This series is my best attempt at answering the question I get asked more than almost any other: “so how do I actually regulate my nervous system?” Every post is built from the frameworks and approaches I use with my own clients - broken down in a way that’s actually practical and easy to follow.

If you’re new here, I’d really encourage you to start at the beginning. Each post builds on the last and this one works best when the foundation is in place:

• What Is Nervous System Dysregulation - and Why Is Everyone Talking About It? The psychoeducation piece. Understanding what’s actually happening in your body - and why dysregulation is a protective response, not a personal failure - is foundational to everything else.

• Step 1: You Can’t Regulate What You Don’t Recognize A gentle guide to the nervous system states that might be running your life without you knowing it.

• Step 2: Your Body Has Been Trying to Tell You Something Most people only notice their nervous system when it’s already too late. Step 2 teaches you interoception + how to start catching it earlier - before the flare, the spiral, the shutdown.

• Step 3: The Pattern Interrupt Framework Read this before coming here. Most nervous system tools don’t stick because this foundation is missing. Step 3 combines the best of somatic work and brain retraining into a simple daily framework - and it’s your essential first move before reaching for any state-specific tool. This toolkit below is the precision work that follows it.

Before we get into the tools

As we covered in Step 3 - state recognition always comes before tool selection. The most common reason nervous system tools don’t work is reaching for the wrong one for where you actually are.

A quick snapshot of the states (drawn from polyvagal theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges) Full breakdown in Step 1.

• Sympathetic: mobilized, activated, urgent, wired. Can also look like: rushing through tasks that have no deadline, checking your phone compulsively, making to-do lists at 11pm, seeking reassurance that never actually lands.

• Dorsal vagal: heavy, foggy, shut down, collapsed. Can also look like: starting five things and finishing none, canceling plans not because you’re tired but because existing around people feels like too much, doomscrolling for hours.

• Freeze: both at once - shut down on the surface, activated underneath. Can also look like: knowing you need to do something but being completely unable to start it.

• Ventral vagal: present, grounded, connected. Where healing happens.

A note on fawn: there is a fifth response - fawn - which involves appeasing, over-giving, and abandoning your own needs to manage perceived threat. It’s deeply connected to chronic illness and people-pleasing patterns and deserves its own dedicated post, which is coming.

Why the same tool doesn’t always work

This is one of the most important things to understand - and the reason so much nervous system advice online either doesn’t land or sometimes makes things worse.

What helps in one state can be unhelpful, neutral, or actively dysregulating in another. Longer exhales can be deeply calming - downregulating - in sympathetic activation - but for someone in dorsal vagal shutdown, slowing down further can feel like sinking deeper. Cold water can be regulating in some states and overwhelming in others. High intensity movement can discharge activated sympathetic energy beautifully - or push an already overwhelmed system further over the edge.

This is why state recognition has to come before tool selection.

Not every state needs calming. Some states need downregulating - sympathetic activation has too much energy and needs somewhere to go. Others need upregulating - dorsal vagal shutdown has too little and needs gentle re-engagement. Freeze needs thawing before movement is even possible. The goal isn’t to force relaxation - it’s to give your nervous system what it actually needs in that moment to come back to baseline (also called your window of tolerance).

Think of what follows as a menu, not a checklist. I’m giving you many options to try so you can find the ones that actually resonate with your system. Pick one. Try it. Notice what happens. Some tools will resonate immediately, others won’t. The goal isn’t to feel perfectly calm - it’s to create a little more flexibility than you had five minutes ago. Regulation isn’t a destination. It’s movement.

Below is the toolkit - organized by state: sympathetic, dorsal vagal, and freeze. Each section combines bottom-up and top-down tools, because as we covered in Step 3, that combination is what makes regulation actually stick. You’ll also find tools that work across any state, and the the list of vagus nerve maintenance practices from Step 2 to strengthen your vagal tone over time. Everything in one place.

Dedicated quick-reference guides for each state are coming for paid subscribers - easy to save and pull up whenever you need them.

When you’re in sympathetic activation - fight or flight

Quick recognition: anxious, restless, racing thoughts, irritable, wired but exhausted, urgency that won’t turn off, rushing, overanalyzing, reassurance seeking that never lands.

Like all the states, the sympathetic state isn’t a mistake. It’s your body’s attempt to protect you. The goal isn’t to force yourself to calm down. The goal is to help your body complete what it was preparing to do. These tools work with the activation instead of fighting against it.

1. Shake it out - bottom up Animals naturally shake after a threat response to discharge activated energy - a deer after escaping a predator, a dog after a stressful vet visit. We’ve largely lost this as humans but the mechanism is the same. The sympathetic state floods your body with stress hormones that were designed to fuel action. When the action never comes, that energy gets stuck. Shaking gives it somewhere to go. Shake your hands, your arms, your whole body for 60 seconds. It might feel strange. It works anyway.

2. Push against a wall - bottom up Stand facing a wall and press your hands firmly against it for 20-30 seconds. The sympathetic state is mobilizing your body to fight or flee - it’s preparing you to push, run, or defend. This tool lets that impulse complete itself safely. You’re giving the activated fight energy somewhere to go, which helps discharge it rather than leaving it trapped in your body.

3. Extended exhale breathing - bottom up Inhale through your nose for 4 counts. Exhale slowly through your mouth for 6-8 counts. The extended exhale directly activates the parasympathetic nervous system through the vagus nerve - the longer the exhale relative to the inhale, the stronger the signal that the threat has passed. No breath holding at the top of the inhale - for sensitized nervous systems breath retention can increase activation. Just a smooth inhale, then a long slow exhale. Repeat 5-10 times.

4. You can also try the physiological sigh - a double inhale through the nose followed by a long exhale through the mouth. One of the most researched tools for acute sympathetic activation. One or two cycles is often enough to feel a shift.

5. Cold water on the face - bottom up Splashing cold or cool water on your face activates the dive reflex - a hard-wired physiological response that slows the heart rate and shifts the nervous system toward parasympathetic. Even 20-30 seconds can create a noticeable shift in acute activation. Note: this serves a different purpose here than in freeze - in sympathetic you’re using it to interrupt acute activation; in freeze you’re using it to bring yourself back into your body. Same tool, different mechanism.

6. Humming - bottom up Hum for 1-2 minutes - any sound, any pitch. The vibration in your chest and throat directly stimulates the vagus nerve, creating an immediate parasympathetic response. It works in the moment for acute sympathetic activation and over time as a daily maintenance practice. It also gives the activated nervous system something simple and rhythmic to focus on, which helps interrupt the looping thought pattern.

7. Butterfly tapping - bottom up and top down Cross your arms over your chest, hands resting on your shoulders or upper arms. Alternate tapping left and right slowly, like a butterfly’s wings. This bilateral stimulation activates both hemispheres of the brain and helps process activated emotional and physiological states. Pair it with slow breathing for added effect. I’ll be demonstrating this on Instagram so you can see exactly what it looks like - follow @balancedwithzoe if you’re not already there.

When you’re in dorsal vagal - shutdown

Quick recognition: numb, foggy, heavy, disconnected, hard to think or decide, wanting to disappear, doomscrolling, zoning out, no energy with no clear reason.

The dorsal vagal state is a conservation response. Your system has determined that fighting or fleeing isn’t available, so it’s shutting down to preserve resources. This is collapse, not laziness. It needs gentle re-entry, not force.

1. Warmth and gentle sensory input - bottom up When you’re shut down your system needs soft, non-threatening sensory information to begin coming back online. Warmth is particularly effective - a warm drink, sunlight on your skin, a warm shower, a heated blanket. Soft textures. Gentle sounds. Sensory input travels bottom-up through the nervous system, gently activating the vagus nerve without triggering the threat response. You’re coaxing the system back. Not demanding it return.

2. Gentle self touch - bottom up Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Or cup your face gently in your hands. Or rest a hand on your cheek. Self touch activates the same neural pathways as being touched by someone safe - it signals to your nervous system that you are not alone, that you are cared for, that it is safe to come back. This is one of the most direct vagal activators available and one of the most underrated. It asks almost nothing of you, which is exactly why it works so well in shutdown.

3. Watch something warm - bottom up A candle flame. A nature video. Rain on a window. An episode of something gentle and familiar. This isn’t avoidance - it’s co-regulation through safe stimuli. Your ventral vagal system responds to cues of warmth, safety, and attunement even when they come from a screen. Sometimes the gentlest re-entry into the nervous system is through your eyes and ears, not through effort.

4. Tiny non-demanding movement - bottom up This is not the time for a workout. This is the time for the smallest possible movement that actually feels accessible. Wiggle your toes. Stretch your fingers. Roll your ankles. Rock gently. If it feels available, a very short slow walk - not to get anywhere, just to move. Each small movement sends a signal upward: we can come back now. It’s safe to return.

5. VOO breath - bottom up Take a slow deep breath in, then on the exhale make a long, low “voooo” sound - like a foghorn. Feel the vibration in your chest and belly. Repeat 3-5 times. The vibration directly stimulates the vagus nerve and gently activates the parasympathetic system from the inside out. This is particularly effective for dorsal shutdown when slower breathing alone doesn’t shift much.

6. Naming without fixing - top down Place one hand on your chest or belly. Take a slow breath. Name what you actually feel. “I feel heavy.” “I feel distant.” “I feel foggy.” No fixing. Just honest acknowledgment. Dorsal vagal shutdown often involves disconnection from internal experience - naming what you feel begins to rebuild that connection. It tells your nervous system: I see you. I’m not going to fight you. And that recognition alone can begin to soften the shutdown.

When you’re in freeze - When the Gas and the Brake Are On at the Same Time

Quick recognition: paralyzed, can’t move forward, feel both shut down AND anxious underneath, deer in headlights, overwhelmed and stuck, simultaneous shutdown and activation.

Freeze is distinct from pure dorsal vagal shutdown. There’s often both dorsal immobilization AND sympathetic activation happening at the same time - shut down on the surface with energy humming and trapped underneath. This is why freeze can feel so disorienting. There’s an internal contradiction that’s genuinely hard to describe.

The approach here is sequenced. Address the dorsal layer first, then the sympathetic energy underneath. The order matters - going straight to movement when you’re in deep freeze can feel jarring and sometimes makes things worse.

And sometimes you just have to thaw. Freeze can take time to come out of and that’s okay. Gentle and patient is the only way through.

Step 1: Dorsal tools first Warmth. Tiny movement. Gentle self touch. Gentle sensory input. VOO breath. Humming. Naming what you feel. Work these until you notice even a slight shift - a little more presence, a little more connection to your body. You don’t need to be fully back online. Just a small opening.

1. Humming or toning - bottom up When you’re frozen and movement feels impossible, sound is often more accessible. You don’t need to go anywhere or do anything - just make a low hum or a sustained tone. The vibration travels through the vagus nerve and begins to gently activate the parasympathetic system without requiring any physical mobilization. It’s one of the most accessible tools in deep freeze because the bar to entry is so low.

2. Cold sensation - bottom up Once there’s a slight thaw, cold water on your face or wrists can help bring you back into your body and into the present moment. The cold activates the dive reflex, slowing the heart rate and creating an immediate shift in presence. Note: if you have MCAS or are highly sensitive to temperature, start with cool rather than cold and use with awareness - temperature extremes can be activating for some sensitive systems.

3. Small wins and micro-goals - bottom up and top down When you’re frozen, the nervous system needs evidence that movement is possible - not a to-do list, just the smallest signal of agency. Put one thing away. Stand up. Put your shoes on. Each tiny completion tells your system: I can move. I am not stuck. The momentum builds from there on its own.

Step 2: Then address the sympathetic energy Once the dorsal layer softens slightly, the sympathetic activation underneath often becomes more noticeable. Some restlessness. Some energy starting to move. This is a good sign - your system is thawing. Meet it with grounded movement - walking, shaking, orienting. The sympathetic tools above are your next move from here.

Tools that work for any state

These two tools don’t require you to know your state first. They work anywhere, anytime, as a starting point or a reset.

1. Co-regulation The ventral vagal system evolved for connection - not solo regulation. Being near a safe person, an animal, or sitting in nature can shift your nervous system faster than almost any technique. If connection feels available, reach for it first. Sit beside someone grounding. Pet your dog. Call a friend whose nervous system feels calm. We were designed to regulate in relationship. Sometimes the most powerful thing isn’t another tool - it’s letting yourself be supported.

2. Orienting Slowly look around the room and let your eyes land on objects that feel neutral or familiar. Name five things you can see. Two things you can hear. One thing you can feel in your body right now. This works directly with your nervous system’s threat detection mechanism - when you consciously register that nothing in your immediate environment is actually dangerous, you’re sending a direct signal to your amygdala that the coast is clear. Works in any state, any moment, anywhere.

Daily maintenance - vagus nerve practices

These are the tools I covered in Step 2 - worth recapping here because they’re the foundation everything else builds on.

Vagus nerve practices work differently from the in-the-moment tools above. They build vagal tone over time - increasing the baseline flexibility and resilience of your nervous system so that shifts between states become easier, faster, and more automatic. Think of it like fitness. The benefit is cumulative.

The higher your vagal tone, the more accessible all of the above tools become when you actually need them.

• Diaphragmatic breathing - slow, deep belly breaths for 5-10 minutes daily

• Humming or singing - the vibration directly stimulates the vagus nerve. Do it in the car, in the shower, anywhere

• Cold water on the face - 30 seconds of cool or cold water on your face activates the dive reflex and tones the vagus nerve over time

• Gargling - activates the muscles at the back of the throat connected to the vagus nerve. 30-60 seconds after brushing your teeth is enough

• VOO breath - as above, daily practice builds the same vagal toning benefit

5-10 minutes a day of any combination of these is enough to build something real over time. It doesn’t have to be all of them. Pick what feels accessible and do it consistently.

