sets you off, or an email comes in that's triggering or your child acts a certain way, that can all send you into the sympathetic side of the nervous system. And that's very normal. And it's good, like some bit of that is good to go into your sympathetic side and, and be stressed and then come back out of it is, is a healthy response. The problem is when we keep going into the sympathetic side and then we get stuck in the symp side. That's what we don't want to happen.”
“On the flip side, you have your parasympathetic side. That's like your brink petal. It promotes the rest and digest. It helps your body to relax and recover. So it sounds all good and great and wonderful. And it is for the most part because the nervous system works in opposition. So if you like are a person that goes up to that sympathetic side, you would want to do something to activate the parasympathetic because it will bring you back into the middle. It'll bring you back into the window tolerance, back to homeostasis.”
“But sometimes we can get so stressed out and so overwhelmed in the prolonged nature of the stress can lodge us in the parasympathetic side of the nervous system. And that can be a bad thing because then we go into like a shock state that's like the freeze fawn state. And we don't want to be there either.Again, it's nice to dabble in the parasympathetic and activate the parasympathetic. We don't want to get lodged there. You don't get lodging either. You want to get lodged in the window of tolerance. But even doing so, no human stays in the window intolerance all the time, every day. That's not normal. You leave and you come back. Leave and you come back. That's, that's healthy. We want to bring some awareness to when do I leave? What's taking me out? How do I get back?”
“So if you are a person who's more lodged in the parasympathetic side that like dissociative, disconnected, depressive, you would want to do something that's the opposite that kind of like activates the sympathetic or like meringues some activities, more like heightened activity, kind of wake up your system that's frozen.”
“Okay, so under normal conditions, these two systems work in harmony. They allow you to respond to stress and then return to a state of balance and homeostasis. But chronic stress disrupts this balance. So instead of shifting back into relaxation, your parasympathetics, your sorry, your sympathetics, your sympathetic nervous system, your SNS stays active and it keeps your body on high alert. Do I have any hyper vigilant, hyper independent, hypersensitive People out there, this is you. You are stuck in your sympathetic side of your nervous system. I'm one of them. I. I am. It is activated right now as I record this episode. I'm like a very high functioning, type a hyper vigilant, hyper independent, hypersensitive person. And I can tell I'm not quite in my window of tolerance right now. I can function outside of my window of tolerance. I can even function to the outward eye, public people, community work well. But I can tell I'm moving really fast. I can tell my voice, my words, my. My language is fast. And that's telling me, it's giving me some data that like, I'm probably a little bit dysregulated right now, more than I would like to be. I'm not smooth and calm and slow. And some of you have told me like, your voice is so soothing and it's so mellow and it may be, but it also moves fast when I dysregulated. So you don't want the body on high alert all the time. Not good. It's like a muscle and when you work it too much or exercise it too much, it strengthens and you get stuck there. And we don't like that. We want to strengthen your window tolerance.”
“So naturally, if you are stuck in one side or the other, it has a ripple effect on your entire system. So let's look at what that means for your body, for your brain. Let's first look at the brain, then we'll look at the body.”
“Prank. No one should be drinking coffee at 5 o'clock. Do not follow my lead right now. It's too late in the day to have coffee. Okay, let's talk stress and the brain. So naturally, you probably know stress affects your body, but are you really thinking about how it affects your brain? Because what it does is it rewiresyour brain and it really affects some big players that live inside your brain.”
