Healing Trauma & Boosting Longevity Through Nervous System Health

Mitch Webb [00:00:00]:
I don’t think we age, but it’s more. The symptoms of aging are more this accumulation of this bucket of stress that we don’t know how to empty.

Nick Urban [00:00:10]:
You’re listening to High Performance Longevity. The show exploring a better path to optimal health for those daring to live as an outlier in a world of averages. I’m your host, Nick Urban, bioharmonizer, performance coach, and lifelong student of both modern science and ancestral wisdom. Each week we decode the tools, tactics and timeless principles to help you optimize your mind, body and performance span. Things you won’t find on Google or in your AI tool of choice. From cutting edge biohacks to grounded lifestyle practices, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to look, feel and perform at your best across all of life’s domains. Mitch, welcome to the podcast, dude.

Mitch Webb [00:01:02]:
My pleasure. So stoked to be here. Thank you.

Nick Urban [00:01:05]:
Yeah, I was just telling you offline that one of the big themes in my life over the last nine months or so has been around nervous system regulation, and specifically in the biohacking and longevity world, the health optimization world, all the cool fancy protocols and devices and technologies can be powerful and really help out, but if our nervous system isn’t in a position to accept them, it’s going to be impossible to reap the full benefits. And instead, if we’re able to shift into an optimal nervous system state, and for most people that’s going to be engaging with more of the rest and digest the parasympathetic that side, then the things will all work better. So before we dive into this topic, tell me about your backstory. How did you get involved in this?

Mitch Webb [00:01:58]:
I really appreciate you starting there with the biohacking because that’s, that’s, that’s where my journey started. I, you know, I got sick, I had a lot of stuff going on and we can certainly dive into that. I’ll give you like an overview. But I went right into either what I knew and that was control and force. And I said, I don’t care what this diagnosis is, tell me what to do and I’ll do it. And that carried me and it helped me until it didn’t. So certainly excited to chat about that, but where I started, man, 20 years old, massive concussion, partying, thought of a second story, window hit my head, traumatic brain injury. And you know, maybe six months after that, started having autoimmune issues, very common, post trauma, had anxiety, had insomnia, like, like many people do.

Mitch Webb [00:03:01]:
They gave me some medication that gave me some diagnoses and they sent me on my way. And then, you know, after college, moving to a house that had black mold in it and you know, so had had mold toxicity and developed Lyme disease from living in that environment. So it’s kind of those, those symptoms kind of overlap. It’s a lot of brain fog, a lot of joint pain. You know, I thought it was normal to be icing everything after my workouts. And yeah, just crazy anxiety activation all the time. I was able to reverse that stuff with a lot of the. The biohacking stuff that I still use today.

Mitch Webb [00:03:42]:
So I’m not here to down biohacking by any means. It got me to the dance and now I just try to use it a little smarter. But basically reverse the mold, reverse the diabetes, you know, did a lot of reverse the Lyme disease. Worked with Dr. Dan Pompa, you might know him for about a year. And you know, then I got hit by a dump truck after. After all of that recovering. So I had another post concussion syndrome.

Mitch Webb [00:04:13]:
Took me about a year to get over that. At that point, really got into like Joe Dispenza and manifestation and you know, kind of working with my nervous system, but more in like a heady brain based approach, if you will. And once I healed from that, I got long haul Covid three times in a row. And so it just destroyed my gut, my hormones. I went down to 140 pounds. I went into a deep chronic freeze state. Now bringing in some of the nervous system stuff. But yeah, after about three years of that, was in a men’s group that we started here locally, was reading the Body Keeps the Score and shared some things that were going on for me and had some guys pull me aside and go, hey, man, that.

Mitch Webb [00:05:05]:
That guy in the book that’s got all the trauma, you know, that’s you. And so I was able to connect, you know, dysregulation really coming from misattunement as a child. There was no like big overt trauma that I could point to. It was just little, little cuts and things like that that told me I can’t be authentic, that I got to do this alone. You know, I was terrified all of the time. And that just didn’t make sense to my parents when I’m this rough and tough kid, you know, knocking, racking heads on the football field. But in deep inside I was, I was terrified. And that dysregulation is really what exploded when I had that, that first injury where I fell out of the window.

Mitch Webb [00:05:53]:
And so, yeah, man, kind of like yourself for the last three years I’ve been unpacking this stuff and learning about dysregulation, about building capacity and teaching people how to, and myself how to regulate the nervous system. It’s an ongoing journey. It’s a, it’s a lifestyle approach. And I love the way you look at health and wellness when you know, it’s not, it’s not just this, it’s not just that. That’s a big problem that we have in the United States is like everybody’s separate, nobody talks to each other and that’s how you get hurt. And so now it’s really how can I listen to the body? How can I build capacity to be with certain emotions, sensations, symptoms instead of pushing them away, making them shut up.

Nick Urban [00:06:40]:
And overriding with you on so much of that. And my own story parallels yours in many ways that I didn’t even realize going into this conversation. So it was your men’s group and the conversations there related to the book the Body Keeps a Score that made you aware of the role of the nervous system and it being an area that you should research further.

Mitch Webb [00:07:03]:
Yeah, and I would. I gotta shout out my mentor, Irene Lyon, she has incredible programs built around the nervous system. I’ve been working with, I’ve been training with her for about a year and her programs, the 21 day program and there’s a 12 week program, smart Body, Smart Mind. It, it, it changed my life. And it, it’s, and it was really, I had the foundation because I’ve been doing this work for so long. So give me some new information and you know, in a self help kind of approach. And I ran with it and eventually, you know, started doing one on one work and working with some really good somatic practitioners, working with the body and as opposed to more brain based stuff. And we can get into that if you want to as well.

Nick Urban [00:07:51]:
Yeah, I think before we get into that, let’s first touch on what even is the nervous system. Because as the name implies, there’s nervous and then system and it’s also responsible for more than just feelings of nervousness. So will you break down what it is and why it’s important to humans?

Mitch Webb [00:08:07]:
Oh yeah. Well, I mean your nervous system controls so much of your bodily functions, the different systems of the body, you know, your hormonal system, your immune system, your metabolic system. And when, when your nervous system is, has capacity and it’s regulated, you’re moving in and out of these states all the time. You know, you may be familiar with like the, the sympathetic bridge and Then with fight or flight energy, that’s going to be symptoms like if it’s dysregulated and stuff stuck, that’s going to be anxiety and fear and you know, maybe your gut’s moving quicker than it should stuff, you know, you’re, you’re running from a threat that you’re unable to respond to whether you’re conscious of it or not. And then, and then we have the parasympathetic state which is more rest and digest. But there’s also, you know, so in the parasympathetic there’s actually two branches. There’s the, the high tone dorsal which is where freeze comes from. There’s low tone dorsal as well.

