Welcome to How Humans Heal. In this episode, I’m talking with Dr. Kelly Livingston about nervous system regulation and dysregulation — what these terms mean, and what we can do to regulate our nervous system.

Dr. Kelly is the founder of Roots Deep Medicine, and is a licensed naturopathic doctor, like me. She is host of the Vital Spirit Podcast, where she explores nervous system regulation, the gut-brain connection, and psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology.

Dysregulation is more often mentioned in scientific as well as public audiences, as a way to honor the experience of having a human nervous system, and reframing the way we discuss mental health and mind-body medicine. 

Many approaches we use in naturopathic medicine have been shown to be beneficial for regulating the nervous system, which Dr. Kelly and I explore in this episode. 

Dr. Kelly’s Path to Naturopathic Medicine

Dr. Kelly began her undergraduate studies at Columbia University intending to be pre-med, but found herself drawn to psychology and philosophy instead, eventually designing her own combined major with a focus on bioethics and depth psychology. A mentor steered her away from a PhD in personality psychology, sensing it wouldn’t satisfy her curiosity about physiology. 

While working as a medical assistant and studying for her MCATs, an audiologist she worked with recognized that what Kelly kept describing already existed — naturopathic medicine. Reading the principles, Kelly knew she’d found her path: a mind-body-spirit approach to health. 

Though she does not consider herself to be religious, she grew up with a father who was a minister for 40 years, giving her a natural blend of scientific rigor and spiritual curiosity.

Where Healing Begins

Naturopathic medicine includes supporting patients to heal on a physical, as well as mental, emotional, and spiritual level. Dr. Kelly and I both agree that we usually begin with the physical level, such as with nutrients, gut health, hormones, and joint pain. 

The physical level most always opens into the emotional and spiritual territory because removing physical obstacles to healing tends to open the door to everything else. As Kelly put it, you’re not going to discuss levels of consciousness when you’re not pooping.

What Nervous System Dysregulation Really Means

A dysregulated nervous system can show up as poor sleep, irregular bowel movements, low energy, brain fog, anxiety, or depression. But the dysregulation itself isn’t a flaw. Our sympathetic “fight or flight” response and cortisol are supposed to exist — they help us function. The goal isn’t to feel calm all the time; it’s to be able to move fluidly between sympathetic activation and parasympathetic rest-digest-heal states. 

Dr. Kelly uses the polyvagal theory’s autonomic map to help patients name their states — fight-or-flight, dorsal vagal shutdown, or ventral vagal social engagement — because having language for these states is itself empowering and helps people feel less broken.

The core framework starts with recognizing and removing sources of inflammation and maladaptive stress responses, then introducing tools — breathwork, herbs, consistent sleep-wake routines, exercise and time in nature — to rebuild the parasympathetic response, like exercising a muscle.

Simple Tools for Regulating Your Nervous System 

Breathwork is such an important tool because it’s free, simple, and effective. Long, slow exhales activate the vagus nerve — something as simple as inhaling for four counts and exhaling for six, or a physiological sigh, which most people already do instinctively without realizing what it’s doing for their nervous system. 

Not everyone is ready for breathwork, though, and that’s fine. Calming herbs like passionflower or simply lying still on a yoga block to give gentle input to the fascia, can also activate the vagus nerve. Sometimes the real work is just being present with yourself, which sounds simple but is often one of the hardest things to ask of patients.

This is especially true for women, who are so often taught to take care of everyone else first. Carving out even five minutes to “just be” can feel selfish, even though it’s essential. 

When patients say they don’t have time, it helps to slow down and get curious with them: what would happen if you didn’t rush through everything? Could you take a bath twice a week, or wake up five minutes earlier to journal? 

Lab work often becomes the turning point in these conversations, when patients see their cortisol and adrenaline levels on paper, the conversation about lifestyle change becomes real.

Cortisol, Pregnenolone, and the Bigger Picture

Dr. Kelly mentions a “train track” analogy for pregnenolone, the “mother hormone”: it can go one direction to become cortisol and progesterone (the stress pathway), or the other direction to become estrogen, testosterone, and DHEA (the sex hormone pathway). 