“So here are the three key areas to really think about that this stress and this disregulated nervous system is impacting, number one, your prefrontal cortex. I've talked about this before. It's the front of your head, brain. This is the part of your brain that handles decision. Mation making, decision making, problem solving, rational thinking. Just all the things that, like, we really want to do well in life come probably from the prefrontal cortex. Self control, chronic stress nervous system disregulation. It impairs the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, making it harder to focus, making it harder to think clearly. Harder to regulate emotions. This is why some of us more sympathetic side of the nervous system, anxious people, might feel really scattered or maybe even feeling a little bit emotionally reactive to micro stressors that are really coming from underlying other stressors. Okay, prefrontal cortex, thinking brain, front of your head, amygdala. I love the amygdala. I just even love the name of the amygdala that lives like in the center of your brain. And there's an area called the limbic system that is like the emotional control center. But the, the amygdala really is like the key guy in, in that center. I mean, there are lots of key players there. But the amygdala especially is the brain's like emotional control, like fear control center. Because what happens is information comes into the brain, it reroutes to a couple different areas, and it eventually filters down through the limbic area and it'll hit the amygdala. And the amygdala will decide, safe, not safe. Is this stressor good? Not good. And if it feels like it's unsafe or it feels like it's a major stressor, the brain will, the amygdala will like send off the alarm. Other parts of the brain come in, help out, and then just haywire. And you don't necessarily like, see the outward haywire, but you feel the inward haywire. Do I have ruminating thoughts? People out there like, yes, that's me. So it makes you really sensitive to perceived threats, which can lead to heightened anxiety or irritability. That should be a shocker to evil. Like again, a person who's stuck in the sympathetic side, often working real hard to come out, stay out. Me, me, me. I can often mistake things for threats when they're just misunderstood. It definitely leads me to a heightened state of anxiety and like trying to kind of like pre plan things or like, what's the word? Like forecast what I think someone is going to do or say. And, and that just leads to, to not good thoughts. It's a lot of patterns of problematic thinking. That's a sign that amygdala is super elevated and very active. And the amygdala, much like the prefrontal cortex, it works like a muscle. So the more time we spend there getting emotionally activated, it's why anxiety. It feels like if you have anxiety, you're like, I'm getting more and more anxious. You are probably because the more you step into anxiety and the more the amygdala is activated, the stronger it gets and the more it's Activated. The stronger it gets, the more we stay in that state.”
“So the good news is you can change it. So we're gonna talk about that in a second. But the last one is the hippocampus. And this one was life changing for me because the hippocampus is crucial for learning, retention, memory, and chronic stress. Traumatic stress shrinks the amygdala, leading to forgetfulness and difficulty retaining information. I. My whole life was like, why is it so hard for me to remember stuff? Like, it's. It just is so hard. Like, it can't be this hard for everyone. And what I learned later in life is that my hippocampus is probably hippocampi. Two of them, one on each side. Also amygdala. It probably is smaller. It probably is shrunken. So I felt like I always had to, like, reread and relearn and highlight and mark up to retain. It was more energy to retain information. I read a book, and I'm like, I don't remember what I just read. I like, highlight it and, like, reflect on it and think on it and go back to it, read it again. That's unfortunate, but it's true. There's. There's still a lot of chronic stress, and it leads to lower retention. So think about how that applies to whatever job you're working in, you as an individual or people you're working with.”
“Okay, so essentially what happens here is chronic or traumatic stress creates a feedback loop where your brain becomes wired for survival instead of thriving. Little. What's the word I'm looking for? A little. I want to say probe. Ping. Nope, can't think of the word.”
“Five Ives. Survival to thrive. Thriving is exactly what we do at 5ives. To 5 Ives is an organization that Dr. Jessica Doring and I created to walk individuals and organizations out of survival state into a thriving hiding state. So we developed a theory and a. A framework for recognizing where you are as an individual, where your organization is, where your role is, and how to recognize where you are and where you're going and get yourself out of survival as an individual or an organization and move into thriving and strive and now move out of survival into thriving and hiding. My brain is moving slower than I would like it to right now. But here's the good news. Your brain kind of, like, worked in that direction to get you kind of stuck there, and it created these patterns, and it came. Became wired for surviving. But the reality and the. The. The truth is, if it got you there, it can get you back out. So as Much as your brain is wired to move in the direction in which you are kind of staying, you can. The brain is very adaptable. So through different strategies, like exercise, very intentional relaxation, mindfulness, presence, like, there are a whole gambit of things that you can do to rebuild the neural pathways and restore balance into your nervous system and your body and your mind. It takes effort, it takes work. But I am telling you, nervous system work will change your life.”