Mitch Webb [00:09:10]:
That would be for more like digestion and things like that. But the high tune dorsal is where freeze is. That’s kind of like if you can think of the sympathetic as the gas, the high tuned dorsal is the brakes. But it’s a sloppy, unmyelinated way of breaking. It’s kind of like playing possum. We’re hoping that the threat’s going to go away by playing dead. And if you learn that’s the body shutting down. And typically we come into this work saying I feel too much, that’s stuck in sympathetic or I don’t feel anything at all, I’m completely fine, I don’t have trauma.

Mitch Webb [00:09:47]:
That’s somebody that’s typically going to be in a form of freeze. And you can even be in a functional freeze where we feel less and we may not know it. Now there’s also another bridge in the parasympathetic called the ventral. And that’s social engagement. That’s where we want to be. That’s where we’re feeling good, digestion’s moving. I like to say effort feels easy. We would be in our window of tolerance, right? So if you think of stuck, it’s kind of up here.

Mitch Webb [00:10:15]:
Window of tolerance. That’s what we’re creative, we’re feeling good, we’re sleeping, we can manage stress, we can be with stress. And we’re kind of in a mix of these states all the time and we’re moving in and out of them. And that’s what a healthy nervous system does. And an unhealthy nervous system is going to be stuck and that’s how we’re going to know. And so think about all these systems that bring. You got the vagus nerve that comes out of the brain, it goes through the down the spine and connects into all your organs. And so if you have dysregulation that’s where symptoms come from, in my opinion.

Mitch Webb [00:10:49]:
That’s where a lot of the chronic disease that we’re going to see. That’s where I was on a podcast earlier today about diabetes, and we were talking about how, you know, man, I’ve seen people that aren’t eating carbs and their blood sugar is still sky high. And that’s because there’s chronic stress, there’s unprocessed emotion, there’s unresolved trauma and survival stress in the system that hasn’t been. Hasn’t been processed, and we just don’t get caught that. So it makes sense that that would be going on.

Nick Urban [00:11:15]:
Yeah. So the real issue here isn’t necessarily that you’re activating the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, but you get stuck in that. And a lot of people get stuck in one or the other or in the freeze state. But a healthy nervous system can and should dynamically fluctuate through the different states depending on the current circumstances in front of us.

Mitch Webb [00:11:36]:
Yeah, and you nailed it. You know, and I. You know, a big thing that we try to poke back at is this. This idea that your nervous system is supposed to be calm. And that’s like. That’s what healing means. Like, no, dude, life is not calm. But you want to have the capacity to be with the big sensations and intense moments that life offers and not just get stuck, like you were saying, and shut down.

Mitch Webb [00:12:04]:
To be able to be with, let’s say, fear or big activation or a scary situation and not completely shut down afterwards. So are you able to deal with it and then bounce back? We are. Our brains are neuroplastic, and we’re so adaptable. And that kind of is what trauma is, too. It’s just an adaptability to stress. And so we want to be more adaptable. We want to be able to handle more and not shut down or get stuck in a bunch of activation.

Nick Urban [00:12:37]:
Mitch, what parts of the body, what organs and glands and pathways are the most associated with the nervous system?

Mitch Webb [00:12:44]:
Man, I would say all of them. You know, everything’s being controlled by the nervous system. I mean, think about it like this. Like, you can’t build muscle, you can’t digest food, you can’t sleep if you’re running from a tiger, Right? And so if there’s a constant stress of an unprocessed emotion or trauma in our system, whether we’re conscious of it or not, we’re going to be running from that tiger all the time. And so that’s going to affect our digestion, it’s going to affect our sleep, it’s going to affect our immune system, it’s going to cause autoimmune cancer. I mean, you name it. And it’s like, you know, we say, even, I would say aging. You know, we’re sitting here talking about longevity.

Mitch Webb [00:13:26]:
I don’t think we age. I think it’s more. Of course we age, but it’s more. The symptoms of aging are more this accumulation of this bucket of stress that we don’t know how to empty.

Nick Urban [00:13:38]:
If a lot of people aren’t even aware that they have traumas because they’re in the, say, freeze state, or they are just unaware because it’s so far suppressed to keep their biology feeling safe, how do you go about that? Of course, there’s certain biomarker proxies you can look at, like HRVs or HRV, constantly low, you’re perhaps resting heart rate, respiratory rate, these types of things. I mean, also if you’re, if you’re emotionally numb, you don’t feel things, you’re apathetic, that can be another indication. Like, how do you go about even identifying if the nervous system is stuck, so to speak, or if it’s an area that we can work on? Because of course, every organ system can always use work. Every biological process can use work. And how do we know if this is perhaps the highest leverage place for us to focus?

Mitch Webb [00:14:29]:
That’s interesting because the person has to be ready for that, right? Like, I’ll get a similar question that’s like, what if somebody doesn’t want to do this work, Right? So if nothing’s wrong, then why are we going to fix it? Right? So that’s like almost a stage of what is an unconscious unawareness. And that’s like the ignorance is bliss. And when you start to open Pandora’s box with this, maybe you want to go back to that. Ignorance is bliss, because shit gets worse before it gets better a lot of times. And that’s because now we’re paying attention to the body and it’s, and it’s given us a lot. And so, you know, usually when you, you get to the nervous system, you’ve probably exhausted a lot of the things that we practice regularly, right? You’ve probably worked on your diet and optimized that you’re moving, you’re, you’re, maybe you’re throwing in some supplements, you’re thinking about your circadian health, you’re looking at toxins, you’re, you’re doing blood panels, you’re thinking about Meditation, and maybe it’s like, little things. The example that just popped into my head is when I first started trying to meditate. I couldn’t close my eyes.

Mitch Webb [00:15:43]:
That was just too much to be with. And at the time, I was probably 20 years old. And so that would be like, let’s grab a beer after work, or, let’s manage these symptoms with external resources. And so someone really has to see it for themselves. If I’m to start pointing out people’s things, that once I’ve done my work, I can see it everywhere. But if I was to. I’ll give the example of my wife. When I started to do this work, I could see that.

Mitch Webb [00:16:24]:
I could see her pattern showing up as well. And so I was like, you know, I was trying to come from this place of, like, do this with me. Like, let’s grow together. Let’s be emotionally healthy together. And when I brought that up, it offended her because she has seen me, you know, go through 20 years of chronic illness, and she’s like, what’s wrong with me? So I really think about her in this question of how do we identify and how do we know? Because she didn’t know, and that was offensive for me to project my stuff onto her. And I had to have a buddy. And I was like, man, what did I do wrong here? I’m really coming from this good place, I feel like. And he’s like, I’m going to tell you exactly what you told me.

