What It Really Means to Regulate Your Nervous System—and How to Start

So yes, nervous system regulation made me the missing piece because you can't out supplement chronic stress signaling. You can't buy a hack your way out of a body that feels unsafe. Healing requires physiological safety. Welcome to Office Hours. This is our dedicated one-on-one space to go deeper, get clear, and explore what truly moves the needle for your health. I'm Dr. Mark Heimman in each week. We're going to pull back the curtain and share the insights, the research, the lessons that don't always make it into our conversations with guests. Because at the end of the day, you are the CEO of your own health, and for many of you, your family's health too. And you might not feel it all the time, but you have far more power and agency than you realize. I'm glad you're here. But this episode is brought to you by Function Health, empowering you to live 100 healthy years, with over 160 lab tests for just $365 a year and use the code Mark 2020 to get $50 off your membership. Today, I want to talk about something that might be the missing link in your health. You clean up your diet, you're taking your supplements, you're trying to sleep more, maybe even relapse and work with practitioners. Or hopefully you've done your labs and go to FunctionHalt.com, make sure you get yours. But maybe you're still mired or exhausted or inflamed or just stuck in your health. And what if your issue isn't your gut, your hormones or your metabolism? What if the real issue is your nervous system? Because here's the truth. Your body cannot heal if it thinks it's under threat. So today, we're going to unpack what nervous system regulation actually means, and what a regulated nervous system looks like, and whether calming your internal stress response might be the key that unlocks healing. This isn't just about stress management, it's about biology. When I was in training, I told her all about this stuff after medical school because that was just the beginning. I took a course with a guy named Herbert Benson and he said that stress either causes or worsens 95% of all illness. That's a big deal and we should pay attention to that. In Functional Medicine, we talk a lot about inflammation, we talk about insulin, we talk about hormones, we talk about toxins, all important. But underneath all of it is one master regulator, your nervous system. So what is your nervous system really? Let's simplify this. You have two main branches of your nervous system, the sympathetic system, which is the fight or flight, and the parasympathetic system, which is the rest that just to repair the relaxation nervous system. A sympathetic system mobilizes you, and it makes your heart rate go up, it raises your blood sugar, it redirects energy away from digestion and primes you for action running from a tiger or getting in a fight. Not bad if you're surviving, it's essential. But the parasympathetic system is where healing happens, it's where digestion happens, where detoxification happens, where hormone regulation happens, where immune repair happens. Another is the vagus nerve, which is a major communication highway between your brain and your body. It connects your brain, your gut, your heart, your lungs, your immune system. So when we talk about nervous system regulation, we're really talking about your body's ability to shift fluidity between activation and recovery. The key word is how to be adaptable here, or adaptability. Regulation doesn't mean being calm all the time, it means you can experience stress and then return to baseline. It's a great book called "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" by Robert Sapolsky, who is one of the key scientists who's helped us understand stress. And the reason Zebras don't get ulcers is because when the lion chases them, they run like hell, freaked out, the lion catches one of the Zebras, then goes about eating it, and all the other Zebras just stop running, and they stand around the lion while they're eating another Zebra, and their nervous system just calm right down. That's why they don't get ulcers. We just stay chronically stressed all the time. Now the critical insight from functional medicine is this, your nervous system sets the tone for every other body system. So what does dysregulation of your nervous system actually look like? Well most people don't realize they're dysregulated because it feels normal. Let me paint you a picture. If you're chronically in sympathetic mode, that's sympathetic nervous system activation, stress response, you might experience a lot of things. You might feel tired, but wired. You might be anxious and irritable. You might have digestive issues, constipation, or diarrhea, or oral valve syndrome. You might have blood sugar swings. You might get panic attacks. You might wake up at two or three in the morning. You might have belly fat that won't budge. Here's a little tip for you. Your nervous system is connected to your fat cells. And this is actually scientifically true. I've written about it in my books. The nervous system integrates fat cells, or out of post-issue. And when you're stressed, it makes them get more fat, it makes you gain more weight. That's not a good thing. It also affects hormone swings, autoimmune players. We know they're just actually regulating your vagus nerve. They can regulate their vagus nerve through very implantable devices now and cure rheumatoid arthritis. There was a study that I wrote about years ago where people who just journaled who had rheumatoid arthritis for 20 minutes a