Chronic stress pushes the body to prioritize the stress pathway, depleting the resources available for sex hormone production — which helps explain symptoms during perimenopause and menopause. 

Simple interventions, like getting natural light in your eyes first thing in the morning instead of looking at a phone, can shift cortisol and melatonin rhythms and create a positive ripple effect throughout the body, reducing the need to treat each downstream symptom separately.

Symptoms as Messages

Symptoms are a communication from the body, not something to suppress or fear. Kelly shared that she has personally worked through blood sugar dysregulation, thyroid issues, and depression, and no longer drinks alcohol — using her own symptoms as guides rather than something to quick-fix. 

Some symptoms may reflect a deeper spiritual or soul-level message, which needs to be explored through depth psychology and archetype work.

The Gut-Brain Connection and the Vital Spirit Method

Dr. Kelly describes her Vital Spirit Method and her 21-day program, Calm Gut, Clear Mind, which teaches patients to reduce gut inflammation first, since the gut-brain axis influences brain fog, anxiety, and depression. 

If patients followed the foundational habits 80% of the time, 80% of their symptoms would resolve. The vagus nerve also directly regulates inflammation through the acetylcholine pathway, so unresolved tension in the body can block healing at a physiological level.

Dr. Kelly openly shares examples from her own life — paddleboarding, laying on yoga blocks, her daily yoga practice — describing them as “parasympathetic snacks” she relies on to avoid burnout as a single mother running a business. 

I share that I relate deeply, having also raised my daughter as a single mom while building my practice, and now as a grandmother continuing to navigate life through the same calm-restore-regulation approach.

Spirituality as Presence

Spirituality isn’t about a formal religion. It’s about time in nature and time with self. Watching the ocean, touching a tree, or feeling awe at something like the Grand Canyon are all accessible spiritual experiences. 

Dr. Kelly introduces the “three P’s” framework: knowing your patterns, understanding where you’re placing your power, and practicing presence — often most easily accessed in nature.

If you want to learn more about Dr. Kelly and her work, you can find her on Instagram @thevitalspiritmethod and Facebook @Roots Deep Medicine. You can also find more about her Vital Spirit Podcast here and her Calm Gut, Clear Mind program here.

A Note from Dr. Doni

The topic of regulating the nervous system, and recovery from stress, is near and dear to my heart. I completely agree with Dr. Kelly about how important it is to take care of our nervous system through a root-cause approach combining exercise, nutrition, herbal medicine, and stress recovery. 

I observe the most significant healing in my patients when they implement this approach. Even patients with health issues that might not initially seem to be related to the nervous system, such as abnormal Pap results and high risk HPV. 

Which is exactly what inspired my book: Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book, I explain how stress, trauma, toxins, and a lack of recovery, can cause us to become stuck in “stress mode” and turn on our genetic susceptibilities. I describe my research and identification of the 5 Stress Types®, which exemplify the most common responses to stress, and the Stress Recovery Protocol I developed that is unique to each Stress Type. 

You can find out your Stress Type by taking the Stress Type® Quiz. It will help you to understand how the stress you’ve been exposed to is impacting your healthy today, and how to use the Stress Recovery Protocol and C.A.R.E. Method to support your body and nervous system to heal using diet changes, and natural approaches including time in nature. 

No matter what health issue you are dealing with – whether fatigue, anxiety, depression, autoimmunity, gut-health issues, women’s health related symptoms, migraines, POTS, and/or infections, this approach can help you to improve your day-to-day health and to reverse conditions that others may consider to be irreversible. 

If you would like to learn more how I guide patients from around the world one-on-one, please don’t hesitate to reach out to my office. Click here to set up a call with my team.

Thank you, everyone, for listening in to How Humans Heal® and learning all about how to regulate your nervous system. If you are new here, I welcome you to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. 

I’m so glad to have you as part of this healing community. 

Dr. Doni

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