Mitch Webb [00:17:07]:
Nobody does this work until. Until they’re ready. And we’re just. We’re just an example. And we show up and we hold space, and we. We don’t force or push this onto anybody. That doesn’t feel good. So a couple of months go by, and she’s like, hey, I’m going to therapy.

Mitch Webb [00:17:22]:
And I’m like, what? You know? And she’s like, hey, I see how, you know, you used to blow up and storm out of the room if we got an argument. And now you’re able to tell me how you feel. You’re telling me what the emotion is. You’re telling me what you need and what you want. And she’s like, I have a lot of stuff going on in my body, and I feel so overwhelmed by it, I don’t know what it is. And that’s exactly where I started, too. And so it’s a little voice that we start to hear, and it may be from listening to this podcast. Like, man, I got some of this stuff, too.

Mitch Webb [00:17:57]:
You know, it was for me, I did healing work for 20 years and optimized my ass as much as I could. And I never heard about this stuff. And so when I cracked open, the body keeps the score. And I showed up with an intention of I’m going to be vulnerable and I’m going to share what’s going on with me. Well, then my system started to give me more and more and more. And so, man, it’s either like a dark night of the soul, it’s a whisper, it’s a journey, it’s a pattern that comes up in a relationship. It’s, you know, I need X, Y, Z to feel safe or feel good. And that stuff is really hard to recognize because it can be really buried, you know, the people like me, the canary in the coal mine that feels everything.

Mitch Webb [00:18:44]:
I got lucky.

Nick Urban [00:18:46]:
It’s interesting you say that because a lot of people in this day and age would be like, oh, you got unlucky because you feel everything. And the world is a cold, harsh, dark place if you feel everything. Because people are so often unconscious. But I also, I totally see what you’re saying. When you have that level of sensitivity, you’re able to notice the nuances. Kind of like if you have a refined palate, you can appreciate more complex flavors in the meals. And so, like, if you are aware of it and you know how to navigate it, it can be profoundly, I guess, quality of life enhancing. But then again, you have to actually know how to navigate that and understand what’s going on for that to be helpful.

Mitch Webb [00:19:23]:
Yeah, and it’s kind of interesting where that, where does that come from? Where does that really heightened power come from? It comes from childhood and having to predict the people’s behaviors, emotions, and tend to their outburst by shape shifting, by being perfect, by making ourselves small to belong, people pleasing, you know, and that’s what makes me good in this work, is I can see emotion. I can see affect, which is emotion. I can see different expressions, micro expressions that give. Give me a window into what’s going on in the nervous system. And because I’ve met myself at this level, it’s way easier to meet people where they’re at. And that’s a big problem in this world as well, is you can have somebody that goes through medical school, gets a degree, prescribes medicine, has never met themselves there. And that scares me to death. But to kind of go back to where we were saying in the beginning and being able to predict and know and being highly sensitive, you know, ultimately I had to learn how to turn that off a little bit.

Mitch Webb [00:20:38]:
Instead of scanning for what’s wrong and what’s going on. That’s hyper vigilance. That’s constantly looking for a threat. And eventually we have to learn the fear is gone and we can’t add an additional fear to it. That’s kind of the brain retraining part of moving through trauma is realizing that, yeah, you’re in the fire, but the fire can’t burn you. And that’s, you know, that’s a big part of this journey as well. So ultimately for me, I had to learn to turn down that dial and use some of the tools to, to bring awareness into my environment, to, to meet the sensations in my body, to see what they want and get those out, get those balls out of my pool, if you will, through, through somatic, different somatic practices.

Nick Urban [00:21:28]:
Wow, there’s a lot to unpack here. I guess some of the easy ways of noticing if we’re, if our nervous system is an area that could be of really important focus would be if, like you’re snapping, I’m snapping, and I have no idea why I’m all of a sudden like getting triggered by people around me when other people subject to the same thing are not. Like if my nervous, if, if I appear more sensitive, there’s probably a reason underlying that. And often, yeah, it does have to go back. It relates to something that happened earlier in life. And then you can go back and work on that and so that, that, that trigger no longer affects you. But then there’s also other things that we can look at. And because stress is biochemically addictive in the way it changes our neurochemistry and everything, it might feel good to get in that state or the absence of that stress can feel like a withdrawal in some ways.

Nick Urban [00:22:25]:
And so like, if we’re creating conflicts around us constantly, that could also be an indication that our nervous system could use a little extra flexibility in switching states.

Mitch Webb [00:22:35]:
Oh yeah, man. I mean, think about this. We tend to treat, this is the, the big mind about this is we tend to treat ourselves the way we were treated. And what feels normal to us is what we’re going to go towards. Even if that is toxic, abusive and damaging to our body, we’re going to gravitate towards it because that’s what kept us safe, that’s what kept us seen, that’s what we avoided trouble or whatever you want to say. And so it’s really meeting this stuff, meeting these patterns, moving, slowing things way down so that we can actually see it. And if you show up with intention with curiosity, with compassion. And you’re willing to see that and you’re willing to go slow things.

Mitch Webb [00:23:30]:
The system will feel that sense of safety, compassion, and it’ll start giving us some more information.

Nick Urban [00:23:38]:
Yeah. It’s also kind of like the way that when the frog is in the water and the temperature slowly gets turned up, they don’t notice that they’re in boiling water. The same thing applies to our levels of stress, and it might seem normal to us. And then people look at the way we’re operating and behaving and see that. Okay, that’s actually like a very stressed out state, even though it feels normal to us. We mentioned some of the subjective things that people can look around and notice if they’re experiencing. Are there any more, like, quantifiable things? Like, for example, if you had high levels of stress hormones on a blood test, say cortisol, or your heart rate variability is always chronically, really low, perhaps that could be indication to anything for the people who are data enthusiasts to look a little more into.

Mitch Webb [00:24:23]:
Yeah, that’s interesting. I had chronic dysregulation and my HRV scores were through the roof, which is showing what’s called a global high. My sympathetic was pinned. You know, I would constantly give people. I would get the chest strap, do raw data, and I’d see my clients be in the teens, the hundreds, and mine would be over 10,000. And does that mean that that’s good? I don’t know. That means that I’m extremely sympathetic. I also couldn’t sleep.