day about their authentic feelings, how did your manic reduction and symptoms better than most medications. Also, chronic stress raises cortisol. It causes then elevations in blood sugar. Because when you're stressed, you want to have a high blood sugar, but not all the time. And then when you have high blood sugar, you become insulin resistant. And when you become insulin resistant, that causes inflammation. And when you have inflammation, that disrupts your hormones even more. It causes gut damage. It causes changes in your immune system. Now you're chasing symptoms. When the upstream driver is your stress signaling response. Now on the other side, some people swing into what we call vagal shutdown. This is the freeze response. What does that look like? Well, fatigue, brain fog, low motivation, depression, feeling numb and disconnected. Many people bounce between both states wired and exhausted at the same time. So tired and wired. It's not weakness. It's just nervous system dysregulation. So what does regulation actually look like? What does it look like to have a regulated nervous system? It's not constantly being calm. It's resilience. Now regulated nervous system means you can handle stress without spiraling. You can digest your food well. You can sleep deeply. Your moods relatively stable. Your heart rate, your ability improves. You recover faster from setbacks. Regulation is about recovery speed. It's about flexibility. It's about metabolic safety. Because your body feels safe. It turns on the repair system. When your body feels threatened, will it prioritize a survival and survival mode means shutting down long-term healing. Okay, so could this be the missing link to healing that we've been looking for? Well, let's connect the dots. If you're trying to heal your gut, but you're chronically stressed, well, your microbiome shifts in response to the stress hormones. So you literally change your microbiome with stress. If you're trying to balance hormones, but cortisol is elevated, it steals from the progesterone and other pathways that regulate your sex hormones. You're trying to lose weight, and you're in constant fight or flight, while your insulin stays high. If you're dealing with auto-immunity, well, stress directly affects the immune signaling and your immune system's health. So yes, nervous system regulation made me the missing piece. Because you can't out supplement chronic stress signaling. You can't bow hack your way out of a body that feels unsafe. How do you regulate your nervous system? Let's make this practice. Number one, stabilize your blood sugar. Unstable blood sugar is interpreted as a threat. And let me tell you how to do that. Start your day with protein. Really important. Balance every meal with protein, healthy fat and fiber. Reduce or I won't even like the word reduce. I would just say never eat ultra-process food. There's no reason to eat twinkies or pop tarts or lunchables or gogards or any of the million things that are in the groceries or shelves that are not actually food. Just eat food. Listen to my Tyson, eat real food. This alone dramatically comes just dressingly. Next, use your breath. One of the fastest ways to shift into the relaxation response to the paracetamidetic mode is your breath. So you can try this. Just inhale through your nose. Then take a second short inhale and then exhale fully and slowly through your mouth. That long exhale activates your nervous system. I just did not feel relaxed already. Two minutes can change your state. Literally just try even five breaths can change your state. Just do five deep breaths profound and rapid change. You always have that accessible to you. Okay, so let's say you clean up your diet and you start exercising. You even cut alcohol and you go to sleep earlier. But the scale isn't moving. I want you to know this is bigger than low power. It could be your insulin. Yes, your glucose can still look fine and you can still be walking around with very elevated insulin. It's the fat storage hormone. When it stays high your body gets one message. Hold on to that weight and no amount of discipline can override that signal. An insulin doesn't act alone. When you pair it with higher levels of something called high sensitivity CRP a marker for inflammation, this stubborn weight is no longer a mystery. It becomes predictable. It's time to stop guessing. Check your health with function. Function gives you access to over 160 lab tests every year, including advanced type of protein testing. Go to functionhealth.com/mark and if you're one of the first 1000 people this week, use the code mark 2026 for a $50 credit toward your $365 year membership. That's functionhealth.com/mark and use the code mark 2026 today. Next protein. is build muscle. Muscle isn't just about looking good or aesthetics. It improves insulin sensitivity and increases mitochondrial density, but it also enhances stress resellion. So strength training is one of the most powerful nervous system stabilizer we have because muscle is your metabolic armor. Next, protect your sleep because when you're sleep is not good, you're in trouble. Sleep is when your body and your nervous system recalibrates. So how do you fix your sleep? Get morning light exposure. Sleep at a consistent bedtime. Not always ideal, but can. Reduce your evening stimulation. So don't just stimulate anything is right before bed. Avoid blood sugar crashes before bed because meaning don't eat a lot of sugar and starch at dinner. If you don't sleep, you can't regulate. So make sure you prioritize sleep. Next, you want to create