Over time something shifts. The recognition gets faster. The reaching for a tool becomes more instinctive. The gap between activation and response gets shorter. You spend less time over your threshold because you’re catching things earlier. Your baseline comes down.

That is nervous system regulation. Not the absence of waves. The ability to move through them more skillfully - and come back to yourself more quickly each time.

There are so many more tools I want to share - dedicated toolkits for each state are coming. But I want to name what these four posts have actually given you, because it’s more than it might seem on the surface.

Understanding what’s happening in your body and why. Learning to feel where you are in real time. A daily framework to interrupt the pattern before it builds. And now the tools to actually respond. That’s the complete foundation. Everything that comes next builds on it.

There’s no rush. Some of you will stay in the education phase for a while. Some will spend weeks just practicing the body scan from step 2. Some will work with the Notice - Interrupt - Arrive framework from step 3 for months before adding anything else. All of that is exactly right. This work doesn’t have a timeline.

A note: working with a trauma-informed or somatic practitioner alongside this work can make a significant difference. This toolkit is a starting point, not a substitute for that support.

And if you’re currently in a significant flare or crisis - this toolkit will be here when you’re ready. Go back to the Step 2 practices and stay there as long as you need. That is not a step backward. That is the work.

I’m really glad you’re here. 🤍

Xoxo, Zoe

This is Step 3 of my nervous system series - and the post I’ve been most excited to write.

The full state-specific toolkit is coming Wednesday - but I’d be doing you a disservice if I shared it without this first.

If you’ve ever tried a nervous system tool and felt like it didn’t work, this post is probably why. Most nervous system content goes straight to the tools - the breathwork, the somatic practices- without the foundational practice that allows those tools to actually land. Without this step, tools often feel forced, ineffective, or only work sometimes.

This framework is what’s missing from most nervous system training. It’s the bridge between awareness and regulation - blending bottom-up and top-down approaches in one simple sequence so your nervous system is actually ready to receive what comes next.

If you’ve ever had great insights in talk therapy but still felt stuck in your body - or felt temporary relief from somatic work but couldn’t seem to hold it - this is why. Insight without body-based regulation doesn’t complete the cycle. And body-based work without the cognitive piece can shift your state temporarily without changing the underlying patterns. You need both. And that’s exactly what this framework does.

Before you go any further, make sure you have the foundation in place. This post works best when it does.If you haven’t already, start here:

• What Is Nervous System Dysregulation - and Why Is Everyone Talking About It? The psychoeducation piece. Understanding what’s actually happening in your body - and why dysregulation is a protective response, not a personal failure - is foundational to everything else.

• Step 1: You Can’t Regulate What You Don’t Recognize A gentle guide to the nervous system states that might be running your life without you knowing it.

• Step 2: Your Body Has Been Trying to Tell You Something Most people only notice their nervous system when it’s already too late. Step 2 teaches you how to start catching it earlier - before the flare, the spiral, the shutdown.

A quick reminder of the states

You know these from Step 1 - just a brief snapshot before we get into the framework. Full breakdown on nervous system states here.

• Sympathetic: mobilized, activated, urgent, wired.

• Dorsal vagal: heavy, foggy, shut down, collapsed.

• Freeze: both at once - shut down on the surface, activated underneath.

• Ventral vagal: present, grounded, connected. Where healing happens.

Why we use both bottom-up and top-down approaches

Before I get into what each approach actually is - a bit of context on why I built this framework the way I did.

I spent years working with practitioners who focused purely on somatic bottom-up work, and separately with therapists whose approach was almost entirely top-down brain retraining. Both helped. Neither felt complete on its own. It wasn’t until I started combining them - and later trained in approaches that do exactly that - that things really shifted. That’s what this framework is built on, and it’s what I use with my clients.

Most nervous system content focuses on one or the other. But in my experience it’s the combination of both that makes this work - and understanding why makes the tools land differently.

Top-down approaches work through the mind. Naming your state, redirecting your attention, using specific thought patterns to interrupt a stress response. They work well when you have some cognitive capacity available - when you’re not fully over your threshold.

Bottom-up approaches work through the body. Sensation, movement, breath, and physiology to shift state directly - bypassing the thinking brain entirely. This matters because when you’re dysregulated, your prefrontal cortex is partially offline. You can’t think your way out of a state your body drove you into. Bottom-up tools work even when your thinking brain isn’t available.

The most effective regulation combines both. A bottom-up tool shifts your physiology first, creating enough capacity for a top-down tool to then work. Together they create something neither can do alone.

This is also why repetition matters. The nervous system changes through high repetition over time - especially when tools are practiced in calm, neutral moments, not just crisis ones. The more you practice in everyday moments, the more automatically they become available when you actually need them. That is how new neural pathways form. That is what lasting regulation looks like.

Below the paywall is the framework I use personally and teach all of my clients - a simple three-step pattern interrupt you can use any time you feel something shifting in your system.

It’s not complicated. But practiced consistently, it’s one of the most powerful things you can do for your nervous system. It works because it combines both bottom-up and top-down approaches in one simple sequence - and it gets faster and more automatic the more you use it.

The full state-specific toolkit drops Wednesday. This framework is your foundation before that.

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Mold detox. Lyme treatment. Glutathione IVs. Ozone therapy. Binders. Myers cocktails. Peptides. Restrictive diets. Endless supplements.

According to the wellness world, I should have been getting better. My functional medicine doctor had a plan and I was following it to the letter.

Instead, my body was becoming more reactive by the month and my symptoms kept getting worse.

What nobody told me was this: for a nervous system that is already overwhelmed, more intervention can mean more activation. More input. More pressure on a system already running on empty.

And for people with MCAS, histamine issues, and dysregulated nervous systems, a lot of what functional medicine reaches for first can be immune activating, histamine liberating, or simply too much for a sensitive system to handle.

At the end of this post, I’m sharing the list I wish someone had given me years ago: the “healthy” foods, supplements, and wellness trends that commonly backfire for MCAS and sensitive nervous systems - plus gentler alternatives that tend to be better tolerated.

The harder I pushed on my healing, the more my body shut down.

It wasn’t until I stopped - the aggressive protocols, the endless supplements, the constant trying to fix and eliminate everything - and focused on nervous system work and brain retraining that things finally started to shift.

My inflammation markers came down. My Lyme coinfection eventually went undetectable. My period came back after eight years of being gone.

I want to be clear: I’m not saying functional medicine is bad or that supplements don’t have a place. They absolutely do. But for many people with MCAS, histamine intolerance, or dysregulated nervous systems, sequence and titration matter enormously. Stabilization often needs to come first.

Because here’s what happens when you skip that step: your immune system never gets the signal to stand down. The alarm bell stays on. And everything you throw at it - even things that are objectively good for most people - gets read as another threat.

Every time I open my phone there’s a new supplement promising to heal everything.

Working in wellness PR meant getting access to cutting-edge brands before they hit mainstream. But it also meant constantly being surrounded by the message that there was always something else you needed to be healthy. Another supplement. Another protocol. Another thing you were missing.

And a whole culture of tracking, optimizing, and measuring your way to health - where people end up with more data than ever and somehow feel worse than ever. When the thing you actually need most might actually be free: a regulated nervous system.

I remember being so excited to be put on the ARMRA colostrum account at work. They were everywhere - every wellness podcast, every influencer feed.

I tried it and flared for over a month.

Not because it was a bad product. It genuinely helps some people. But colostrum is deeply immune activating by design, and for a sensitive system it can be like throwing fuel on a fire.

By that point I was starting to understand enough about histamine and mast cells to connect the dots. And I kept thinking about how many people were forcing products like this every day with no idea why they were getting worse.

That’s exactly why I wrote this post.

Your body is not their body.

What works for someone in a completely different nervous system state may be exactly wrong for where you are right now. This isn’t about becoming cynical about wellness. It’s about becoming discerning.

The probiotic, collagen, glutamine standard gut-healing protocol my doctor put me on had me looking six months pregnant. Fermented foods made it worse. And I kept being told this was healing and just “die off”.

I knew my body. I knew it wasn’t.

Be your own advocate. Your body is telling you something. Listen to it - even when your doctor doesn’t, and even when it’s being praised by every wellness influencer on your feed.

There’s a version of healing that looks a lot like the thing that made you sick in the first place.

A packed morning routine. A supplement schedule. A list of things to do, track, optimize, and avoid. Moving through it all with the same grip and urgency you used to bring to everything else.

Your nervous system doesn’t really care that your intentions are good. It just knows pressure. It doesn’t know the difference between work stress and healing stress. All it registers is: this feels urgent. This feels like danger.

So even if your healing routine looks beautiful on paper - if it’s being driven by fear of symptoms, guilt when you miss a day, panic when you eat something off the list - it looks like healing on the outside, but underneath it still feels like fear. And your body is still reading it as a threat.

For me, healing couldn’t be done through the way I used to approach everything else. It required an entirely different energy. I realized I had turned healing into another form of hypervigilance.

And in many ways, my body getting sick was asking me to learn something entirely different. How to stop gripping so tightly. How to regulate my nervous system. How to retrain my brain out of the fix-it hypervigilance I had spent years building - the same hypervigilance that was keeping my symptoms in a vicious loop.

There’s something important about where attention goes in chronic illness.

The more you monitor, track, and scan for what’s wrong, the more your nervous system stays oriented toward threat.

A brain constantly searching for danger will keep finding it. And a body constantly treated like it’s broken starts responding like it is.

The hypervigilance itself - the symptom tracking, the food fear, the constant analyzing - can become part of what keeps the system activated.

The question that changed everything for me wasn’t “what else should I do?”

It was: “Where can I loosen my grip?”

If you’re doing everything right and still not feeling better - pause and look at the energy behind the doing.

Is it coming from discipline or from rigidity? Is there urgency and fear underneath it? Is there panic when you eat a trigger food? Guilt when you forget a supplement? Anxiety when you miss a day of your routine?

That energy is information.

And it might be doing more harm than the thing you’re trying to heal.

Before you add anything else, your nervous system needs to feel safe enough to actually receive it.

A dysregulated nervous system is still in survival mode. And survival mode compromises digestion, dysregulates immune function, and causes everything coming in to get flagged as a potential threat.

The body heals when it feels safe. Not when it feels managed.

The most important things for your wellbeing don’t come in a package:

Movement. Real food. Sleep. Connection. Time outside. A nervous system that doesn’t feel constantly under threat.

It’s worth saying out loud: wellness has become expensive. The message that you need a specific device, a curated supplement stack, or a boutique pilates studio to be healthy has made a lot of people feel like the basics aren’t enough. But the fundamentals that actually drive healing have never required a subscription.

Sleep is free. Walking is free. Breathwork is free. A nourishing meal doesn’t have to cost much. The basics aren’t boring - they’re foundational. they’re just not sellable.

→ Red light panel? Sunlight.
→ Vibration plate? Walking, dancing, gentle movement.
→ Grounding mat? Feet in the grass.
→ Green powder? Actual greens.

I say this as someone who genuinely loves wellness products and will probably always be a little obsessed with them. But the more I added to my plate, the more overwhelmed my system became. And the more I came back to the basics, the better I felt.

If I could go back seven years - to the version of me stacking supplement on top of supplement, protocol on top of protocol, getting sicker and more reactive by the month, completely blindsided by why nothing was working - I would hand her this list below.

Not to give her more things to fear or avoid. But because knowledge is power. And so much of what I was doing with the best intentions was making everything worse in ways I had no context to understand.

Many of the “healthiest” foods, supplements, and wellness trends are also some of the biggest triggers for histamine, mast cell issues, and sensitive nervous systems. And most of them are being recommended without much nuance for how they land in a sensitive system.

Bone broth. Collagen. Probiotics. Fermented foods. Certain B vitamins. Vibration plates. And more.

Not because these things are inherently bad. But because timing, dose, nervous system state, and overall load matter enormously - and that part rarely gets mentioned.

The full list is below for paid subscribers, including why each one can backfire, gentler alternatives that tend to be better tolerated, and a short action guide at the end so you actually know what to do with this information without overwhelming your system.

It’s one of the most practical things I can share with you.

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This step is the one most approaches skip entirely. Inside: a guided body scan recorded by me, a daily interoceptive check-in practice, and vagus nerve toning tools you can start today.

Before you read any further - feel your feet on the floor.

Notice the weight of your body in your seat. The temperature of the air on your skin. Just for a second to arrive here.

That small act? That’s what this entire post is about.

If you read Step 1, you now have a map. You know what the different nervous system states look like - the activation of fight and flight, the shutdown of freeze, the people-pleasing of fawn, and the regulated ease of ventral vagal. You can start to recognize the states.

But here’s what most nervous system content skips entirely.

Knowing the map is one thing. Being able to feel where you are on it - before you’re already deep in one of those states - is something else entirely.

Most of us only know we’re activated when we’re already there. Already in the flare. Already in the spiral. Already in the shutdown. By the time it’s obvious, you’ve already tipped over your threshold and now you’re working so much harder to come back.

What if you could catch it at a 3 instead of a 10?

That’s the skill this post is building. And it has a name.

Interoception - your body’s missing language

Interoception is your ability to sense what’s happening inside your body in real time. Not just the big obvious signals - a full panic attack, a histamine flare, a complete collapse - but the quieter ones that come first.