“Okay, so let's talk about body. We just spent a lot of time in the brain. Chronic stress. Whoa. Triggers a cascade of physiological changes, many of which strength stem from different stress hormones and things like cortisol and adrenaline. Because naturally, when your nervous system is dysregulated and you're in a heightened state, your body's pumping out some cortisol, pumping out some adrenaline. Essentially, a part of your limbic area is saying, like, I'm not safe. Whether it's psychologically, physically, and it's just pumping out these hormones to say, like, react, respond, help. I'm not. I'm not normal. I'm not ready. Not that you're not normal, but your body's not feeling normal, and your body is not in this state of homeostasis. This part of the brain's job is to kick in some hormones to get you back there. Okay, so with that said, what. What systems are impacted by this high cortisol, this adrenaline, this, like, kicking out of hormones? Cardiovascular stress increases your heart rate and your blood pressure. And over time, it's going to put some strain on your heart and strain on your blood vessels. And when that's happening, you're not getting as much ox. Like, your blood's not maybe flowing as fast. Your blood's not carrying the oxygen up to your brain. You need the oxygen to think clearly and to think rationally and, like, be in a good mood. So you're getting less of that oxygen up there, and that leads to risks of things like heart disease. And there's a lot of studies, but there's like, a massive study called the ACEs study that talks about early childhood, not just maybe life, childhood stress, things that you experienced before you were 18, and gives you this score and talks about your scores, this number, and this number kind of correlates to all these kind of, like, detriments of. Of health, like outcomes, like negative outcomes based on higher stress or. Or trauma exposure. Well, this is one of them. It talks about this like, you're. You're more at risk for heart disease. You're more at risk for hypertension. So it's unfortunate, but we can do the work to reverse it. Immune systems naturally, short term, short term stress, where you leave your window tolerance and come right back in it, which is what it was designed to do, that can boost immunity. That's a good thing. We need that, we want that. It's the chronic stress, the traumatic stress, the prolonged stress, that's where it suppresses it. And that leaves you more vulnerable to illnesses, to flu, to disease. And it just, it slows down recovery when you do get those things or when you have an injury or when you have an infection. I mean age does that too. Of course all these systems don't work as well the more we age, but they, they can be better. Like you can function better at 40 than you were at 20. If you had a not so great lifestyle practices at 20 and you adapted amazing lifestyle practices at 40. I mean Mark Hyman, Dr. Mark Hyman is a wonderful example of this. I think he's in a 60, I hope I'm not guessing that's too high. I think he's in his 60s. He looks better in his 60s than I do in my early 30s. And I'm pretty like healthy. I look at him and like how he's functioning and his energy and the way he talks about like what he does and how he exists in the world and his like physical shape, how he's, his musculature. I hope I look like a minuscule like Dr. Hyman when I am his age. And he is a naturopathically aligned doctor. So he adopted a lot of practices that connect to the nervous system, that regulate the nervous system, that help with cardiovascular systems, that help with immune systems. The next one is digestive system. It's negatively impacted all these things. He's put kind of more natural practices in place. Some of it's just movement, some of it's food, some of its mind, body work. But it's done wonders and he looks amazing for his age.”
“Number three, digestive systems. Stress can really disrupt your digestion. It can lead to all kinds of things. I mean bloating, gas, acid reflux. If it's prolonged inflammation in your gut from the stress, the acid, it could deteriorate parts of your gut health. And bacteria, good bacteria bring in bad bacteria, gut lining. Then you get things like Candida and they say leaky gut, ural bowel syndrome. Like these things come from stress. It's a huge portion of where so much disease is coming into play in our world today.”
“Number four, muscular system or the musculoskeletal System, I guess we should say, but system of muscles. Naturally, your muscles start to tense and tighten when you're stressed. Like I feel at my chest, I feel like my shoulders go in and all these muscles in my chest get really tight because I'm more anxiety prone. But I also feel like the muscles in my neck and back get really tight. Some of that's from being at a computer and bending down. I'm at a standing desk right now, so it helps a little bit, but everything is like tensing up in the neck, in the shoulders, in the back. And that's why more and more and more and more people are saying they have back pain, neck pain. It's a stress problem. It's less of an aging body problem. This is a stress problem. Endocrine system, prolonged stress, chronic stress, traumatic stress, can severely throw off your hormonal balance. And it can impact your sleep, it can impact your appetite, it can impact your reproductive health. Like all of it. I mean, it makes perfect sense to me. Your body is sending healthy things other places to kind of restore it, and it knocks everything off of balance and then sending out hormones because it thinks you're in trouble and things just aren't working so well, especially when you stay in that state for a long time. So none of this is shocking to me, and hopefully it's not to you, but in hearing it and being like, wow, my body is ruined and I am. No, no, you're not. Because what I'm trying to say today is all of it can be reversed. There's so many things you can do for the nervous system to kind of reset all these. These patterns and rewire your brain and get these systems to start working the way they're designed to work. So all of it is just a signal. All of it is a signal to you that something is not right, that something is out of balance and it wants you to move into practices that get it back into a state of balance.”