Mitch Webb [00:24:58]:
I was the guy that had perfect labs and had symptoms that would change with the wind. And when you tried to give me supplements or protocols like, gosh, I could give you a million examples like treat my gut with biocide and a natural herbal antibiotic. Brother, you’re supposed to start with one drop and work your way up to 10, maybe more, and do that daily. I couldn’t take. I had to take one drop, put that in one syringe of water or whatever, and then take a.01 of that because my system was so sensitive. If I did gut treatments or, I mean, gosh, you give me like NAD or mitochondrial boosters, I’m going through the roof because my, my system is already up here. And then later in life when I started to unpack this stuff and bring more safety on board, now that high activation is coming down and I feel what it’s like to be running in fight or flight for my entire life and had fatigue and, and a tough time having energy and man, then you Think you’re going backwards and all this fear comes in. And so it’s, it’s really tricky.

Mitch Webb [00:26:13]:
There’s one thing I want to go back to that you said that I thought was really cool because we’re talking about earlier in life. So when we have this stuff coming up, you know, cbt, DBT says you got to go. You had scour the, through your, your history and figure out, you know, what happened. And I, I think there’s a time and place for understanding your history. I also think less is more there and it can be very re. Traumatizing. I’m more concerned with some of those patterns that allowed us to function in those unsafe environments when we were a kid. And that’s the, the perfection, the people pleasing, the all or nothing, the.

Mitch Webb [00:26:57]:
I don’t know if I said, yeah, perfection, but it’s all these different patterns that kept us safe, but it’s taking us away from our authenticity. And so I want to work with those. Like, what are these patterns that we’re seeing that are not authentic to us and how are they getting in the way of us being that then we don’t have to perform or be something we’re not. And so a lot of that stress can be from just suppressing our authenticity. And how can we meet these patterns? Thank you patterns for getting me this far. But those are the type of things that we can meet instead of comparing ourselves to other people, trying to, I mean, I spent years, a year at least, rehashing the past and that can be really stressful. It’s more like what’s showing up now and how is that affecting you and, and are you willing to meet that and what do you feel in your body when these things happen?

Nick Urban [00:27:53]:
So how do you go about actually meeting that in that case?

Mitch Webb [00:27:56]:
Man, you talk to it like it’s a little kid, you know, think about having symptoms and sensations and you say you got anxiety. What do you want to do with that? What’s your go to? What do you want to do with anxiety? How do you respond anxiety now if you have it or maybe before your nervous system journey.

Nick Urban [00:28:18]:
The anxiety I get isn’t like a chronic low grade anxiety. The anxiety I’ve had previously was more like I have a public speech to give or something. And I feel butterflies and it’s intense. But it was never like really chronic.

Mitch Webb [00:28:34]:
From the biohacking world. And I’m glad that I have these tools again. It’s not a knock. If I had anxiety and I had an upcoming performance where I’m going To be on stage. And it means a lot to me. And I’m getting anxious. Well, I may try to fix it. I may try to make it go away.

Mitch Webb [00:28:53]:
And you know, we got a lot of tools. I got my sauna in here, I got a cold plunge out there. I can go get a hard workout. So that’s overriding and that’s masking, that’s suppressing that activation. Doesn’t go anywhere. We don’t meet it. We’re just telling it to go away. Right.

Mitch Webb [00:29:13]:
So I had to see the agenda behind that, and instead I want to meet it. So when we’re moving away from it, pushing it away, telling it to shut up, you kind of think about a little kid showing up at your door who’s out in the freezing cold and just wants to come in and feel safe. But we’ve been going, no, here’s an ice bath. Go away. Here’s. Here’s me. I would do. I used to say.

Mitch Webb [00:29:41]:
I used to say if you have stress, you got to hit it with more stress. And so that meant workout, fasting, cold exposure, heat supplements to jack myself up. And this is my way of giving myself energy. But really, what am I doing there? I’m running on adrenaline and cortisol, I’m stressing myself out. And instead, can we open that door and welcome that little kid in and say, hey, sit down, let me get you a blanket. What do you need, man? What’s going on? And then that part, if we resist it, it’s going to persist, it’s going to get louder. But if we meet it, it softens, it tells us what it needs. And ultimately, when you can learn to listen to your body and follow your impulse, it’ll tell you what to do.

Mitch Webb [00:30:32]:
And it may be different than your top three favorite biohacking people. And if you’re so hell bent on listening to someone else, you’re never going to heal in this work. You got to learn to listen to your body. And it may be a great way of titrating in to listen to your body, to have all these great resources that you and I both have. But the real power move is to listen to your body in a slow, titrated way and give it what it needs instead of telling it to go away.

Nick Urban [00:31:04]:
Yeah, the way it does, the way I conceptualize it is like if you have a pain in your body that wasn’t there yesterday and all of a sudden it’s really intense, you could take a painkiller and the pain might go away. It probably will go away. But that’s not actually addressing the issue that’s causing the pain to appear in the first place. And by suppressing that pain, you can be actually digging yourself deeper down the dysfunctional rabbit hole. And in that case, you can be doing a lot more damage because you’re ignoring the symptom, which would be akin to, like, ignoring what your. The feedback your body’s giving you and not being curious versus if you say, okay, this is wisdom here, let me take. Take a second and understand what’s going on internally. Okay, this is related to this thing over here.

Nick Urban [00:31:56]:
Got it. Now I understand. And then if you add caffeine or you add a cold plunge or whatever your body already. You’re already working towards. I mean, you already shined a spotlight on it, you’re aware of it, versus just reducing the symptom. Without that, it’s like a. Can be a cleaner, healthier version than introducing substances that may or may not have other consequences. But when we’re actually, like, working on the root of it, at the same time, we’re going to get better outcomes.

Mitch Webb [00:32:25]:
Yeah, man. I mean, think about the industry that you and I love. If you’ve got something going. I don’t. I don’t even like the word going wrong, but if you’ve got a bunch of symptoms, there’s a million people that want to sell you something. And so it’s so easy to get in that pattern of shut up, I got this, I got to work, and it makes sense that we would do that. We have lives that are busy, and the world encourages us to go, go, go, burn it both ends, and slowing down is not an option, you know, and so for me, I would. I tried every diet, you know, I tried every supplement.

Mitch Webb [00:33:06]:
I had everything that you could do. I mean, even I was on testosterone replacement. I still am on testosterone replacement a little bit because I had a lot of head injuries. And I. I tried to. I tried to be perfect with testosterone, and all I. All it left me with was a year of suffering because I would try to change and shift things when it’s like I wanted everything to go away because of testosterone, and I end up just having a bunch of fatigue and high testosterone. So it’s like I wanted that to fix me.

Mitch Webb [00:33:43]:
And that’s just. That’s just an E. That makes sense. That’s what I learned growing up. Right? And so now it’s like that. Can I just be okay with that fatigue or the activation? See that, man, You’ve been working so hard, and now that your body’s feeling safe, of course you’re going to feel that fatigue of running on that treadmill and for your entire life. And so instead of trying to overwhelm it and fix it, you know, it’s, how can I meet this fatigue? And it’s funny, when I quit being afraid of it, I had to work through those things to kind of see it, to be sure, because I didn’t think, I thought something was wrong with me. Instead of, oh, man, you’ve got a sensitive nervous system.