The slight tightening in your chest before a difficult conversation that you talk yourself out of feeling. The tension creeping into your shoulders and neck that you don’t notice until it’s already a headache. The jaw you’ve been clenching all day without realizing it. The moment you look up from your screen and realize you’ve been holding your breath. The low back that starts aching hours before you register that you haven’t moved or eaten. The subtle shift in your throat or gut that always comes right before a flare - if you’d only learned to catch it in time. The pushing through fatigue that becomes a 3pm crash. The moment your body finally forces you to stop because you never chose to.

Your body is sending these signals constantly. Most of us were just never taught to receive them.

Think of it this way. Imagine your body has been texting you all day - little updates, early warnings, important check-ins. But you only look at your phone when it’s already calling at full volume. You miss everything before that point. All the context. All the early information that could have helped you respond rather than just react.

That’s underdeveloped interoception. And it’s not your fault.

There’s also something worth knowing here: research now shows there’s no single universal blueprint for how an emotion or sensation shows up in the body. Everyone’s internal language is different. What anxiety feels like in your body might be completely different from what it feels like in someone else’s. That’s actually what makes this work so personal - and so powerful. The more you do it, the more fluent you become in your own specific language.

Why we lost this connection in the first place

From the time we’re in school we’re conditioned to override our bodies. You eat when the schedule says. You sit still when every cell wants to get up. You were taught that rest meant falling behind - that pushing through was just what you did.

For high achievers and people whose sense of worth became tied to overfunctioning, hyperarousal becomes a baseline. The activated state starts to feel like focus. Slowing down starts to feel like a problem.

For neurodivergent individuals and those with learning differences, there’s often an added layer - years of working significantly harder just to keep up, masking how difficult things actually are, expending enormous energy to appear regulated when the internal experience is anything but.

All of it - the cultural conditioning, the overfunctioning, the masking - lands in the same place. A nervous system that learned to stay on, stay up, and never fully come down.

And for those of us with chronic illness, there’s yet another layer. Years of being told symptoms are in your head. Years of pushing through flares to function. Years of overriding pain signals just to get through the day. That creates a kind of interoceptive disconnection that goes deeper than cultural conditioning alone.

This is not something you failed at. It’s something you were never taught. And because of neuroplasticity, it’s something you can genuinely rebuild

The wave - and why your baseline matters

Everyone has a wave. Something stressful happens, activation rises, and then - if the nervous system is working well - it comes back down. Up and then back to baseline.

The goal isn’t to never have waves. It’s to keep your baseline low enough that the waves are less intense - and to come back to equilibrium faster when they happen.

Here’s what happens when your baseline is already high: you start the day at a 6. A few emails, a difficult conversation, a histamine trigger later - you’re at an 8 or 9. Now the smallest thing tips you over. A sound. A text message. Something that on a different day would be completely manageable suddenly isn’t.

And this is also why flares and activated states can sometimes feel like they came out of nowhere. They didn’t. The bucket was already full. For those of us with MCAS and histamine issues this is especially relevant - nervous system dysregulation and mast cell activation have a bidirectional relationship. A dysregulated nervous system can trigger mast cell activation, and mast cell activation raises your overall nervous system load. Which means your threshold for tipping over gets lower and lower the more the bucket fills. More on this HERE.

That’s not you being oversensitive. That’s a nervous system that never fully came back down.

Interoception is how you start to actually feel where you are - early enough to do something about it.

The body isn’t the problem. It’s the messenger.

That reframe is worth sitting with - especially for those of us who have spent years trying to manage, override, or eliminate what our bodies are telling us. Every symptom, every activation, every signal is your body trying to communicate something. The goal of this work isn’t to silence those signals. It’s to understand them well enough to respond accurately.

Three ways interoception can go off

Not everyone’s interoceptive signals are disrupted in the same direction. There are three common profiles and you might recognize yourself in more than one.

If your signals feel too quiet: You move through your day without much awareness of what’s happening internally until something breaks. You might miss early hunger or thirst cues. You might not notice tension building until you’re already in a flare. You might describe yourself as not really an emotional person or struggle to identify what you’re actually feeling. This is common with burnout, depression, and neurodivergent profiles - and it often shows up as a low-level numbness or disconnection from the body.

If your signals feel too loud: Every sensation feels like a potential threat. A slight increase in heart rate becomes panic. A twinge of discomfort becomes a spiral. Your nervous system is essentially playing music at full volume - so loud you can’t make out the actual words. This is common with anxiety, hypervigilance, and sensitized nervous systems like many of us in the MCAS and histamine community are navigating. The work here isn’t about turning the volume down - it’s about learning to differentiate which signals genuinely need attention and which are the alarm going off unnecessarily. Over time, you start to decouple sensation from fear.

If you feel disconnected from your body entirely: This is often a protective trauma response. At some point the nervous system learned that being in the body wasn’t safe, so it found a way to leave. This profile requires the most gentle and sequenced approach - and working with a trauma-informed practitioner is genuinely the most important thing here. If you recognize yourself here, go slower than you think you need to and seek support if you can.

The goal across all three profiles is actually the same: understanding your body’s signals accurately and without panic. Not louder. Not quieter. Clearer.

And underneath all three of these profiles is the same mechanism - one worth understanding before we go further.

It’s called neuroception - a term coined by Dr. Stephen Porges. It’s your nervous system’s automatic, below-conscious radar that’s constantly scanning your environment for safety or threat. You don’t decide to feel unsafe - your nervous system decides for you, before your conscious mind even registers it. This is why you can sometimes feel anxious without knowing why. It’s also why those of us with MCAS and histamine issues can find our threat detection system so sensitized - it’s been running on high alert for so long that almost anything can register as danger.

Interoception and neuroception work together. One scans the outside world. The other scans the inside. Building awareness of both is how you start to get your system out of false alarm mode - and back into accurate communication with itself.

The insula and the vagus nerve - your body’s communication network

There’s a region of the brain called the insula that acts as the integration center for interoception - essentially the interpreter between what your body is experiencing and what you consciously feel. The vagus nerve is its main communication highway, carrying signals back and forth between body and brain in a feedback loop that’s constantly shaping how safe or threatened your nervous system feels at any given moment.

What matters most for us: both are neuroplastic. They can be retrained. Chronic stress and trauma disrupt how this whole system functions - which is a big part of why so many people with chronic illness feel so disconnected from their bodies. But it also means that with the right practices, that connection can genuinely be rebuilt.

Which is exactly why vagus nerve toning is one of the most direct ways to start retraining this system - specific tools for this below.

Below I’m sharing the exact sequence I recommend before moving into any state-specific regulation tools:

• A recorded body scan guided by me - something you can return to daily

• The exact interoceptive practice to start building body awareness step by step

• The vagus nerve toning tools and when to add each one in

These aren’t random tools. They’re sequenced intentionally - each one building the foundation for the next. This is the layer most nervous system approaches skip entirely. And it’s the one that makes everything else actually work.

The state-specific toolkit comes in Step 3. But this is where real change starts. And unlike most nervous system content out there - this is sequenced, safe for sensitive systems, and something you can actually begin today.

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Healing doesn’t move in a straight line. And neither does life. There are seasons of survival, seasons of integration, seasons of just living and lightness. And then there are seasons that call you inward again - where life starts nudging you, sometimes gently, sometimes not, toward a deeper layer.

You can’t force these seasons or rush one to get to the next. Each one is doing something the others can’t. The healing is still happening even if it doesn’t feel or look like it.

My craniosacral therapist shared this with me during a moment I really needed to hear it - I was so frustrated that an old pattern and symptoms were resurfacing and it completely reframed everything for me:

Healing moves in a spiral. You revisit the same themes but from a higher vantage point each time - with more capacity, more tools, more of yourself intact. And when life calls you back inward again - when another layer is ready to move - that isn’t regression. That’s the spiral doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. You’re not back at square one. You’re on a higher loop.

There's actually a concept in Kabbalah called Tikkun - the idea that we are given the same lessons and patterns repeatedly, not as punishment, but as invitation. Each time something returns it's because we're ready to meet it from a higher place. The spiral isn't a sign that you failed to learn the lesson. It's a sign that you're ready for a deeper layer of it.

Honestly, I think of these seasons as things that were never meant to stay, leaving. Blocks that were quietly holding you back from the life you actually want, the version of yourself you’re still becoming. And that process - as disorienting as it is - always uplevels you. Every single time.

For a lot of people navigating chronic illness, the health crisis itself is the first time the spiral shows up. The body forces the reckoning before you feel ready for it. You didn’t choose to go inward - you were pulled there. Symptoms, diagnoses, unable to live the way you were prior. It’s one of the most disorienting ways to enter this process, because it’s happening on every level at once - physical, emotional, identity, everything.

And the in-between that follows is its own kind of hard. The phase where you don’t recognize who you were, but haven’t yet become who you’re turning into. You can’t fully explain it either, you just know something is shifting.

I’m not going to pretend the silver lining is visible when you’re in it. It usually isn’t. But looking back - every single time - outdated beliefs, patterns, and versions of myself I’d outgrown had to fall away before I could step into what was next. And on the other side there has always been more room. More clarity. More capacity to hear yourself. The right things start showing up, opportunities align, and what used to feel so hard starts to flow.

How do you know when you’re being called into a deeper season of transformation?

• Something feels off, but you can’t quite name it

• Everything feels more raw - like things that normally wouldn’t touch you suddenly do

• You feel stuck, like you’re doing everything right but nothing is actually moving

• The same patterns keep resurfacing, no matter what you try

• You can feel you’ve outgrown something - but you don’t know what yet

• Life starts shifting, whether you asked for it or not

• A quiet restlessness you can’t ignore - a sense that there’s another layer here

That’s not you falling apart. That’s your nervous system starting to open. If any of that resonates, this post is for you.

This post is a little different from my usual - more personal.

I’m sharing it because I know how much it helps to watch someone else move through one of these seasons and come out the other side. Not as a blueprint - this looks completely different for everyone, but as an honest account of the practices and tools that helped me clear what was no longer serving me, emotionally, energetically, and on a deeper nervous system level.

My 2025

This past year was an excavation year for me. Not as raw as the health crisis years, but deep in its own way. I did a lot of inner work - moving through stored energy, outdated patterns, and beliefs I’d been carrying for a long time without fully realizing it. And as that inner landscape shifted, everything around me started to change too. My relationship, where I lived, my entire career.

Looking back, I can see it all as one long exhale. The inner clearing created space. And from that space, things that no longer fit started falling away naturally, versions of my life I’d outgrown. At the time it just felt like loss and confusion and a lot of change all at once. But it was really just making room.

(For those of you who track these things - we also just moved out of the Chinese year of the snake, which is traditionally associated with exactly this: shedding, transformation, releasing what no longer serves. And we’ve stepped into the year of the Fire Horse - forward momentum, freedom, boldly stepping into what’s next. After a year of going inward, the horse year feels like all that releasing was preparing you to actually move. I don’t think that was a coincidence.)

What I didn’t fully understand in the middle of it was how much of that was also physiological. When your nervous system is bracing around something - an unprocessed emotion, a pattern, a story you’ve been carrying, something deeply unconscious you’re not even aware of - it is using resources. Quietly, constantly. And when that thing finally moves, the energy comes back. Your system stops spending itself on containment. That is capacity. Literal, physiological capacity - to feel more, receive more, create more, heal more.

And then something I didn’t expect: the more stagnancy I moved through, the more I could actually hear myself.

Not the anxious looping version. The deeper one. The one that knows. There’s something I came across in my Kabbalah studies this year that has stayed with me - the idea that what lives in your heart, your specific dreams and instincts and longings, isn’t random. They’re yours for a reason. Not everyone has the same ones. Those are the things you’re meant to follow.

That's what led me here. I had built a successful PR business - but after months of doing the practices I'm about to share, the transition seemed so obvious and clear I couldn't ignore it. So I did a complete 180 and went back to school to become a therapist. I've always loved passing on what I learn to help the people around me - but putting my face on camera and sharing it with strangers is genuinely not in my personality at all. And yet one day I just picked up my phone, filmed a video, and posted it. No planning, no thinking, no "okay I'm going to start a TikTok." Looking back I honestly don't know where it came from - I'm not someone who feels confident talking to a camera. But it didn't feel like a decision. It felt like something that needed to come through me, and I just got out of the way. My first three Substack posts came the same way - one afternoon I sat down and brain dumped all of them out at once, couldn't hold it in. That first week, synchronicities started showing up that you genuinely can't make up - opportunities I couldn't have planned for. Like I was finally moving in the direction I was meant to. When you clear enough of what's been blocking you, things stop feeling forced and start flowing - like you're being guided rather than pushing.

As much as my several Scorpio placements love the excavation phase, I am very glad to be in the becoming phase right now. Knowing how the spiral works, I’m sure I’ll be called back in again. And honestly? I’ll probably be grateful for it then too.

Why the emotional side of the bucket matters more than most people realize

If you’ve been following along here, you know I talk a lot about the bucket model - the idea that symptoms appear when our total load overflows. Most of the conversation in the chronic illness space focuses on the physical side: toxic load, diet, infections, histamine, environmental triggers. And all of that matters.

But there’s another side of the bucket that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: The emotional load. Unprocessed emotions, stored stress + trauma, old wounds and patterns that never fully moved through - these don’t just live in your mind. They live in your body. And they take up real space in your system.

Here’s what’s actually happening underneath: when stress and emotion aren’t fully processed, they accumulate - what researchers call allostatic load. Over time this quietly shifts how your body functions. Your vagus nerve signaling changes. Immune function is affected. Cells can get stuck in the cell danger response, a protective state where the body prioritizes defense over repair. And because it happens gradually, symptoms can feel like they appeared overnight - when really the bucket had been filling for a long time. The key thing: it’s not the emotions themselves that cause this. It’s the way the body locks up around them. Building enough capacity to feel what’s stored - so it can actually move through and out - is what drains this side of the bucket. That’s what signals to your nervous system that it’s safe to stop defending and start repairing.