“So how do we do that? Okay, well, this is it. As we're wrapping up, we cannot entirely eliminate stress. It's just not possible, especially in today's world. So let's take some steps to manage it. Breath work, I know it's not new, but, man, breath work can be so helpful, especially if you get in a regular routine of it. Like, there's a beautiful breathing technique that I have adopted that's five, six, seven. So I breathe in for five, hold for six, breathe out for seven. I'm trying to do that every day when I get up, just like Three to five times. Like very small, very short, doesn't take very long. You can do box breathing where you inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four and hold again for four. You can download an app like Insight Timer and walk through free breath work sessions anywhere from like 1 minute to 60 plus minutes. When you get, I'm not sure if it depends on what type of breath work or the amount of minutes, but there, there are breath work sessions. I just attended one this weekend that was 60 Minutes. And when you, it sounds like a long time and it goes pretty fast and you kind of almost get into the state of like elevated existence. You, you activate all these parts of your system, sympathetic side of your nervous system, parasympathetic nervous system. And you get into such a deep brainwave state with just breath work, guided breath work, that you're starting to access parts of your subconscious. So it's, it's a really interesting form of nervous system regulation. It's great to do in longer sessions like that periodically. But I think what's best about breath work is to make it a routine to do it daily. The reality is we are breathing so much through our mouth and we are meant to breathe through our. No, the more you can intentionally do some short-term, like shortish breaths, not short-term. Struggling with words right now. Let me like strike that, reverse it, send it back. The more you can create a consistent ongoing routine for breath work. A short practice, like one to five minutes that you can do daily or every couple days I think is the best way to start because it's going to get you in the habit of breathing through your nose. It's going to get your nervous system kind of like preemptively regulated every day. So that's an easy one.”
“Exercise, physical movement. It doesn't have to be going to the gym or going to an hour long class, but it does res. It does reduce your cortisol levels which is why a lot recommend doing it right away in the morning because your cortisol levels are its highest. It also releases or increases endorphins in your system. But it doesn't have to be a classic sign up for. It doesn't have to be a high intensity. It can be something like walking, stretching, yoga, dancing, anything that releases some bent, pent up tension. I am a part of an app program called Class Pass. It works in bigger cities and it might not be great for outside of bigger cities, but essentially I pay a very like nominal amount of money. I think it's like $29 a month because I don't do a gym membership. And this gives me access to like four to six classes a month. So like a class a week, sometimes two classes a week, maybe. Depends on which classes I choose. Sometimes one every other week. It has everything. Dance, boxing, jiu jitsu, hit, strength training, yoga, Pilates bar, just spin, cycling, anything you want to go to, it's probably on that app. So that's a big one that I like to use to hold myself accountable to some movement, mindfulness and meditation.”
“I know this one has been around for so long, everyone's like, oh, I'm off the mindfulness train.
Like, I don't hear about mindfulness meditation anymore. But the reality is they're ancient practices that came into our western world and we like put them on this pedestal and they deserved that. But all this hype kind of made people like, all right, I'm over this, you know, era of mindfulness meditation. But it can really help your brain calm down even if you just do it for like one to five max, 10 minutes a day. Again, like, when I think about adopting like a five to ten minute practice, like, I don't have a time. Reality is I'm not making the time, but it still feels like a barrier for me. So I just aim for one minute that, that I can do. I can do one minute. And I can't just like sit well and not do anything. So I tend to use the app Insight Timer. I really love the Insight Timer app. There are other ones. Calm Headspace. There's another one I just learned of. What is it called? Is it called the Breath Source? The Breath Source app. I haven't used it yet, but I've heard good things about it. Okay, that's 1, 2, 3, breath work, physical movement, mindfulness and meditation. And it doesn't even need to be meditation. Mindfulness can be. If you search mindfulness, if you chatGPT, unusual mindfulness, uncommon mindfulness. It'll bring up all kinds of activities like eating based activities, community and friends based activities, hiking based activities. Mindfulness is a massive spectrum. Here's an example. I went hiking this weekend. My two year old, we're hiking. He's like stopping and looking at every hole. Then there's an ant and then there's a rug, and then he wants to jump off the rock and then he wants to crawl up the rocks in his hands and knees. And at first I was like, man, I'm getting so irritated because this hike isn't moving. We're not going anywhere. I'm not getting exercise. And I was like, whoa, girl, chill. Like, let him lead. There's no timeline. This is supposed to be a peaceful activity where you're reconnecting with nature. Follow his lead. And as I very quickly in the hike, learned to slow down, I was like, wow, this has become a very mindful hike. I am enjoying interacting with him and looking at the holes and looking at the animals and crawling on the