Mitch Webb [00:34:29]:
You’ve been dysregulated your entire life. You’re bringing this regulation and the safety in and your body’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to. And I also like this, this idea of German new medicine. Don’t think you’ve gotten into that at all. Yeah. And it’s like, man, the body is not sick. There’s nothing wrong with the body. It’s either in conflict or it’s recovering from conflict.

Mitch Webb [00:34:55]:
And the symptoms are going to reflect that. And so we don’t need to rush in and save the body. How about building trust that we’re okay, that these symptoms are a healing response and how can I support it with these things instead of overwhelming?

Nick Urban [00:35:13]:
So you mentioned that your nervous system will essentially talk to you through symptoms and that give it the support and instead of just suppressing the symptoms, which are part of the healing response, to just sit with that. How does it actually look in practice? Like, for example, if you were to have a symptom right now and you didn’t want to just suppress this and drive it further into your nervous system, how would you actually listen to that symptom in a productive way?

Mitch Webb [00:35:43]:
That’s a great question, man. For those of us that are type A go getters, it’s really hard to rest, right. So we gotta let, we think resting is like we’re lazy. Right. I remember when I was deep in the bike, I was like Ben Greenfield on steroids, you know, like I got things up my nose and on my head and doing this and, and I’m, I’m doing, I’m multitasking in three different ways. Right. And I, I still like to use a lot of these things, but I’m, I’m really going to slow. Like I’ll give you an example.

Mitch Webb [00:36:20]:
So yesterday we had a call with my mentor Irene. It was, there’s a lot coming up for me on the call because I was getting active ratio that was releasing. So there’s like flashes of heat and sweat. And that’s a great thing. You know, better out than in. And then towards the end of the call, because it was a lot to process, I felt this desire to. To go take a nap. And when I really slowed it down, there’s nothing wrong with going back to a nap.

Mitch Webb [00:36:51]:
I was going to use my new calm. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that. So I was like, oh, I want to do a new calm now. That’s a really great thought. But when I slowed it down, there was urgency, right? And that lets me know there’s a younger part that’s present. And so before I use that new comb as a resource to rest before my next appointment, I’m going to meet that part and say, hey, feels really urgency is going to let me know that it’s not my highest intention or my higher self, my adult brain or my adult nervous system. However you want to say that. Oh, there’s a younger part here.

Mitch Webb [00:37:29]:
And so before I resource, I’m going to meet that. And that just looks like I’m going to lay on the floor. I’m going to feel the surface below me. I’m going to feel it, what’s coming up. I’m going to relax my body into it. I’m going to see if I have tension that I’m holding, maybe in the pelvis, in the jaw, in the chest. What’s going on with my breathing? Am I breathing? Can I let my weight go into that floor that’s supporting me? While noticing my breath, maybe I’m orienting so I’m really paying attention to my surrounding. So I’m not in the past projecting the future or afraid of something that’s coming in the future.

Mitch Webb [00:38:13]:
I’m present right here. I’m using my senses. And I would just ask that part. I’m like, hey, man, feels like things are pretty urgent, what’s going on? And that part said to me yesterday, like something that was really interesting. It was like, I got to do this, right? If I don’t do this right now, then it’s going to get worse. And I was like, that is really interesting. And that makes a lot of sense because at one point we had to predict and prepare for flares in our system. And we had an arsenal of supplements and protocols and hacks that we could do.

Mitch Webb [00:38:50]:
And so that’s what kept me from feeling like shit. And so as I heal, I don’t have the flares anymore. But that, that memory, that of trauma and survival, survival stress, it’s living in my system still. And so instead of going straight to the Thing that’s going to help. It’s like, am I using this to connect or disconnect? And so I’m going to, I’m going to. I could use it to disconnect. I could slay there while I’m meditating and hope that it goes away. Or I can say, hey, what do you need? What’s going on? And I got this great little layup of information and I just tell, hey, that makes sense.

Mitch Webb [00:39:33]:
I totally get that. What do you need from me? It’s like, just be here with me. And what’s, what’s interesting is that I had some emotion move through some grief, some probably some fear, had some heat release. And then I felt more in my body. It didn’t feel so urgent. I still did my resourcing and then it was a wave that just moved out. Right. And so that’s what emotions do.

Mitch Webb [00:39:57]:
That’s what these parts do. They didn’t get attention, they had to shut down. They, they were avoided. And so now they’re in the system and we’re feeling safe and so they’re coming up. And so now we get to, we get to interact with them and we get to meet them and validate them and, and nurture and validate. So then now the system. That’s all I wanted. Just see me, man.

Mitch Webb [00:40:26]:
And so we can imagine that that’s probably what was going on at a younger time in life. And now there goes a ball out of my pool. There goes survival stress out of my pool. Now I’m coming back into that window of tolerance. Now my activation is coming down. Maybe that fatigue was a little bit of freeze and so that’s thawing me out a little bit. And, and so we get to do that over and over and over again. And many of us have tons and tons and tons and tons of activation and shutdown and fatigue and different symptoms in the body.

Mitch Webb [00:40:58]:
And hell yeah, they’re coming out. Let’s clap them on. Let’s encourage them. Better out than in.

Nick Urban [00:41:04]:
You mentioned a sense of urgency around that coming up. Was that around the nap specifically?

Mitch Webb [00:41:09]:
Yeah. And it’s what I learned was urgency tells us that there’s more of a survival based energy behind it. Like do this now. If we don’t do this, we’re gonna. In mine was, you know, you don’t feel like shit, tomorrow you’re gonna die. And that’s, that makes. And so it’s not to go, oh my God, that’s not true. You could easily gaslight that and go, shut up.

Mitch Webb [00:41:31]:
Here’s Your, here’s your. Take some L theanine, take some ketones, have some methylene blue, go do a cold dunk and then get back in there. And that may be good as well. Maybe your system likes that, maybe if that is supported. But can you slow down and see what it wants? Maybe it doesn’t want that ice bath, maybe it doesn’t want to take a nap or lay in the sun. I think we can easily. We know what’s optimal and so we’re just doing things because it’s optimal. Do you really want to get up and go watch the sunrise or is that something that you really freaking enjoy? And so can we follow the healthy impulse instead of shooting ourself, which is shitting on ourself, can we do that without overriding, avoiding, suppressing? And can we just read it? And so there’s just a little step of awareness to pause and meet that sensation, that symptom, whatever it is, instead of just keeping our head down and going to the next thing.