For those of us with sensitive systems, this side of the bucket can be especially loaded. Our nervous systems have often been in protection mode for so long that there’s a lot stored underneath. Attending to it has been some of the most impactful work I’ve ever done - not just emotionally, but physically. My system feels lighter, more flexible, more spacious. Less reactive. Less like it’s constantly bracing against something it can’t name.

Below, I’m sharing ten practices that helped me move what my system had been holding, emotionally and physically.

Everything from deeper release work like a specific type of kundalini and myofascial release, to daily practices like a specific journaling method that completely changed how I process emotion - and one unexpected practice that quietly dissolved years of existential anxiety without me even realizing it was happening.

Read more

Read this slowly. Notice what feels familiar as you move through it. That moment of recognition - that small “wait, that’s me” - is already the beginning of the work.

Awareness comes before regulation. Always.

Why This Matters More Than You Might Think

I know there’s a lot of nervous system content out there right now, and I get it if it feels like noise. But before we get into the states, I want to share something that reframes why this knowledge matters beyond just feeling calmer or less anxious.

Being stuck in one of these states - without realizing you’re in it - can be directly contributing to the physical symptoms you’re experiencing. The bloating, the brain fog, the fatigue, the random flares that seem to come from nowhere. It is not just in your head. It is in your body.

In my post on the histamine-nervous system connection (linked here), I go deep on exactly why. But the short version is that a nervous system stuck in a chronic threat response - one that never fully shifts out of survival mode even when there is no immediate danger - keeps the immune system on high alert, and that has real, measurable consequences in the body. The two systems are in constant communication, and what happens in one directly affects the other.

This is why recognition matters so much. You cannot work with something you don’t know is happening.

What Dysregulation Actually Looks Like

Most people think nervous system dysregulation looks like a panic attack - obvious, visible anxiety, something dramatic you would definitely notice. But it looks different for everyone, and more often than not it's far more subtle than that. Here are some of the most common ways it shows up - you may recognize some, all, or none of them, and that's okay.

• Scrolling your phone on autopilot - not even really watching, just stuck in the loop, unable to stop even though you know it’s making you feel worse

• Snapping at someone you love and not knowing why

• Leaving texts on read for days not because you’re busy but because responding feels like too much

• Cleaning or organizing compulsively when everything feels out of control

• Saying yes when every part of you wanted to say no

• Brain fog so thick you can’t finish a thought

• Rushing through everything even when there’s nowhere to be

• Not being able to make a simple decision - what to eat, what to watch, what to wear - and feeling completely paralyzed by it

• Flat out numbness

  

None of this means something is wrong with you. It means your nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do.

What’s Actually Happening in Your Body

Your autonomic nervous system is constantly scanning your environment - inside and outside - and asking one question: am I safe, or is there a threat? Depending on the answer, it moves you into different states. Those states change how you think, how you feel, how your body functions, and how you show up in your life and your relationships.

A regulated nervous system has range. You can move through stress, conflict, sadness, excitement - and return to baseline. Things flow through you. A dysregulated nervous system gets stuck - it either can’t come down from activation, can’t come up from shutdown, or swings between the two without ever really landing. Neither of those is a personal failure. It is physiology.

It also exists on a spectrum - your nervous system doesn’t go from zero to fully activated in an instant. It moves in degrees. One of the most valuable skills you can build is learning to recognize the early signs - that slight restlessness, the jaw beginning to tighten, the subtle urge to reach for your phone - before you’re deep in a state where it becomes much harder to work with. The earlier you catch it, the easier it is to shift.

And here is the thing that changes everything: you cannot regulate a state you cannot recognize. Most people spend years managing symptoms - physical, emotional, relational - without ever realizing those symptoms are their nervous system communicating. That’s what this post is here to help with.

It’s Normal to Move Through All of These

Before we get into the states, I want to say this clearly because I think it matters. It is healthy and completely normal to move through all of them. The nervous system is designed for that. You are supposed to feel activated sometimes. You are supposed to rest and withdraw sometimes. You are supposed to feel the pull to appease sometimes.

The goal is not to live in one state permanently - that is not what a healthy nervous system looks like. The goal is flexibility - the ability to move through states without getting stuck, to come back to baseline after activation, to recover from shutdown without it taking days.

Range and capacity, not permanent calm.

Polyvagal theory identifies three primary autonomic states - ventral vagal, sympathetic, and dorsal vagal. I'm also going to cover two mixed states: fawn and functional freeze, where more than one circuit activates at the same time. I've included both here because they show up constantly in people navigating chronic illness, and most people have never seen them named.

And once you can recognize which state you’re in, you can begin to choose tools that actually match that state - because what helps in one state can be unhelpful or even dysregulating in another. That’s what we’ll get into in the next post.

Ventral Vagal (Regulated / Safe)

Energy that feels like: presence, ease, connection

This is the state where healing, connection, creativity, and genuine rest happen. It is not about being happy or having a perfect day - it is about your nervous system feeling safe enough to be present.

What it can feel like:

• Grounded, present, like you are actually in your body

• Curious instead of reactive

• Able to think clearly, connect with people, make decisions without spiraling

• Emotions move through you getting stuck in them

• A quiet sense that things are okay - even when everything is not perfect

What it looks like in daily life:

• You have a hard conversation and by the next morning it feels resolved, not like it’s following you everywhere

• You wake up and your first thought isn’t immediately about everything you have to do or fix

• You make a mistake, feel bad about it briefly, and then actually move on

• You can sit quietly without needing to fill the silence

• You feel something difficult - sadness, frustration, disappointment - and it moves through you instead of taking over your whole day

• You cancel plans without a spiral of guilt and you make plans without dreading them by the time they arrive

Most people do not live here all the time - and that is completely normal. The goal is to spend more time here and to be able to return here more easily when you have left.

You do not force yourself into this state. You arrive here when your body finally feels safe.

Sympathetic (Fight or Flight)

Fight: energy that wanted to push back. Flight: energy that wanted you to run.

This state says: something feels urgent, something feels threatening, move. It is a mobilized state - your body is gearing up for action. Heart rate increases, muscles tighten, stress hormones rise, and your attention narrows to the problem in front of you. Think of it like your foot pressing down on the gas pedal. The body is revving, ready to respond.

This state is not bad. In short bursts it helps you meet a deadline, respond to something real, protect yourself. The problem is when the body gets stuck here - when the urgency never turns off even when there is nothing actually wrong.

What it can feel like:

• Anxious, restless, like you cannot settle

• Internal pressure, like you are always behind

• Irritable or reactive - snapping at small things

• Racing thoughts you cannot slow down

• A constant need to fix, figure out, or control something

• Wired but exhausted

• Jaw clenched, shoulders up around your ears, without realizing it

What it looks like in sneaky ways - and this is the part most people miss:

• Brushing your teeth aggressively, washing your hands or doing dishes at full speed, rushing through basic tasks that have no deadline

• Checking your phone compulsively even when you don’t want to

• Obsessively analyzing a text, a symptom, a conversation that already happened

• Seeking reassurance from other people but never actually feeling soothed by it

• Rushing through everything - eating, driving, talking - even when there is no reason to rush

• Eating so fast you barely taste the food

• Making to-do lists at 11pm

• Feeling like you cannot rest until everything is handled - and everything is never fully handled

• Squeezing the steering wheel harder than you need to

• Sighing a lot without realizing it - the body trying to discharge the activation on its own

Your mind is loud in this state because your body is on high alert. The thinking, the analyzing, the researching - it feels productive. But it is often just the nervous system trying to find safety through control. This is also why you cannot think your way out of this state. When your system is activated, the part of your brain responsible for logic and reasoning goes partially offline. You are running on threat detection, not rational thought (I talk about this more in depth here). No amount of reassurance, information, or figuring it out will bring you back to baseline from here. That is not a willpower issue - that is just how the nervous system works.

Dorsal Vagal (Freeze / Shutdown)

Energy that got stuck and couldn’t move

This is the state most people don’t realize they’re in - at least not fully. Freeze is not laziness. It is not lack of motivation or discipline or willpower. It is your nervous system saying: this is too much, I cannot mobilize, I am going to conserve. If the sympathetic state is your foot on the gas, freeze is the brake pedal pressed all the way to the floor - not to slow down gradually, but to stop entirely. The body shuts down to protect you.

What it can feel like:

• Numb, foggy, heavy

• Disconnected from your body - like you’re watching yourself from a distance

• Hard to think, decide, or start anything

• Overwhelmed but also shut down - like you cannot move but you also cannot rest

• Emotionally flat or blank

• An invisible exhaustion that sleep does not fix

What it looks like in everyday life - and this is where a lot of people quietly recognize themselves:

• Doomscrolling for long stretches without being able to stop even though you feel worse after

• Zoning out mid-conversation and absorbing nothing

• Lying down in the middle of the day - not sleepy, just unable to be upright

• Starting five things and finishing none of them

• Canceling plans not because you’re tired but because existing around people feels like too much

Pure shutdown like this is one end of the spectrum. But there’s a version of this state that’s even more common in people with chronic illness - and it has a specific name. I’ll get to that in the mixed states section just below.

Freeze needs gentleness, not motivation.

Fawn (Appease / People-Pleasing)

Energy that people-pleased to survive

Fawn isn't always discussed in formal nervous system terms, but from everything I've studied, trained in, and experienced personally, it shows up constantly in people navigating chronic illness - and it's worth naming. Fawn was coined by therapist Pete Walker in his work on complex PTSD and has since been widely integrated into nervous system practice. Fawn says: if I can keep everyone around me comfortable and happy, I will be safe. It is a survival response that often developed early in life - when connection felt conditional, conflict felt dangerous, or the people around you were dysregulated themselves. Anxious caregivers, emotionally unavailable parents, households where tension was always present but never named. The nervous system learns what to expect from the world very early, and if what it learned was that keeping others calm meant staying safe, fawn becomes the default setting long before you're old enough to question it. It gets socially rewarded - which makes it very hard to recognize as a stress response.

What it can feel like:

• Anxiety around conflict - even small, low-stakes conflict

• Guilt for saying no, taking up space, or having needs

• A constant low-level awareness of how everyone around you is feeling

• Losing touch with what you actually want or need

• Relief when others are pleased with you and a quiet dread when they are not

What it looks like in subtle ways:

• Over-explaining and over-apologizing

• Saying yes when your body is clearly saying no

• Laughing off things that actually hurt

• Taking responsibility for other people’s emotions

• Editing what you say based on what you think someone wants to hear

• Feeling exhausted after social interactions - not because you are introverted, but because you spent the whole time managing everyone else’s experience

Fawn often feels like kindness, and sometimes it genuinely is. The difference is whether you are showing up from a real desire to connect - or from fear of what happens if you don’t.

Safety does not come from disappearing yourself. It never did. The nervous system just learned to try it anyway.

Mixed States - When the Gas and the Brake Are On at the Same Time

This one is worth naming because it’s where a lot of people with chronic symptoms actually live - and it’s often referred to as functional freeze.

Functional freeze happens when the sympathetic and dorsal systems are both activated at once. Think of it like pressing the gas pedal and the brake pedal at the same time. The body is revved up and trying to mobilize, but it’s also shutting down and trying to conserve. The result is a kind of internal gridlock - wired and exhausted simultaneously, anxious but also completely unable to move, overwhelmed but also numb. From the outside, someone in functional freeze can look totally fine - they’re showing up, going through the motions, functioning. But internally they’re running on stress hormones rather than genuine presence, disconnected from themselves, and burning through reserves they don’t have.

Brain fog was one of the symptoms I struggled with the most - and honestly one of the most frustrating, because nothing I tried seemed to touch it. When someone finally explained functional freeze to me, something clicked in a way it never had before. That internal gridlock - the system simultaneously activated and shutting down higher-order thinking to conserve resources - is one of the key drivers of the stuck-in-water, can’t-finish-a-thought feeling that so many people with chronic illness know well and spend years trying to fix with gut protocols, supplements, and sleep trackers - without ever realizing it’s a nervous system state.

It can look like:

• Lying in bed exhausted but unable to sleep because your mind won’t stop

• Feeling too depleted to do anything but too activated to actually rest

• Wanting to escape everything but feeling paralyzed about where to go

• Going through the motions of your day but feeling completely absent from it

• Emotional numbness that somehow still feels unbearable

• Brain fog so thick it feels like thinking through water

• That specific exhaustion where your body is heavy but your mind is still running - and neither will let the other rest

A lot of people with chronic symptoms have been living in functional freeze for years without knowing it. The brain fog, the fatigue, the inability to push through - these get attributed to gut issues, sleep problems, or just being tired. But often it is the nervous system caught between activation and shutdown. And pushing harder - more supplements, more protocols, more trying - is exactly the wrong response. It just adds more gas to a system that is already pressing both pedals at once.

It is not weakness. It is a nervous system that has been under pressure for a long time.

Where to Start

Honestly - not with tools yet. The most valuable thing you can do right now is just start noticing.

A simple place to begin: when you wake up in the morning, before you reach for your phone or get out of bed, take thirty seconds to check in with your body. Notice where you’re holding tension. Notice your breathing. Notice whether you feel heavy and flat, or anxious and already running. You don’t need to label it perfectly - just start asking the question.

Then carry that awareness into your day. When you’re rushing for no reason, when you zone out, when you say yes and feel your stomach drop, when the brain fog rolls in - pause for a second and ask yourself: which state might this be?

Try to name it, even loosely. Sympathetic - I’m activated and running. Dorsal - I’ve checked out and I’m heavy. Fawn - I just said yes and my body said no. Mixed - I’m exhausted but I cannot stop.