rocks. Everyone's, like, passing us by, and it's just, like, joyful to see us so present. And that was a gift. I was like, wow, that was two hours well spent. So it can be so simple. Like, that social connection where you connect socially. Up to you. There are Facebook groups, There are meetup groups. I'm a member of a church. It's a mega church. I like smaller communities, but the megachurch has a lot of outreach that then creates sub communities in it. So I'm a part of multiple sub communities in that megachurch, and it's changed my life. So that's my potential avenue based on what your religious preferences are. There are networking groups. There's so many ways to connect if you so choose. And I'm definitely a more introverted person, so I like smaller groups. But there are groups that offer that that aren't so tapped. Tapping. Don't tap your social, like, reserves so much that you can really benefit from. Like, I'm a part of a couple hiking groups, pickleball group, mom's group, small group, single parenting group. Like, all of them are really wonderful. And I don't feel tapped when I go to those groups. So how can you connect with friends, loved ones and. And connect more deeply? Like, we'll. We'll be together and people be on their phones or, like, enjoy a meal, put your phones away, talk, get to know one another, empathize, learn, listen, do things actually help your body relax. That's the kind of social connection, meaning nature exposure reduces your cortisol, promotes relaxation. Nature vibrates at this lower level of brain fre, like energetic frequency. But your brain goes into a different frequency when you are in nature because your brain kind of like aligns with that nature existence. So. So in a NutShell, it's like 7.8, 7.3, 7.8. I think Herz is what nature like, vibrates at that. Like, I guess 8-14 Hz is your. I believe it's alpha wave state. That's like deep relaxation. So if you spend enough time in nature where you really allow your brain and body to kind of regulate to the Nature's vibrations. I mean, you don't feel the vibrations, but there is a vibrational level. This is where I'm a little woo. But it's science, so it's not full woo woo. Don't think I'm crazy. It's truth. But it makes sense because when I come back from being in nature for like an hour or two, like, wow, I feel so slow, calm, peaceful. That makes sense. My brain waves have gone out of stress into like relaxation.”
“Gratitude. Another one that's like, people have been like, it's the truth. There's so much science behind it. It completely shifts your perspective, helps you to reframe, it reduces stress. So definitely just adopt some type of gratitude practice. It could like journal board, jar, anything. Like just my phone tells me at lunch of everything I say, three things are grateful for. And I don't remove that notification until I say it.”
“So strategies are not a one size fits all. You'll have to experiment and find out what works for you. Start in really small doses. Micro practices. The more you change, the more quickly you change it. It's less likely to be sustainable. It's less likely to last. So definitely just make sure that you are little increments. Okay? Little tiny increments.”
“But to recap, chronic stress, traumatic stress, prolonged stress impacts your brain and body and it does so by just completely overloading your autonomic nervous system. We don't want that, but we can rewire our brains. We can do that through breath work, we can do that through physical movement, we can do that in mindfulness, social connection, and we can counteract the adversity that we're experiencing and build a more resilient nervous system.”
“All right, let's do our Try It Home tip do. I'm going to encourage you to to download some type of breath work, mindfulness or meditation support. An app, an auto book, audio, eventually audible, an audiobook, either, or one that teaches you about these practices, but something that's going to help you get started with a breath work, mindfulness or meditation practice. My suggestion is Insight Timer, but there are many other options, so go through. Feels good for you.”
“That's it for today's episode of Returning to Us podcast. Don't forget our Try It Home tip, which is downloading or accessing some type of breath work, mindfulness, meditative app or book or something that is going to help you adopt a practice like that. If you're looking for more support in the areas of stress, trauma, behavior in the brain, we would love to be a part of your learning journey. Jessica Doring and I, a business partner, created five IVEs and we used to work a lot with schools. We still do work with schools, but we have also now started working with medical professionals, policing nonprofits. Really anybody who works in a helping serving field because those fields have higher burnout, especially if they're working with populations who have experienced a lot of stress and trauma. So basically we walk people through as an organizational whole, how to move through the five stages, how to recognize and become self aware of where you are as an individual, where the organization is as a whole, how to individuals in the organizational whole move from survival to thriving and hiving which is a part of our five Ives stages. So some pretty cool programming there based and grounded in the nervous system work and the neurobiology work and accessible to all. Feel free to hop onto our five Ives F I V E I V E s website and you can learn about what it is exactly that we do and reach out to us. Don't forget to lock in what you learned today by sharing this with someone else, sharing the episode, listening and chatting about it, holding each other accountable. Just something to do to to not just passively listen to take it away and apply it until next episode. I am Lauren Spiegelmeier and thank you for joining us.”