Nick Urban [00:42:40]:
I like what you’re saying is that yes, you can add these resources that are really popular in the health optimization world, but at the same time you’re not feeling this because you have a methylene blue deficiency. It can help, but by taking a second and actually looking at where it’s coming from internally, we’re able to work on the root cause and then our resource is equally as effective, not more effective. Plus the future instances in which this situation comes up are going to have less associated charge with them.

Mitch Webb [00:43:14]:
Yeah, so it’s like I was talking this lady this morning. So I’ve got, let’s say I’ve got metabolic dysfunction. Okay, I can, I can hack it. I can’t. Which I did. You know, I can fast for five days in a row. My blood sugar is going to be lower or I can, you know, I can change, I can do a little bit of change. I can lower my carbohydrate a little bit, I can brew in some activity that I like.

Mitch Webb [00:43:44]:
But if I don’t take away the shitty environment that I hate, going to work every day, that makes me feel like I’m going to die, I would say that’s the root there. That’s what’s causing the slow drip of cortisol and adrenaline that’s flooding our system with blood sugar. And it could be less about the carbs. And it doesn’t have to be all or nothing either way. So how can we balance those two and make better decisions by listening to our body instead of relying on these External resources to tell me what to do.

Nick Urban [00:44:19]:
Yeah, that’s a good point too. The stress connection with every condition has been pretty well elucidated at this point for me. Like even when I was extremely low carb, tracking my total carbs and net carbs, avoiding all sources. And then I noticed when I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor that it looked like I had been eating junk, even though I hadn’t. I’d been eating clean and low carb simply because I was under like a really high level of stress. And lo and behold, as soon as that period of stress ended, my blood Sugar dropped about 30 points. It went back down into the normal ranges. And so even if I had, I mean, I already had optimized my diet in a way that I thought was going to be optimal for blood sugar, metabolic health.

Nick Urban [00:45:02]:
But at the same time, my stress levels, which was, which is intricately linked to the state of my nervous system in my ability to flip flop between parasympathetic and sympathetic, that right there was enough to outweigh my diet and cause like temporary transient, like metabolic dysfunction.

Mitch Webb [00:45:22]:
Oh yeah, man, that’s a classic example that, that was me. I would have great, great blood work and then I put on a CGM and not eat any carbs. And it would be staying at like, not high, but like 9,500, you know, and, and like what’s underneath that is the optimal diet is really my attempt to feel safe by thinking my way to safety and controlling it. So it’s really a fake way of creating safety that actually creates more dysregulation because now I’m playing whack a mole. Because if I don’t do my four hour morning routine and eat my three handfuls of supplement and my, my meat with salt on it, then I’m good. And so it’s, it’s. But, but again, you’re not going to see that until you’re ready. Because it took me 20 years of doing that stuff and controlling and realizing I beat my head up against the wall because these things absolutely helped.

Mitch Webb [00:46:24]:
But it was just coming from the wrong place because that’s what I, that’s all I knew was force, control and overwhelm.

Nick Urban [00:46:34]:
Wow. So it seems to me that a prerequisite to work on the nervous system is to give it ample rejuvenative forces. The anabolic forces of like, building. Whether that’s nutrition, whether that’s hydration, that’s downtime, that’s quiet, that’s sleep, that’s napping. And in order to make the Nervous system bank balance positive. It needs plenty of that and perhaps temporarily less of the energy expending things such as, I mean really intense exercise or even in certain circumstances like the so called hormetic stressors of like sauna and ice bath and those things. And that just by like playing with that balance in the short term, you’ll also be getting plenty of time to process the things that come up. Doesn’t necessarily need to be 30 minute processing after each and every time, but just a moment to let your nervous system know a cue that you have the ability to talk to me, so to speak and to tell me what’s going on and that I’m going to listen to it.

Nick Urban [00:47:40]:
And that alone could potentially alleviate some stress.

Mitch Webb [00:47:44]:
Oh yeah, let me, let me lay down if it’s okay kind of how let me say this. There is no sequential order or like way of doing this. And everybody like you know, people you coach, I’m sure everything’s individual. Well when it comes to this it’s even more individual. But there’s some foundational things that we need to do in kind of a 1, 2, 3 if you will that I’ve seen over doing this for a couple of years because. And if you skip some of the foundational stuff and you don’t build capacity and have a strong foundation, you are going to crumble and you are going to get your ass handed to you by touching these things that aren’t ready to be touched. Because if you’re just going to shake it off or do a breath work class, man, I have seen some wild stuff from these safe containers of people getting together to do these healthy things that really blow someone out because there’s no capacity or foundation for this work. And so the things that you and I really enjoy are the foundation.

Mitch Webb [00:49:02]:
So you need to have a good nutrition. You know, if you’re eating a bunch of junk food and inflamed, that’s gonna, that’s gonna be a problem. We know that having a great diet doesn’t make a huge impact, but if you’ve got a shitty diet, it makes a really big impact. You said your movement, is it appropriate for you? Are you punishing yourself because you think you’re not good enough or are you moving in a way that feels good? And you can use some of the things to track that, that we’re familiar with. Rings and chest straps and HRVs and things like that. Are you getting exposed to toxins every day? You know, are you, are you getting flooded with EMF and you’re not getting sunlight and you’re drinking municipal water. All of these things are. That has to happen.

Mitch Webb [00:49:51]:
Are you getting good sleep? Do you have good relationships? Do you have a safe place that you can be quiet? So assuming all of those are dialed. So that’s where I’m going to meet everyone, where they’re at. I’m not just going to go, hey, let’s start working on your nervous system. It’s no, what are you eating? How are you moving? What’s your day like? What’s your sleep like? What’s your light diet like? You know, what kind of toxin exposure do you have? So that we talk about that and then after that, which I think I’ve been alluding to this analogy the whole time, so forgive me if I didn’t explain it earlier, but it’s really important. Here is this swimming pool. So, you know, we got a swimming pool. We got these. I’m drawing these beach balls in there.

Mitch Webb [00:50:38]:
And so all these beach balls and floats, you know, they’re kind of bouncing around, hitting each other. There’s not a lot of space and flow in that swimming pool. We would say that person probably has a lot of symptoms, a lot of stuck activation and shutdown and fatigue and repressed emotions that are just causing all of these symptoms. Right. And so do I want to go in and start removing those balls? No, I want to do the foundational stuff first so that that system is working clean. Right? And then I want to grow capacity, so I want to build a bigger swimming pool so that now those balls have more room and they work them their way out on their own. Just like going to the gym, day one, you’re not going to deadlift 500 pounds. You’re going to start where you’re at and you’re.