You don’t need to fix it or do anything about it. The noticing itself is the work. The more you practice this, the more fluent you become in your own nervous system’s language - and the more naturally the right response will start to emerge.

Recognition is where everything else begins. Once you have this down, you’ll be ready for the tools.

Next month I’ll be sharing the part everyone always asks me for - the actual toolkit. Specific tools and practices matched to each state, so that once you recognize where you are, you know exactly what to do about it. It’s one of the most practical things I’ve put together and I think it’s going to be genuinely useful for a lot of people reading this. That one is for paid subscribers, and if you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, that post is a good reason to.

But for now - this is your only homework. Notice. Name it. That’s step 1.

I’m really glad you’re here. 🤍

Xox, Zoe

A few months ago I flew almost 30 hours to South Africa. When I landed I felt energized, flare-free, with good digestion and steady energy. Honestly I just felt happy, because feeling that good after that much travel used to be completely unthinkable for me.

Then I tested out my protocol again for my flight to Costa Rica last month. Same thing. Landed feeling good, slept well the first night, and didn’t spend the first few days of the trip in a flare.

That’s when I knew: this protocol actually works and I needed to share it.

For a long time, I lived completely reactive to my flares. And there is nothing worse than having something exciting coming up - a wedding, a trip, a special event - and spending the days before it dreading how your body is going to respond. Or being on the trip and losing days to recovery, not being fully present for something you were so looking forward to.

That used to be my reality most times I flew. I didn’t know when a flare was coming. I didn’t know what was going to set it off. I was just constantly bracing, reacting, and hoping for the best.

What changed everything was shifting from reactive to preventative.

Now when I fly to a wedding, a long trip, anything that matters - I know I am going to feel good when I step off that plane. Not because I got lucky, but because I prepared. That feeling of being in control of your body instead of at its mercy is one of the most empowering things I have experienced in my healing.

Flying felt like the right place to start sharing this because the payoff is so tangible and so immediate. You follow the protocol, you land feeling good, and suddenly you realize - wait, I can actually be preventative about this. I don’t have to just react and recover. I can do something about it.

That realization is everything.

I want to say something about where this fits in the bigger picture.

My flares have gotten significantly less frequent (and last an eighth of the amount of time) as I’ve worked on my nervous system and histamine stabilization at a deeper level - and when they do happen now, they last hours instead of days or weeks. That didn’t happen overnight, and I’ll be sharing a lot more about that foundational work in future posts.

But I actually think preventative protocols like this one are part of that foundation. Here’s why.

When you step off a long flight feeling good - maybe for the first time in years - your body gets a felt sense of what regulated actually feels like. Your nervous system gets evidence that it’s capable of handling something that used to completely flare it. That’s not small.

That moment of relief, that glimpse of what healing can actually feel like, opens something up. It makes the deeper work more accessible because now your body knows what it’s working toward. And practically, cutting the frequency and intensity of flares gives you the capacity to do that deeper work - it’s hard to heal when you’re constantly in reaction mode.

Once you apply this logic to flying, you can apply it to every trigger in your life. A full flare protocol is coming soon because the same approach applies. But I wanted to start here - because nothing makes the concept click faster than actually feeling good in your body.

Why flying is hard on the body

Flying stacks multiple stressors simultaneously. Cabin pressure changes directly trigger mast cell degranulation. Recycled dry air irritates nasal passages and stresses histamine-clearing pathways. Prolonged sitting causes blood to pool in the legs, worsening POTS symptoms and dizziness. And the stress of travel itself signals mast cells to release histamine. Together, these can tip a sensitive system into a full flare - which is exactly what this protocol is designed to prevent.

If I wait until I feel bad on the plane, it’s already much harder to bring my system back to baseline. But if I support my body before, during, and after the flight, my nervous system never goes into a big stress response in the first place. That is the whole point of this protocol.

The full protocol is below for paid subscribers - exactly what supplements I take, when I take them, the nervous system tools I use throughout, how I eat on the plane, what I do right before + after landing to prevent a crash, and why each piece matters. Along with a printable Flight Protocol Guide ($27 value) and packing checklist you can save and bring with you.

If you don’t want to subscribe, you can purchase just the guide for $27 - linked here.

If this is the kind of practical, protocol-level content you have been looking for, this is what paid posts here will look like. I am so glad you are here. 🤍

Xox, Zoe

Read more

I started this Substack because I wanted to create the resource I wish existed when I was dealing with chronic symptoms - trying to understand my nervous system, mast cells, histamine, hormones, food, stress, emotions, and everything that comes with living in a sensitive body. The kind of resource that could have saved me years of searching, tens of thousands of dollars, and the exhausting experience of going from doctor to doctor, protocol to protocol, never quite finding someone who saw the whole picture.

What I kept running into in my own healing, and what I now see with so many people, is that we are constantly told to pick one explanation.

It’s either physical or it’s mental. It’s gut health or it’s trauma. It’s hormones or it’s stress. It’s inflammation or it’s anxiety.

But in reality, it is almost never just one thing.

The nervous system is constantly communicating with the immune system, hormones, gut, circulation, fascia, and stress response. When it’s stuck in survival mode, it influences everything - mast cell activation, digestion, hormone signaling, pain, inflammation. But it also goes the other direction. If the body is inflamed, nutrient depleted, dealing with infections, mold, hormonal shifts, or chronic pain, the nervous system receives those signals and stays activated too.

It goes both ways. Constantly.

I spent years struggling to find someone who understood both sides of this. My therapist was brilliant but did not fully understand what was happening in my body. My doctors acknowledged the physical stuff - the Lyme, the mold, the infections - but could not connect it to everything else I was experiencing. Nobody seemed to be working in the middle

What I kept looking for was someone who understood that the body responds the same way to an infection as it does to a negative thought. That pain is processed in the same part of the brain as emotional distress. That nervous system safety and stabilization has to come first - because it is the foundation that makes both physical healing and deeper emotional work actually possible.

I eventually realized I was trying to become what I wished I had. That is why I went back to school to train as a therapist - and why this Substack exists.

And it is not just physiology either. Our beliefs, our emotional world, our past experiences, our relationships, our sense of safety and self, our spirituality - all of it influences the nervous system and the body. And the nervous system influences all of it right back.

This Substack is my attempt to create a place where we can talk about all of it - not as separate conversations, but as parts of the same system.

When you start looking at health this way, healing stops being about making your world smaller to avoid every trigger. It becomes about slowly building stability and capacity so your world can get bigger again. That shift - from trying to control everything to helping the body feel safe enough to live - is really what this work is about to me.

One of the most common things I hear is some version of: okay, but how? How do you actually regulate? What do you do during a flare? What does this actually look like day to day?

That question is what led me here.

Free posts are not going away. I will keep writing about the nervous system, histamine, mast cells, hormones, and the patterns behind chronic symptoms every month - because understanding what is happening in your body is the first step, and that should be accessible to everyone.

But there is another layer. The actual protocols, tools, and frameworks - the things that go beyond understanding and into actually doing. The same things I use with myself and the clients I work with. For a long time people have been asking me to share this more directly. Paid posts are how I am going to do that.

Free posts - education, understanding, and the patterns behind what is happening in your body and why.

Paid posts - the protocols, frameworks, and specific tools. Things like:

• Flare protocols - what to actually do when symptoms start

• Travel, nutrition, and daily routines for sensitive systems

• Supplement approaches and tools for histamine and nervous system stabilization

• The frameworks I use for pacing, sequencing, and building capacity

• All things nervous system healing

• And a lot more across nervous system health, hormones, nutrition, spirituality, and the deeper layers of healing

The first paid post drops in a few days - my complete flight protocol for sensitive nervous systems, two years in the making, for anyone with histamine issues, POTS, MCAS, or a nervous system that does not handle travel well.

I started with this first article intentionally. When you step off a long flight feeling good - maybe for the first time in years - your body gets a felt sense of what regulated actually feels like. Your nervous system gets evidence it is capable of handling something that used to flare it. That is not small. And once you have that felt sense, you can apply the same preventative logic to every trigger in your life.

More foundational tools are coming - but I wanted to start where the payoff is immediate. A full printable guide is included for all paid subscribers ($27 value for non-subscribers).

To celebrate the launch, April will have two paid posts instead of one - a bonus for anyone who subscribes this month.

Paid subscription is $8/month or $80/year.

This is something I have wanted to do for a long time. A container to share the deeper, more practical work - the stuff that actually moved the needle in my own healing and that I genuinely believe can help the people reading this. I have been sitting on a lot of it and I am really excited to finally start sharing it here.

If you have been reading and wondering how to actually do this - this is it.

I am so glad you are here. 🤍

Xoxo, Zoe

Roll your shoulders down your back. Feel your feet on the floor. Take a slow breath.

If you have been dealing with confusing, unpredictable symptoms for a long time, this post might be one of those moments where a lot of things suddenly start to make sense. I want you to read this from a grounded place, not from panic or urgency.

In my last post, I talked about the hidden loop between mast cells, histamine, and the nervous system - and why this pattern quietly drives so many symptoms that never seem to fit a single diagnosis. Symptoms that get dismissed. Symptoms that seem random. Symptoms that get worse the harder you try to fix them.

Since then I have heard the same thing from so many of you:

“This sounds exactly like me. But how do I know if this is actually what’s going on?”

So I want to give you something practical.

First, when does this pattern usually start?

For most people, histamine and mast cell symptoms do not just appear out of nowhere. They tend to emerge or escalate after a specific trigger. Something that tipped the system over the edge.

That trigger might be:

• Getting sick - a virus, COVID, a bad flu, Lyme

• Mold exposure or living somewhere that made you feel worse over time

• A prolonged stretch of stress, burnout, or emotional overwhelm or a traumatic event

• A significant hormonal shift like puberty, postpartum, or perimenopause

• An aggressive protocol like antibiotics, antiparasitics, or heavy detox

• Starting something that is supposed to be healing, like bone broth, collagen, colostrum, probiotics, B vitamins, or fermented foods

Those protocols and treatments are not bad, and some help a lot of people. But when mast cells are already activated and the immune system is on high alert, they can act like fuel on an already burning fire.

If you remember feeling noticeably worse after starting something “healthy,” or if you can trace the beginning of your symptoms back to one of these moments - that is a meaningful clue, not a coincidence.

The checklist

This is not a diagnosis.

This is a pattern recognition tool - the same kind of framework I use when I am working with clients and trying to understand whether histamine dysregulation or mast cell activation might be part of their picture.

Check off anything that feels familiar and be honest with yourself - this is just for you.

If you check 6 or more, it may be worth exploring further with a knowledgeable practitioner.

Nervous system signs

• Anxiety or panic that feels sudden and body-driven, not triggered by a thought

• Feeling wired but exhausted, like your system will not settle even when you are depleted

• Sleep disruptions or waking around 2 to 4am (histamine is higher overnight and cortisol begins rising in the early morning hours)

• Stress triggers symptoms quickly and disproportionately to what is actually happening

• Brain fog, dizziness, or sensory sensitivity - lights, sounds, and smells feel like too much

• A background sense of being braced, like your body is always waiting for something

Food reactions that do not make sense

• Reacting to “healthy” foods like fermented foods, leftovers, avocado, spinach, tomatoes, vinegar, wine

• The same food is completely fine one day and causes symptoms the next

• Probiotics, antimicrobials, gut protocols, or detox treatments made you feel worse, not better

• Bone broth, collagen, colostrum, or high-dose vitamin C seem to trigger reactions

• Alcohol causes flushing, heart racing, or next-day symptoms that feel way bigger than they should

Heart rate and circulation patterns

• Heart racing or pounding after meals

• Heart rate spikes when you stand up - dizziness, lightheadedness, head rush feeling

• Feeling faint or off after hot showers, heat exposure, or exercise

• Low blood pressure or craving salt constantly

Skin and immune signals

• Flushing in the face, ears, chest, or all over - especially after eating, heat, or stress

• Hives, itching, or unexplained rashes

• Dermatographia - when you scratch your skin lightly and it leaves a raised red line

• Swelling or puffiness during flares

• Reactions to fragrances, cleaning products, smoke, or chemicals that others do not seem to notice

Digestive patterns

• Bloating that comes with fatigue, flushing, or anxiety - not just digestion

• Nausea or reflux that feels unrelated to what you ate

• Diarrhea, loose stools, or unpredictable digestion

• Feeling inflamed or just wrong after meals, even safe ones

Hormonal patterns

• Symptoms flare in the week before your period (roughly cycle days 21-28)

• Symptoms worsen around ovulation (roughly cycle days 11-14)

Estrogen and histamine have a real relationship. Estrogen can increase histamine release and decrease DAO, the enzyme that breaks histamine down. This is why so many people notice that their worst flares are cycle-timed. If your symptoms track your hormones, that is not a coincidence.

Environmental sensitivity

• Fragrance, mold, pollen, smoke, or new buildings trigger symptoms

• Travel or being in a new environment causes flares

• Temperature shifts, weather changes, or humidity affect how you feel

Common overlap conditions

• Hypermobility or very flexible joints (including hEDS or Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder)

• POTS or significant heart rate changes when standing

• Chronic neck instability, cervical issues, or history of whiplash

These three - mast cell activation, POTS, and hypermobility - cluster together more often than most people realize. Many people who have one of these conditions often have some combination of the others, because connective tissue, circulation, the autonomic nervous system, and the immune system are all closely connected. I’m going to write about this more in a future post, because understanding this overlap can explain a lot of symptoms that otherwise seem completely unrelated.

How to read your results

0 to 3 checked - less likely to be a primary driver 4 to 7 checked - possible histamine dysregulation worth exploring 8 or more checked - high suspicion for mast cell involvement

What the pattern actually looks like

The most disorienting part of histamine and mast cell issues is not any single symptom. It is how inconsistent everything feels.

One day something is totally fine. The next day the same thing causes a flare. You cut out foods, avoided triggers, did all the right things - and your body still feels unpredictable.

That inconsistency is exhausting. And it is usually what makes people start to wonder if they are imagining it.

You are not imagining it.

That unpredictability is actually a hallmark of mast cell issues. Mast cells respond to a constantly shifting internal environment - what your nervous system is doing, where you are in your hormone cycle, how much sleep you got, how full your stress bucket already is. So the threshold changes. The same thing that was fine last week crosses a line today.

Understanding this does not just explain the pattern. It changes how you approach healing.

Why treatments often fail at first

Here is something I wish someone had told me years earlier.

Most people with this pattern have tried a lot. Gut protocols, elimination diets, supplements, testing. Some of it helps temporarily. Most of it does not stick. And often things that are supposed to heal, probiotics, detox support, even certain bodywork, make symptoms worse.

This is not because the treatments are wrong. It is because the timing and pace are wrong.

When mast cells are unstable, the immune system is already in a hyper reactive state. Introducing something that stimulates or activates that system, even something healing, can push it further into alarm mode. Instead of healing, the body interprets the intervention as another threat.

This is why stabilization has to come first.

Not aggressive elimination. Not a stricter protocol. Stabilization. Helping the alarm system quiet down enough that the body can start to receive support instead of reacting to it.

And that stabilization, more often than not, runs directly through the nervous system.

The space where physical and nervous system healing meet

This is the thing I kept running into in my own healing, and it is really why I do the work I do now.

For a long time I felt completely torn between two worlds. I started in the physical health world - functional medicine, nutrition, gut health, supplements, labs - trying to fix the body from the physiology side. After feeling fed up and exhausted by all of the treatments and protocols that made me feel so much worse, I swung completely the other direction into nervous system work, therapy, mind-body work, somatics, and brain retraining.

And for a long time I kept asking myself the same question:

Is this physical or is this mental? Is the body causing the nervous system problems, or is the nervous system causing the body problems? What is actually driving this?

That is why I struggled so much trying to find information that lived in the middle. Everything was either:

“It is all physical, fix your gut and detox.”

or

“It is all trauma, regulate your nervous system and think differently.”

What I eventually realized is that this is the wrong question entirely. It is not one or the other.

The nervous system is one of the main communication systems between the brain and the body. It is constantly talking to the immune system, hormones, gut, circulation, muscles, fascia, and stress response. When it is stuck in survival mode, it influences immune activity, mast cell activation, digestion, hormone signaling, blood vessel behavior, pain perception, and inflammation.

But it also goes the other direction. If the body is inflamed, nutrient depleted, reacting to foods, dealing with infections, mold, hormone shifts, blood pooling, or chronic pain, the nervous system receives those signals and often stays activated too.

It goes both ways. Constantly.

And this is actually where a lot of the practical work lives - in the space between the two. Because when the nervous system is stuck in survival mode, one of the most powerful things you can do is slow down and send it the opposite signal. Not pushing harder. Not adding more. Just slowing down, breathing, and reminding the body: this is temporary, I am not in danger, I am safe right now. That sounds simple - and it is - but for a sensitive system that has been in a threat response for a long time, that signal is genuinely medicine. The body is incredibly responsive when it finally feels safe enough to receive it.

And it is not just physiology and the nervous system either. Our beliefs, our emotional world, our past experiences, our relationships, our sense of safety and purpose, even our spiritual beliefs and the way we see ourselves and our lives - all of it influences the nervous system and the body. And the nervous system influences all of it right back.

I realize this is a bit of a tangent in the middle of a “how to know if you have histamine issues” article - but honestly that is kind of why I love this Substack. Everything is connected, and once you start seeing the connections, it is hard not to talk about all of it.

That is also why I am in graduate school now to become a therapist. I do not want to work only in mental health or only in physical health. I want to work in the intersection, because that is where I think a lot of real healing actually happens.

The hopeful part

Mast cells are reactive - but they are also adaptive.

When the body has more stability, fewer triggers, better nervous system regulation, and the overall load on the system decreases, mast cell activation can calm down. Symptoms improve. The system gains capacity. And things that were not working before start to work.

I have watched this happen in my own body and in many others. It is not fast. It is not linear. But it is real.

And I want to say that louder, because I think it gets lost when we are deep in symptoms and exhausted from trying: it genuinely gets better. Not just manageable - actually better. I have seen people go from barely leaving the house to traveling, eating freely, exercising, and living their lives again. I have been that person. The body has an incredible capacity to heal when it finally feels safe enough to do so.

Healing usually does not come from just one thing. It comes from supporting the system from multiple directions and slowly helping the body feel safer and more stable over time. That is the approach I use and the kind of work I will keep sharing here.

Because the goal is not to make your world smaller trying to avoid everything. The goal is to make your system more stable so your world can get bigger again.

A few things to do with this

If you recognized yourself in this checklist, here is where I would start:

Screenshot this and bring it to a practitioner. Sometimes having a visual pattern laid out makes it easier to advocate for yourself.

Know that this is not about finding every trigger and eliminating it. That path often leads to more restriction, a more reactive nervous system, and paradoxically more sensitivity over time. The goal is lowering the overall load on the system while building capacity back up.

Stabilization before stimulation. If you are currently doing something that is supposed to help and you are feeling worse, trust that. You can always slow down, titrate, and come back to something when your system is more stable.

And if you have been dismissed - find someone who sees the full picture. This is real. It is physiological. It is increasingly understood, especially since COVID brought a lot of these patterns into research. You deserve care that looks at the whole system.

And if you take nothing else from this post, take this.

Nothing is wrong with you. Your body is not broken. It is not failing you. It is responding - intelligently, predictably - to a system that has been under too much load for too long. That is not a character flaw. It is not a weakness. It is biology.

The path forward is not about doing more, restricting more, or trying harder. It is about slowly creating the conditions where your body feels safe enough to heal. And when that starts to happen - and it does happen - things shift in ways that can genuinely surprise you.

I have been in the thick of it. I know how exhausting and lonely and confusing it can feel. And I also know that it gets better. Really, truly better. That is not just something I say - it is something I have lived, and something I have seen happen over and over again in people who felt exactly the way you might be feeling right now.

That is what this space is for. I am really glad you are here. 🤍

Xoxo, Zoe 🤍

Consider this a Histamine 101 guide. The first few posts here will focus on building a clear physiological foundation for understanding chronic symptoms before moving into more personal and practical pieces.

What do constant bloating, brain fog, fatigue, anxiety that feels physical, dizziness after a hot shower, heart palpitations when you stand up, and unexplained food reactions have in common?

For many people dealing with complex chronic symptoms, the answer is histamine and mast cell activation. Many are told their labs look fine, their tests don’t explain much, and nothing obvious ties their symptoms together. But there is often a physiological pattern behind these experiences that goes unrecognized.

For years, I lived in a body that felt completely unpredictable.

One day I felt mostly normal. The next day my heart would race when I stood up. My stomach was constantly bloated - I looked four months pregnant most days. I had heart palpitation that made me feel anxious although my brian felt calm. Sometimes my digestion would just seemingly randomly shut down.

I also had periods where it felt hard to take a full deep breath, something often described as “air hunger,” a less commonly recognized symptom that can show up with histamine dysregulation and autonomic dysfunction. Other days I’d wake up feeling heavy, inflamed, and exhausted for no clear reason.

Doctors ran tests. But even after treating what was found, my symptoms didn’t resolve. In many ways, they became even more confusing. Follow-up tests often looked normal, yet my body still felt like it was constantly sounding alarms.

Meanwhile I was being put on various treatment protocols that were supposed to help, but many of them actually made me feel worse.

Eventually I learned something that completely changed how I understood what was happening in my body. It’s now the lens through which I help others understand their symptoms too.

Many people struggling with complex chronic symptoms are not just dealing with gut issues, hormones, or inflammation. They’re dealing with mast cell activation and histamine dysregulation, deeply intertwined with the nervous system.

And until those systems are stabilized, many treatments, even good ones, can actually make people worse.

This is one of the biggest missing pieces I see in the functional medicine world today.

To understand why this happens, we first need to understand what histamine actually does in the body.

First: histamine is not just about allergies

When most people hear the word histamine, they think of seasonal allergies - sneezing, itchy eyes, maybe needing an antihistamine in the spring.

But histamine is actually a signaling molecule used throughout the entire body. It plays a role in the brain, digestion, heart rate, blood vessels, immune signaling, sleep, hormone regulation, skin, connective tissue, and nervous system activation.

Because of this, histamine issues rarely show up as “just allergies.” Instead, they often appear as many different symptoms across multiple systems of the body.

Part of the reason is that histamine receptors exist throughout the body.

• H1 receptors — brain, skin, airways
• H2 receptors — stomach acid and digestion
• H3 receptors — brain and nervous system signaling
• H4 receptors — immune cells

So when histamine signaling becomes dysregulated, symptoms can show up almost anywhere.

What mast cells actually do

Histamine is released by immune cells called mast cells, which act as environmental sensors for the immune system. Their job is to detect potential threats and help coordinate the body’s protective response.

They live in areas where the body interacts with the outside world:

• skin
• gut lining
• respiratory tract
• blood vessels
• nervous system tissues

When mast cells sense something that could be harmful, they release chemical messengers like:

• histamine
• prostaglandins
• cytokines
• leukotrienes

These signals help mobilize the immune system to respond. In a healthy system, this process is protective. But in some bodies, mast cells become over-sensitive and hyper-reactive.They begin responding to things that aren’t actually dangerous.

This is what we call mast cell activation.

Histamine isn’t the root cause - it’s the alarm signal

One way I often explain this is with a fire alarm analogy.

Histamine itself usually isn’t the root cause of the problem. It’s more like the smoke alarm going off in the house.

Mast cells act like the alarm system of the immune system. Their job is to detect potential danger and signal the body to respond.

When they sense a threat, they release chemical messengers - one of the main ones being histamine. Histamine helps mobilize the body’s response by increasing blood flow, changing nerve signaling, and activating parts of the immune system.

That’s useful when there’s an actual threat.

But in mast cell activation, the alarm system becomes over-sensitive. The cells start reacting to things that shouldn’t be perceived as dangerous, such as foods, temperature changes, stress, environmental triggers, and more.

And the alarm doesn’t just ring once. It can get stuck in the “on” position.

In many ways this overlaps with what researchers call the cell danger response - a state where the body remains in a prolonged protective mode instead of returning to baseline.

This is also why nervous system work matters so much in this process. When the nervous system shifts toward safety, it sends signals that the alarm system can start to quiet down.

And while histamine may not be the root cause, it often becomes the chemical driving many of the symptoms people experience.

This is why stabilization is so important. If the alarm system is stuck on, the first step isn’t always aggressively hunting down every possible root cause. Often, the first step is helping the system calm down enough for the alarm to turn off.

The difference between histamine intolerance and MCAS

These terms often get used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly the same.

Histamine intolerance

Histamine intolerance generally refers to a situation where the body has difficulty breaking down histamine efficiently.

This can happen when enzymes responsible for clearing histamine - most notably DAO (diamine oxidase) and HNMT (histamine-N-methyltransferase) - aren’t functioning optimally.

Because of this, symptoms often show up around food intake, since histamine from foods isn’t being broken down or cleared as effectively.

Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS)

MCAS is different.

The issue isn’t just histamine breakdown. It’s that mast cells themselves are releasing excessive chemical signals.

That means symptoms can be triggered by many different things, including:

• foods
• stress
• hormonal shifts
• heat
• infections
• exercise
• supplements
• environmental triggers / exposure

Even emotional stress, trauma processing, or intense nervous system activation can sometimes trigger symptoms, because mast cells are highly responsive to nervous system signaling.

This is why mast cell issues often feel unpredictable and multi-system.

Research suggests that around 17% of the population may experience some form of mast cell activation, although many people are never diagnosed.

Interestingly, awareness of this condition has grown significantly since COVID. Many people with long COVID symptoms were found to have patterns of mast cell activation and histamine dysregulation, which has led to more research exploring these connections (Yay!!).

Because of that research, this topic is finally starting to receive more attention.

Why functional medicine treatments can sometimes make things worse

This is one of the most important things to understand.

Most functional medicine approaches are designed around finding and treating root causes.

Things like:

• mold detox protocols
• parasite cleanses
• antimicrobial/ antifungal gut treatments
• aggressive detox protocols
• high-dose supplementation

For many people, these can be incredibly helpful.

But when mast cells are unstable, these same interventions can trigger major flares.

Why?

Because most of these treatments stimulate or activate the immune system.

And if the immune system is already in a hyper-reactive state, that stimulation can push it further into alarm mode. Instead of healing, the body interprets the intervention as another threat.

Symptoms escalate.

This is why so many people say something like:

“I started doing all the right health things… and somehow got worse.”

I experienced this personally.

At one point I was trying to heal my gut and was given supplements that are widely recommended for gut repair - things like glutamine, collagen, probiotics, and colostrum. All things that can be incredibly supportive for many people.

But for me, they triggered flares. Not because they were bad supplements - but because my immune system and mast cells were already on high alert.

I had similar reactions to certain detox protocols that were supposed to help me clear infections and toxins. At one point I even had a flare after fascia work, because bodywork can stimulate both the nervous system and immune system.

Even emotional work can do this.

I’ve seen people flare during deep trauma therapy or intense emotional processing when their nervous system wasn’t stabilized first.

When mast cells are unstable, even positive or healing interventions can feel like stress to the body.