Mitch Webb [00:51:34]:
Or wherever your current capacity is, and you’re going to slowly titrate up from there to do a progressive overload. And it’s going to build strength. And if you get an injury, or let’s just say if you go slow enough, you’re going to prevent that injury. And that injury is not failure. It’s just feedback that we did too much. Okay, we’re going to back out of this. It’s like you tried to do your. You tried to max out too often.

Mitch Webb [00:52:02]:
You revved your system up too much, you know, so we want to have the foundation of the foods, the movement, sunlight, detox, sleep, all water, all that stuff. That’s a lot for most people. Me and you probably. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. You know, and so people have to get educated. They have to also get educated on the nervous system and how the biology of stress works. Because once you can see it, you don’t have to be it with this work. And that can be a lot to open that box that’s never been touched.

Mitch Webb [00:52:38]:
And so, yeah, it’s about building capacity and regulation. And then we start going into the sensations, the emotions, these parts of us that have been disrupted and scattered and suppressed and avoided. And so this just like anything, just like the foundational stuff, it becomes a lifestyle. You cannot show up with this. I’m gonna hack it, I’m gonna fix it. It has to happen right now. No, it’s more like a job. This is just the things that I do.

Mitch Webb [00:53:15]:
It’s just another day. It’s not make or break. It didn’t feel like I have to. It’s just a lifestyle. It’s just like I eat good food, you know, sometimes I take breaks. I’m constantly attuning to myself. And when we can make this a lifestyle and make it about listening to our body, dude, that’s where the magic happens.

Nick Urban [00:53:35]:
Mitch, what would you say are your highest impact and or lowest effort to implement ways of building a larger nervous system pool?

Mitch Webb [00:53:47]:
I think for people starting out especially, they have a lot of activation and it’s hard to sit still or the person that’s shut down and doesn’t feel like they can move a lot. I love slow forms of movement that are. They’re basically like windows into the nervous system that can teach us how to regulate through slow, intentional movement with awareness. Things like qigong where you’re, you’re slowly moving, you’re. You’re noticing the wind moving through your hands, you’re. You’re orienting to nature around you. You got your feet in the ground and you’re feeling that, you’re noticing your breath. That can certainly help.

Mitch Webb [00:54:36]:
And I also love Feldenkrais. Feldenkrais is what we get taught with Irene. And it’s just very slow, intentional movement through awareness. And when I had a ton of activation, it was the thing that, that kind of slowed me down enough to move out of that extreme activation. And that was like a miracle to me. But man, the simplest answer is orienting and really just sitting, doing boring stuff, feeling your butt on the chair and really watching the environment around you with curiosity, by getting excited and interested in things and exploring stuff with your sense, with your smell, with your eyes, taste, feeling it and really bringing us into the moment. Because life is happening now and the more we can be present, the more our system tends to regulate. So, and I’ll say this, when I started to learn about this stuff and I talked to my grandmother and she told me like, yeah, it sounds like what you talk about is what I like to do every morning is I like to get up as the sun’s rising and have a cup of coffee and just watch nature, nature come alive.

Mitch Webb [00:55:53]:
And I’m like, that’s it.

Nick Urban [00:55:55]:
Awesome ideas and tips there. One of my mentors calls what you were mentioning tai chi and qigong forms of working in to just to juxtapose that against working out, where you’re actually building energy in life force instead of expending it, helping the body work more effectively and also at the same time helping like nervous stuck parts of the nervous system and triggers and these types of things come to the surface where then you can decide if you want to work on them. But then again, something as simple as just going outside and watching nature, forest bathing, if you will, is also a great way of helping regulate because of the fractals, the bioactives in the air, the infrared that reflects off of the green foliage around you. So many different benefits you’re getting that all help tune and regulate the nervous system there as well.

Mitch Webb [00:56:47]:
Yeah. And what that reminded me of your data on there love forest bathing in nature. I think so much stress comes from being disconnected to that. But all these things that we love, the biohacking world, when we do this with a nervous system, a nervous system lens, it exponentially increases these things, the benefit of them. I mean a good example of that I think your users went with listeners would love is, you know, just doing that, going for a walk in nature or a walk in the morning. Right. So if I’m going to go for a walk in the morning, maybe I’ve got like some of my bare feet for a little bit or I put a grounding strap on my shoe so I’m connected to the earth. And now instead of just throwing on some headphones and like getting through the movement, can I really look at the beauty of nature? That’s one thing that I’ve noticed since coming out of more survival energy is how freaking beautiful everything is.

Mitch Webb [00:57:47]:
And you got to be able to slow down to see that. I didn’t see that before. Being in survival mode is kind of like having your head like submerged underwater and not knowing you can’t breathe. And so you can look around the world. You can say, man, there’s a bunch of horrible stuff going on and there Is. But life is also really beautiful. And it’s such an opportunity to be here. And, yeah, bad happens.

Mitch Webb [00:58:12]:
That’s life. But. But, like, is that happening right now? I mean, until we feel our feet on the ground. Can we smell the dew in the morning? Can we feel the heat, the sunlight, feel the wind as we’re passing? Take in the beauty. And now you’ve turned that early movement session into something that. I mean, it helps stimulate cortisol and start your melatonin production for the next night. You’re. You’re grounding, and so you’re lowering inflammation, increasing circulation.

Mitch Webb [00:58:50]:
You’re doing the same thing with the walk. You’re burning body fat. You’re lowering cortisol from being in nature. You’re bringing on the parasympathetic because you’re engaging your social engagement, your ventral portion of your parasympathetic nervous system by just being with the trees. I’ll tell my clients, go for a walk and give that activation to the trees. That sounds super hippie dippy, but like, bro, we are nature. You know, like when you’re doing qigong, that came from nature, from looking at the trees and how they move. So when you’re out there doing that, are you trying to get through it? Are you trying to make something go away? Or can you engage with the beauty around you and bring that into your system and help that regulate? Because that’s what you are.

Mitch Webb [00:59:43]:
You are nature. You are water. You are flowing. And all the things that we have in our society are meant to disconnect us from that. The alternative would be, you know, maybe I’m drinking coffee because I need to wake up. I’m skipping my carbs, or I’m skipping breakfast, and I’m going to do a hard workout because that’s going to give me energy, and that’s really adrenaline and cortisol. And then I’m just avoiding myself all the way to lunch, and I wonder why I can’t go to sleep at nighttime.

Nick Urban [01:00:14]:
Yeah, I know. That’s a pretty stark contrast there. I was just working with a client last night, and she was telling me that basically fatigue has set in and she’s no longer who she used to be. She wants to get back to where she was, and she’s asking me, she’s listing all the classic signs of overwork under recovery, nervous system burnout. And she was like, what energizing peptides and nootropics should I use? And I see that so often where it’s like, those things might help you. They might Help prop you up so you can get through difficult or stressful times at the same time. Oh, she’s also asking, like, what information, what websites, what podcast should she tune in to? And it’s like, what’s going to be most impactful for you, based on everything you’ve just shared with me, is actually doing the opposite. It’s reducing all the stuff you’re intaking.