This is why a key concept in histamine and mast cell treatment is titration - introducing things slowly and gradually, allowing the nervous system and immune system to build capacity over time.

Safety and stabilization always come first.

Unfortunately, this is one of the biggest mistakes I see when people are trying to heal. They jump into aggressive protocols while their system is still in survival mode.

And then they end up feeling worse, not because the treatment is wrong, but because the timing and pace are wrong.

The nervous system piece most people miss

The immune system and nervous system are deeply interconnected.

Your nervous system is constantly scanning the environment and asking one fundamental question:

Am I safe, or am I under threat?

That signal influences the immune system.

Mast cells are particularly responsive to these signals, which means that when the nervous system is stuck in a chronic threat response, mast cells can become more reactive.

Over time, this can create a feedback loop that looks something like this:

stress → mast cell activation → histamine release → symptoms → more stress → more activation

This is why nervous system regulation isn’t just psychological work.

It’s physiological.

And for many people, it becomes a foundational part of treatment.

The “toxic bucket” concept

One way I explain this to clients is through the bucket analogy.

Imagine your body has a bucket that collects stressors over time.

Things like:
• infections
• mold exposure
• environmental toxins
• gut dysbiosis
• hormonal shifts
• chronic stress
• trauma
• sleep deprivation
• food triggers

Each one adds water to the bucket.

Over time, the bucket fills. When it becomes too full, it overflows - and symptoms appear. Mast cells are often one of the mechanisms through which that overflow expresses itself in the body.

But the goal isn’t just identifying and removing one trigger.

Often the first step is calming the alarm system - stabilizing mast cells, supporting histamine regulation, and helping the nervous system shift out of constant threat mode.

When the body begins to move out of that constant threat state, it often gains more capacity to process and handle what’s already in the bucket. Systems like detoxification, digestion, and immune regulation tend to function much more effectively when the body feels safe.

From there, we can slowly begin lowering the overall load in the bucket - gently and gradually addressing the stressors that contributed to it, and adding support where needed.

The goal isn’t aggressive elimination. It’s helping the system regain enough stability and capacity that the bucket stops overflowing

Symptoms of histamine or mast cell issues by body system

Because mast cells exist throughout the body, symptoms can show up almost anywhere.

In my next post, I’ll share a checklist that can help you recognize whether this pattern might apply to you.

But here are some of the most common symptom clusters.

Nervous system

• anxiety or panic
• brain fog
• insomnia
• dizziness
• migraines
• sensory sensitivity

Cardiovascular

• heart palpitations
• POTS-like symptoms
• rapid heart rate when standing
• low blood pressure
• fainting

Skin

• flushing
• hives
• itching
• dermatographia
• swelling

Digestive

• bloating
• nausea
• diarrhea
• reflux
• food reactions

Respiratory

• shortness of breath
• throat tightness
• congestion
• wheezing

Hormonal patterns

Many people notice symptom flares:

• before their period
• around ovulation
• during hormonal shifts

Estrogen can increase histamine release and decrease DAO activity, which is one reason symptoms often fluctuate across the menstrual cycle.

If you’re reading this and starting to recognize yourself in these patterns, you’re not alone. Many people live with these symptoms for years without realizing there may be a common physiological thread connecting them.

In the next post, I’ll share a simple checklist that can help you recognize whether histamine or mast cell activation might be part of your picture - and why treatment often fails until this system is stabilized first.

xox,

Zoe

That’s a big part of why I created this space. I want this Substack to feel like what I wish I had when I was navigating chronic symptoms - something clear, grounded in physiology, and integrated. Not something you have to piece together alone.

At the same time, what I did find resonated on such a deep, body level that I just knew it was the key.

I remember trying to explain this to my mom over and over: I feel this in my body. It’s not in my mind. It wasn’t something I could talk my way through or analyze or supplement my way out of. It felt somatic. It felt unconscious.

I would flare out of nowhere. Treatments that were supposed to help sometimes made things worse. My body felt reactive, unpredictable, and completely out of my control. And deep down, I knew this wasn’t something I could approach from another angle. This wasn’t about needing more mindset work or more insight.

It was about my body.

Now that there is so much more information out there on this- I can understand how people may feel overwhelmed by the constant “regulate your nervous system” language on social media.

What does that even mean?
Regulate how?
From where?
When?
Where do you even start?

Is it breathwork? Ice baths? Therapy? Supplements?

So before we go any further, I want to say this: take a deep breath.

This is much simpler than it’s often made out to be - especially when you’re working one-on-one with someone who understands the physiology. I think the first step in this work is education and understanding what’s actually happening in your body.

Education really is half the battle.

Once you understand that dysregulation is a protective response - not a personal failure or something “wrong” with you - so much shame falls away and compassion for yourself builds. You realize you’re not broken. Your body is doing exactly what it learned to do to keep you safe.

Let’s break this down simply.

What Nervous System Dysregulation Actually Is

At its core, nervous system dysregulation means your body has trouble moving flexibly between states of activation and rest.

A regulated nervous system has range. You can feel stress, excitement, sadness, or anger - and eventually return toward baseline. There’s movement. There’s fluidity.

A dysregulated nervous system gets stuck.

Stuck in fight-or-flight - the mobilized state where your body gears up for action. Heart rate increases. Muscles tense. Thoughts race. You may feel anxious, irritable, restless, or on edge.

Stuck in freeze or shutdown - the opposite protective response. Energy drops. You may feel numb, foggy, disconnected, exhausted, or unable to act.

Or oscillating between the two.

This isn’t a mindset issue. It’s physiological. It lives in the autonomic nervous system.

Your nervous system’s job is to constantly scan for safety or threat. When it perceives danger - real or perceived - it shifts your body into a protective state. That’s not bad. That’s survival.

Dysregulation happens when the system stays in those protective states long after the threat has passed, or when everyday life begins to feel like a threat.

Why Does Dysregulation Happen?

There are many pathways into dysregulation. None of them mean you did anything wrong.

It can develop from chronic stress, trauma (big, small, or passed down generationally), illness, pain, inflammation, emotional overwhelm, unstable environments, or long periods of feeling unsafe, unsupported, or unheard.

It also often develops in people who learned early on that safety came from pushing through, being hyper-aware, highly sensitive to their environment, high-achieving, overly responsible, or deeply attuned to others. In those cases, traits that look like perfectionism, caretaking, sensitivity, or fierce independence aren’t personality flaws - they’re nervous system adaptations.

It can happen when your system never gets the chance to fully recover between stressors.

Over time, your nervous system learns patterns. It learns what to expect. If your body learned that life is unpredictable, overwhelming, or unsafe, it adapts accordingly.

Hypervigilance.
Anxiety.
Shutdown.
Dissociation.
People-pleasing.
Perfectionism.
Chronic tension.
Fatigue.
Irritability.
Constantly needing to be busy.
Difficulty relaxing.
Overwhelm.
Emotional numbness.

These aren’t flaws. They’re intelligent adaptations.

The issue isn’t the response.
It’s that the response gets stuck.

The Connection to Chronic Symptoms

This is where nervous system work becomes foundational.

When your nervous system perceives a threat - whether that’s a real physical danger, a difficult conversation, chronic stress, or even an inflammatory reaction to something like a virus, toxin, or food - it shifts your body into a survival response.

And survival has priorities.

If your body thinks it’s in danger - whether that’s an actual physical threat, a heated argument, a scary medical test result, a looming deadline, or even a strong inflammatory reaction - it shifts into what’s called a sympathetic state, also known as fight-or-flight.

This is a mobilized survival response.

Heart rate increases.
Blood flow shifts toward muscles.
Stress hormones rise.
Inflammatory pathways activate.

What doesn’t get prioritized in that state?

Digestion.
Hormone balance.
Immune repair.
Restorative sleep.

Efficient detoxification
Long-term tissue healing.

This isn’t because your body is malfunctioning. It’s because it’s adaptive.

In the short term, this response is lifesaving.
But when the system stays activated - or repeatedly cycles between activation and shutdown - the body doesn’t get consistent access to repair mode.

If that activation goes on for too long, the system can swing the other direction - into shutdown or freeze - where energy drops, motivation decreases, and the body conserves resources.

Over time, that can impact digestion, hormones, immune function, inflammation, sleep, energy, mood, focus, and pain.

This is why so many people with chronic symptoms feel like nothing fully works - even when they’re “doing everything right.”

If your body is stuck in survival physiology, it prioritizes protection over repair.

That doesn’t mean your symptoms are “in your head.”
It means your nervous system is part of the equation. A significant part.

Why Everyone Is Talking About This Now

More people are realizing that healing isn’t just about fixing isolated parts of the body. The nervous system is woven into everything - digestion, hormones, immunity, mood, energy.

And we’re living in a world that moves fast, demands a lot, and rarely teaches us how to come back to safety.

Most of us learned to override our bodies instead of listening to them.

That can look like pushing through exhaustion with another cup of coffee. Staying up late even when you’re wired and tired. Saying yes when your body wants quiet. Ignoring headaches, jaw tension, or digestive discomfort until they become louder. Working out intensely when what you really need is rest. Powering through burnout because slowing down feels unsafe.

It can also show up in how we approach healing - layering supplement after supplement, pushing through intense protocols that leave you feeling worse, constantly searching for the next practitioner or test without asking whether your system actually feels safer.

Listening looks different.

It might mean backing off when something that’s supposed to help feels dysregulating. Pausing when you’re overstimulated. Adjusting your schedule when your energy dips. Letting your body guide the pace instead of forcing it to comply. Among many more.

Nervous system work brings the body back into the conversation.

Why This Work Is Foundational

This is why I think starting with education is most important

Because when you understand that your symptoms, patterns, and reactions are protective responses - not personal failures - you stop fighting yourself.

You start working with your body instead of against it.

Nervous system regulation isn’t about being calm all the time. It’s about building awareness, range, and capacity. It’s about helping your body feel safe enough to shift out of survival and into repair, connection, and presence.

When safety increases in the body, everything else works better. Therapy goes deeper. Tools land. We can actually absorb and utilize nutrients from food and intentional supplementation.

And most importantly - you begin to trust yourself again.

This is the foundation.
Everything else builds from here.

I know many of you are wondering, “Okay, but what do I actually do?” I’ll be sharing simple, practical ways to start supporting your nervous system on here and social media. But I wanted to lay this groundwork first - because tools land differently when your body makes sense.

Xox,

Zoe

This post is for my girlies who live in their heads. The ones who intellectualize everything and analyze how they feel instead of actually feeling it. I lived there for a veryyyyy long time. And honestly? This is incredibly common for people with nervous system dysregulation. Living in your mind can feel safer than being in your body - especially if your body has been holding tension, stress, pain, or trauma for years.

But living in your head comes at a cost. You stop listening to your body, override its signals, and eventually end up floating in a foggy, disconnected space that feels so familiar you don’t even realize you’re in it.

Brain fog often shows up when your nervous system is stuck between sympathetic activation (fight-or-flight, the gas pedal) and dorsal vagal shutdown (freeze, the brake). It’s like your body is pressing the gas and the brake at the same time. Your prefrontal cortex - the thinking, reasoning part of your brain - is only partially online. The result? Anxiety, scattered thoughts, trouble focusing, and that “stuck in my head” feeling. Trying to think your way out from this state usually keeps you trapped, because your brain can’t access its regulation tools while your body is still in crisis mode.

Here’s a fun (but serious) science nugget: when your nervous system is stressed, your amygdala - your brain’s threat alarm - goes fully online. At the same time, your prefrontal cortex - the part that thinks, reasons, and problem-solves - goes partially offline. Translation: no amount of thinking, analyzing, or reassurance-seeking is going to calm you in that moment. Your nervous system doesn’t respond to logic; it responds to safety, sensation, and experience.

This is why trying to logic your way out of anxiety or dysregulation rarely works. Think about it - if you’re overheated, you instinctively drink water or remove a layer. You don’t tell yourself “I’m fine” and expect your body to comply. Yet we’ve been conditioned to do exactly that with our nervous systems.

One of the most effective ways to interrupt this loop is to come back into your body. Ground through your senses. Feel your feet on the floor. Take slow breaths with a hand on your heart. Notice sensations without trying to fix them. This tells your nervous system it’s safe, allowing your brain to soften and regulation to begin.

I’ll never forget my first craniosacral session. The sensation of coming back into my body after years of living in my head was wild. Heavy. Unfamiliar. Uncomfortable. Honestly, it felt scary. My brain wanted to escape immediately back to its familiar headspace. That’s dissociation in action - your mind disconnects from your body when your nervous system senses threat, overwhelm, or too much intensity. And while I’m not embodied 100% of the time now, being in my body - even a little - feels infinitely more alive than living in my head ever did.

When you’re embodied, things start to shift. You experience the world differently. You feel present, connected, like life is actually unfolding in the right timing instead of something you have to mentally manage.

Grounding practices - like slow walks, body scans, breathing with a hand on your heart, or feeling sunlight on your skin - help signal safety to the body so the mind can catch up. We’ll go much deeper into these in future posts, but know this: reconnecting with your body is the first step out of your head.

As Bessel van der Kolk says in The Body Keeps the Score, trauma, emotions and stress aren’t just in your thoughts - they live in your body. Your fascia, muscles, and nervous system hold memory. Healing happens when the body finally feels safe again. Somatic work, breathwork, body scans, even simple sensory experiences are ways of teaching safety rather than trying to convince yourself with your mind.

In my training as a therapist, I work from a bottom-up approach to healing. That means we prioritize regulating the nervous system and reconnecting with the body before trying to analyze, process, or problem-solve. For people with dysregulation or trauma, this is essential. Once the body feels safe, deeper layers - unconscious patterns, unresolved memories, emotional material - can be explored and integrated without overwhelm. Embodiment is safety. Safety is step one. Everything else follows.

And here’s the magic of embodiment: most of the wisdom you’re chasing already lives in your body. It’s slower, subtler, and far more trustworthy than your thoughts. Talk therapy and books help you understand things cognitively, but embodiment - actually feeling something in your cells - is where lasting change happens. Your thoughts can mislead you. Learning to observe them instead of obeying them is freedom.

So where do you start? If you do one thing to begin regulating your nervous system, this is the best place to start: get into your body. Not perfectly. Not all at once. Just consistently.

Because regulation isn’t about forcing yourself to calm down. It’s about learning the language of your body.

The more you practice being in your body - body scans, sensory awareness, gentle check-ins - the more fluent you become. You start to recognize what your nervous system is communicating before it’s screaming (with uncomfortable symptoms).

Nervous system regulation is not about what to do once you’re already in an activated fight, flight, or freeze state (although that is part of it). It’s about moment-to-moment body awareness where you check in and notice when you’re 10, 15, or 20 percent activated, catch it early, and regulate with the tools that work for you and bring you back toward baseline.

This is about range. It’s about building capacity. It’s noticing subtle shifts - the tightening of your jaw, the tension in your gut, the shallow breath in your chest - and recognizing those as information and signals that your body needs support so you can give it what it needs in that moment to come back to baseline.

Over time, this becomes automatic. Your capacity grows. You move through stress, conflict, and challenging situations without getting stuck in activation or shutdown. Regulation becomes less about crisis management and more about daily maintenance.

Soon I’ll be sharing a post on how to actually identify what’s happening in your nervous system - How to Tell Which State You’re In: You Can’t Regulate What You Don’t Recognize.

It’ll come right after the next post, where I’ll break down the basics of what nervous system regulation even is and why everyone’s talking about it.

Because awareness comes first. Once you can recognize your state, regulation stops feeling confusing or random and starts feeling intuitive.

This work starts with noticing. With learning your body’s cues. With building the ability to pause, check in, and respond instead of overriding.

Your head is smart. But your body is the real wisdom keeper. Deep healing and real regulation don’t happen in your thoughts. They happen in your cells.

Start there. Start in your body. 💛

Healing isn’t about doing more.
It’s about learning how to listen to your body and work with your nervous system

I share insights, tools, and personal experiences to help you navigate chronic symptoms and stress without chasing endless protocols or feeling broken.

Here, we explore whole body healing that honors real physiology and the nervous system. You’ll learn, step by step, what nervous system regulation actually means and how to practice it in real life, so you can feel more embodied, regulated, and alive, not just functional. This is gentle, sustainable healing that includes mind, body, and spirit and focuses on creating the internal conditions where healing can take root.

How I got here

For years, I kept thinking there was one more thing I hadn’t tried.
One more doctor.
One more protocol.
One more diagnosis.
One more supplement.
One more explanation for why my body felt so off.

Eight years ago, I started experiencing what felt like random symptoms: digestive issues, hormone imbalances, bloating, brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, acne, joint pain, headaches, and missing periods. The list kept growing.

Like so many people, I did what we’re taught to do.

I searched for answers in Western medicine, Eastern medicine, and functional medicine.
I tried countless treatments and protocols.
I spent tens of thousands of dollars.
I did all the obvious right things.

But somehow, I kept getting sicker.

After years of learning, experimenting, and implementing, I slowly uncovered some surprising truths about what actually moves the needle in healing chronic symptoms. I didn’t just learn them intellectually, I lived them, slowly and imperfectly, in my own body. I created this Substack to share those insights, in hopes of sparing others some of the frustration, expense, and anguish I experienced.

The Pattern I Couldn’t Ignore

At a certain point, I noticed something that didn’t fit neatly into any diagnosis.

My symptoms changed with stress.
The more I focused on them, the worse they became.
And paradoxically, the harder I tried to treat and fix them, the sicker I often felt.

I chased diagnoses like Lyme, gut issues, hormone imbalances like PCOS, mold, and more. Some treatments helped temporarily, but nothing truly stuck. In many cases, aggressive protocols actually backfired.

What I didn’t understand at the time was this.
The diagnoses and inflammation were real, but they weren’t the full story.

They were signals.
Signals from a body that was constantly reacting instead of repairing.

Infections like Lyme, mold exposure, and environmental stressors absolutely matter. But when the nervous system is already overwhelmed, treating them too aggressively can push the body further into defense. Instead of healing, it shifts into attack mode, driving cortisol, histamine, and inflammation higher and making symptoms louder rather than quieter.

When the body is under constant pressure, emotional, environmental, or psychological, it prioritizes protection over repair. Even after a real threat is gone (this can be anything from covid, mold or prolonged stress or emotional overwhelm), the nervous system can remain stuck in survival mode.

In modern life, we are rarely being chased by lions, yet our bodies often respond as if we are. Instead of acute danger, we live with constant low-grade stressors: toxins, mold, infections, unprocessed emotions, trauma, chronic stimulation, and a productivity-driven culture that rarely allows the body to fully power down. Over time, these pressures quietly fill the body’s stress capacity until it overflows, keeping the nervous system on high alert and symptoms begin to appear as warning signals of perceived “danger”.

One common physiological response to perceived threat, whether from infection, toxins, or stress, is histamine release. This often drives symptoms like bloating, skin issues, headaches, anxiety, and fatigue. The problem is that the system doesn’t always receive the signal to shut it off (I’ll go much deeper into histamine in a future post).

That’s why this isn’t just happening to “sensitive” people anymore.
Almost everyone you talk to is dealing with gut issues, fatigue, anxiety, headaches, or chronic stress.

Healing, I eventually learned, wasn’t about pushing harder.
It was about creating the conditions where the body could stop bracing and start repairing.

The Shift That Changed Everything

At a certain point, I stepped away from the endless protocols

I started therapy for the first time with someone trained in nervous system work.
I did gentle body-based therapies like craniosacral.
I loosened the rigid rules around food and supplements.
I allowed myself to live more normally, eating freely, spending time with friends, and having fun again after years of restriction.

And something surprising happened.

My body began to relax.
The tension I had carried for years started to lift.

That’s when it clicked.

Every protocol had been failing, not because they were wrong, but because my nervous system wasn’t ready to receive them.

My body wasn’t broken.
It was overwhelmed.

No supplement, test, or treatment could override that state.

Healing didn’t begin when I added more.
It began when I stopped trying to fix myself.

For a long time, I was doing everything: IV treatments, cutting-edge therapies, over 100 supplements a day, every diet and test imaginable. After over a year of rigid restriction, no alcohol, gluten, dairy, or sugar, I was the most inflamed I had ever been.

The constant drive to fix myself kept my body locked in hyper-vigilance:
“Something is wrong” “I need to control this.”

When I began actively unwinding those patterns through nervous system work, gentle body-based support, and slowly restoring a sense of safety, my body finally had the conditions it needed to heal.

Over time, things shifted.

• My period returned after eight years of absence.

• Inflammation and Lyme coinfection markers normalized.

• My capacity for stress increased.

Other tools- emotional processing, EMDR therapy, gentle detox, and targeted supplements finally began to work, because my body could actually tolerate and integrate them.

This was the real shift.

From force to flow.
From control to listening.
From fixing to trusting.

Why the Nervous System Is the Foundation

Your body cannot heal when in survival mode.

Digestion, hormones, immune function, and sleep all depend on a nervous system that feels safe enough to shift out of protection and into repair, rest and digest.

This is why so many well-intentioned treatments can backfire. Even interventions that are “healthy” on paper can act as stressors if the nervous system isn’t ready.

Healing doesn’t come from doing nothing. It comes from creating the conditions for safety- both in your body and in your life. This is why the order matters. Trying to fix digestion before addressing chronic stress, or chasing lab markers before calming the nervous system, is like trying to build a house on shaky ground.

This Substack is about exploring what those foundational conditions look like in practice: how to cultivate safety in your nervous system, restore trust in your body, and approach treatments in a way that supports, rather than overwhelms, your system, so healing can happen sustainably and effectively.

Why I’m Becoming a Therapist

Along my journey, I became certified as an integrative health coach, studied nutrition and physiology, and explored functional medicine, supplements, detox support, and cutting-edge therapies. I even started pre-med school, thinking I wanted to become a functional medicine doctor.

I value all of it. But what fascinated me the most was why these approaches sometimes worked- and other times completely failed.

The moment everything clicked was when I experienced that healing isn’t purely physical, nor purely mental- it’s the dynamic relationship between the two.

That insight led me to pursue my master’s in psychology and train as a therapist, so I can help people bridge the gap between body and mind and support true, whole-person healing.

If you’ve been doing all the right things and still don’t feel better, I want you to hear this:

You’re not broken.
Your body isn’t failing you.
It’s communicating.

I’m sharing what I’ve learned not because I have all the answers, but because I’ve walked this path and know how difficult it can be.

I’m really glad you’re here. 🤍

Xoxo,
Zoe

If you’ve been told “everything looks normal,” yet your body clearly says otherwise.
If you’re exhausted from fixing, optimizing, and chasing the next answer.
If your symptoms flare with stress, emotion, environment, or changes - and you know it’s not “just in your head.”

I invite you to read on . .

Here, we explore whole-body healing using both root cause medicine and nervous system-informed approaches, where you’ll learn:

• What truly moved the needle in my own healing- from supplements, practices, protocols, mindset shifts to practitioners and supports that guided me along the way

• What nervous system regulation actually means (beyond the buzzwords)

• The histamine- nervous system connection - and why it’s key

• How to practice nervous system regulation in real life, without needing to do everything perfectly (step by step)

• How to approach healing in a way that’s gentle, sustainable, and works with your body - not against it

• The importance of intentional sequencing in healing: including nervous system work, histamine management, and gentle detox

• why treatments sometimes fail, and how to create the internal conditions where healing can finally stick.

• Flare packs and protocols (for paid subscribers)

My approach integrates mind, body, and spirit - so you can feel embodied, regulated, and alive, not just functional.

It’s been five years since I’ve healed- though I use that term loosely, because I truly believe we are always healing. Rephrase: five years ago, healing was no longer my full-time job. I had just graduated from college as a certified health coach and knew my biggest passions were around health and wellness, but the topic itself still felt triggering after years of struggling myself, and the fact that I was really still somewhat in the mess of it.

My dilemma: I loved what I was learning, had so much to share, and the silver lining that had carried me through my years of health struggles was that I was going to one day help people with what I was learning. Yet, I was still deeply traumatized by all that I had been through and I needed space from it.

All my friends were getting jobs, and I felt directionless and behind. My functional medicine doctor recommended an amazing therapist who specialized in nervous system healing- I had never been to therapy before, and though I carried my stigmas, being introduced to nervous system work completely opened my eyes and transformed my life.

At the same time, I had stopped hundreds of supplements- I wish I was exaggerating - and I had stepped back from aggressive treatments and protocols to focus fully on nervous system regulation. At the start of working with my new therapist, I dealt with health anxiety from years of symptoms and protocols making me worse and was stuck in a complete nervous system functional freeze state.

Over time, I worked with my new therapist to regulate my nervous system and retrain my brain. I paused all doctors and protocols, loosened dietary restrictions and went back to living a normal life… and before I knew it, my symptoms began to fall away.

My inflammation markers decreased

My Lyme coinfection (Babesia) was no longer detectable in labs

And a couple of years later, my period returned after nearly eight years of absence

This doesn’t mean I never experience symptoms - I do. But they’re less intense, shorter-lived, and no longer frightening. Instead of seeing symptoms as something to fix or fight, I now understand them as information- and I’ve grown to appreciate them as messages, my body’s way of communicating/ protecting me. Most of the time, when I slow down, listen, and offer myself what’s needed, they soften or pass. Compassion itself becomes regulating.

I have a theory that when your nervous system is regulated, life starts to organize itself with more ease - moments of alignment and synchronisities start to happen. Somehow, months later, with no prior experience, I landed a role at a top wellness PR agency working with some of my favorite wellness brands. It was a perfect balance: within the scope of my passions, but far enough away from the messiness of the “healing world” I had just left behind. I started living in joy again.

During that time, I continued the deeper therapy work and became increasingly interested in the mind body connection and the nervous system. I felt like I had a PhD in physical health, nutrition, functional medicine and supplements- but I wanted to understand how the body and nervous system shape our capacity to heal. I dove deep into everything I could get my hands on around the topic (nervous system regulation, psycho-neurobiology, somatics, Jungian work, unconscious mechanisms behind healing, polyvagal theory etc) - through podcasts, books and online programs. These were years of lots of learning, processing, and integration, revisiting the same truths again and again until they became embodied rather than just understood.

Because my nervous system was regulated, gentle detox and supplements could actually take hold.

Eventually, I started my own PR consulting company working with dream clients and my favorite brands - but I knew my calling was different.

That’s when I decided to pivot my career. Last spring, I left the wellness PR world to go to graduate school for psychology and train as a therapist. I felt that after five years of processing, integrating, and embodying, I was finally ready to take on what I know I’m meant to do.

Six months into grad school, I took a multi-month Kabbalah course focused on Tikkun- a concept that refers to the lessons we are given repeatedly in life until we fully integrate them and share that wisdom with the world. It was in that course I realized that sharing what I’ve learned is my gift- and that is why we are here now.

My full story and the shift that finally changed everything goes live tomorrow- subscribe to get it delivered straight to your inbox:
→ What Actually Helped Me Heal from Chronic Symptoms (After Trying Everything)

I’m really glad you’re here. 🤍

xox,
Zoe