Nick Urban [01:01:07]:
It’s allowing your nervous system, your body, your biology, your mind some quiet, some rest, engaging your senses when you’re outside instead of staring, staring at a phone in front of you or even a book. If, like, it’s a really high intensity, like, stressful book or it’s the news, all these things, you might gain information, which feels good in some ways, but based on everything that you had described, I’m like, save that for the next chapter. That’s right around the corner. But if you actually are able to dig in and engage and relax, which can be very difficult to people who are type A hard chargers, then when you actually go to work on whatever it is that you want to put your life force into, you’re going to be that much more effective.

Mitch Webb [01:01:54]:
Yeah, I mean, that’s a great, That’s a great suggestion. I coach and she’s. He’s lucky to have you. What’s going on there is. When we want to heal, it’s often about. And this is coming from my mentor, Irene. She said this recently. It just really hit me, and I’m sure you appreciate this.

Mitch Webb [01:02:12]:
She says healing is often about less, about doing more and more about doing less. So to the audience, like, what’s one thing that you’re avoiding right now? Right. And so also where that is could give me more, giving me some learning. And it’s certainly a big part of this. But if we’re constantly trying to learn, that’s a form of intellectualization. That is a form of freeze. That is creating safety through our thought, thinking our way to safety. And so there’s a balance with that.

Mitch Webb [01:02:48]:
Like I said, I’m a big fan of education when it comes to this work and do a lot of that. But if you’ve, you know, if you’re just, if it’s just more, more, more, more adding to the plate, more protocols in a, in a system that’s already dysregulated, that’s just going to be pushing the gas and the brakes apart.

Nick Urban [01:03:07]:
Mitch, are there any pernicious or large myths out there, misconceptions around the nervous system? Perhaps the interplay between the nervous system and biohacking or the world of health optimization in general.

Mitch Webb [01:03:20]:
Yeah, man. The thing that comes to mind right away is chasing a big cathartic release versus playing the. The slow, intentional lifestyle approach. You know, that was me. I wanted to, you know, when I used to do. I went. I used to go study with Joe Dispenza and. And I wanted to just get out of my body.

Mitch Webb [01:03:42]:
You know, that makes a lot of sense. My body was really uncomfortable. You know, I wanted this big, massive healing. I wanted somebody to push the button or whatever it is inside of me that. That makes all this go away. And so right there, I’m avoiding it. I’m moving away from it. I.

Mitch Webb [01:04:01]:
I want to shake. I want to. I want to do breath work until I pass it. I remember doing a breath work class. I’ve been certified in multiple of them. And I was talking to the teacher and I said, yeah, I’m afraid that I’m going to pass out if I go any further. And she’s like, pass out. You know, so that’s.

Mitch Webb [01:04:18]:
That’s a major, you know, hyperventilation to create healing. You know, that. That kind of scares me. At one point, it was what I needed, you know, More recently, I went to a breath work class, did 45 minutes of Holotropic breathing and couldn’t go to sleep that night. So it was healthy. It’s something that’s good. It may be something I would recommend, somebody that’s really activated in the beginning, but there becomes a point when maybe it’s too much as well. So chasing these, that’s psychedelics as well.

Mitch Webb [01:04:51]:
I love psychedelics. They changed my life for sure. But that’s when I was chasing some big healing response and then not doing any integration, not doing the work. It’s an avoidance of slowing down and actually meeting ourself. And it’s saying, I gotta get this out right now. And that’s how we’ve done it up until now. So that makes perfect sense. But doing a big cathartic release basically left me tired and overwhelmed for months, weeks and months at a time.

Mitch Webb [01:05:25]:
Because I just wanted the biggest removal of trauma that, that, you know, that I could do. And that’s how I did everything else. So that makes sense. But I had to unlearn that and realize that. We say trauma is like farts, right? If you hold it in, it hurts. If you let it out too quick, it’ll clear a room. So it’s best to go intentional, to go slow, to do little bits at a time. Now, man, I’ve had My butt kicked so many times by having big trauma removals when I wasn’t ready for it.

Mitch Webb [01:06:03]:
But now I’d rather nothing happen, you know. And I like the little things like yawning and maybe feeling some heat or sweating or crying. You know, that’s, that’s, that’s adrenaline and norepinephrine leaving the body. That’s survival stress leaving the body. And you know, you do too many of these things back to back. If you’re doing a bunch of different protocols throughout the week. Yeah, no, you’re tired and feel like crap and not getting any better because you’re doing it. You’re bringing the, the survival pattern that got you sick and you’re trying to fix this issue instead of being with it.

Nick Urban [01:06:42]:
Yeah, those are some great words of wisdom. And I hope anyone tuning in now realizes the importance of the nervous system and working with it as opposed to fighting it to power through and instead getting longer lasting, better results for their overall health well being. Longevity. I’m sure there’s actually a connection between the blue zones and their nervous system state. I haven’t looked into it, but I’m sure it’s there. And same with the other non blue zones. But people who are long lived with high quality of lives probably have something similar and it probably is more significant than whether or not they eat legumes or animal protein or a lot of the focuses by the scientists studying these populations. But Mitch, that would be a whole nother conversation.

Nick Urban [01:07:27]:
If people want to connect with you, to follow you online, to work with you, how do they go about that?

Mitch Webb [01:07:32]:
Yeah man, thank you so much. It’s been a great chat. I really enjoyed it and appreciate the opportunity to share where people could find me. MitchWeb.com is my website. You find me on social at kmitch Webb and I’ve got a little free gift for you for people to get some free resources, nervous system resources like the things we were talking about, following your impulse, orienting, things like that. And they, they can get plugged in to share a lot of podcasts and stuff like that on my website and they can get that on the newsletter that is coming out soon.

Nick Urban [01:08:08]:
And for anyone tuning in that is Mitch Webb with web with two Bs, two Bs. So MitchWeb.com you can, you can find him there. Mitch, thanks for joining me on the podcast today.

Mitch Webb [01:08:16]:
Absolutely man, my pleasure. Duke, I really appreciate you having me on today man.

Nick Urban [01:08:20]:
Thanks for tuning in to high performance longevity. If you got value today, the best way to support the show is to leave a review or share it with someone who’s ready to upgrade their healthspan. You can find all the episodes, show notes and resources [email protected] until next time, stay energized, stay bioharmonized, and be an outlier.