safety cues. The nervous system responds more to cues of safety than to positive thinking. So what is that? Nature, connection, community, touch, laughter, time offline, which I love. Your biology is always scanning for safety. Just give it those signals. They're available to you. All right. What are the myths about nervous system regulation when it comes to nervous system function? Is nervous system regulation just meditation? No. It's metabolic, it's relational, it's physiological. If I'm productive and high achieving, I must be regulated. Not necessarily. I'm an example of that. You may be as you're running on adrenaline, which I did for many years. Can I by the hack my way out of stress? Well, not of your lifestyle stays chaotic. If I calm down or lose my edge, well, actually regulation improves focus, performance, and clarity. So you do better. So here's the bottom line. A regulated nervous system is not a luxury. It's the foundation of healing. If you feel stuck, whether it's weight gain, hormone dysfunction, gut issues, inflammation, just ask yourself, does my body feel safe? Because healing happens in safety. So start small. Balance your breakfast. Lift something heavy. Breathe for two minutes. Every morning I wake up and I do a breath work practice for five minutes. It's amazing. I love studying my day like that. Go outside. Get some fresh air. Get some sunlight. Prioritize your sleep. You don't heal by fighting with your body. You heal by teaching it that it's safe to repair. And when you do that, everything changes. Now, if you want to go deeper, I want you to keep an eye out for my upcoming episode on my podcast with Dr. Scott Shere. We're exploring the emerging theories and the practical tools for regulating nervous system and unlocking the bodies in the capacity. Take a listen to this short clip from our conversation. Today, I really want to like have people who are listening to understand, you know, what is going on with their energy? What is going on with stress? What are the psychological and the physiological causes of stress? How do we start kind of navigating this for me therapeutic perspective? Because like, we all want out of this. I as soon as like, yeah, I made this simple that experimental doom and I want the hell out of this thing. So what is it? Explain to us unpack it for us. Well, thanks for getting for having me, Mark. And you know, what I what I like to just describe here is it's not a diagnosis for people. This is more of a pattern. As you mentioned, it's an age old pattern. But I realized recently that it was really a significant discovery for me to understand that it's a spiral and it's a loop. You have sympathetic activation, which is your fight or fight your nervous system being activated. You have mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondral dysfunction might a condra as all your listeners know is a part of ourselves that make energy. The combination of sympathetic activation mitochondrial dysfunction is a loop. And what happens here is that this loop can either start with mitochondrial dysfunction directly. That's what I call bottom up or it can start with sympathetic activation from outside stressors say it's your job, your relationship, you have a snoring partner that is snoring and you can't get to sleep at night. Outside stressors or even like worse things like trauma or things that happen, you're younger that have maintained you in this place where you can't stay safe. Either way, whether it starts with mitochondrial dysfunction directly or it starts with sympathetic activation externally or for most people it's both. And then it's something that just makes you fall off a cliff. It could be. Let me apologize for a sec. Yes, define sympathetic activation. Just people are like, what is that? And define like a little bit better mitochondria because these are central to your thesis. For sure. So let's get our terms right because I think a few are like, there was, there'll be just be talking doctors. I'm sympathetic, you know, I'm not sympathetic, no, it's not that. The sympathetic nervous system. So sympathetic is your fight or flight part of your nervous system. So it's your. it's running away from the proverbial saber-toothed tiger as we somehow always refer to. I don't know why. But you're getting chased by something. But unfortunately, we're getting chased all the time in modern sense. Yeah. Whether it's with our phones that are actively in our faces all the time and doom scrolling at three o'clock in the morning, going, why is this the way it is? Or it's outside things like your job, your relationship. But we're not. We don't reward people, we're resting, relaxing. So the sympathetic nervous system is part of your autonomic nervous system. You have your sympathetic branch, which is your activation, fight or flight, and you have your parasympathetic, which is your rest, digest, detoxify and heal. But modern society doesn't reward that side, right? Rewards the hustle. I mean, in medical school, my friends and I had shared said sleep is for quitters. Not surprisingly. I grew up in New York. Surgeons don't have lunch. That was ours. There you go. Same kind of thing. You hustle, right? You go and you grind. That's what we reward. And then unfortunately, that's how society has created this stress externally for us that we have to perform. We have to have more meetings. We have to do more, do more, do more all the time. And so instead of just running away from the saber-toothed tiger and then hanging out the rest of the day because hopefully we lived. Maybe we probably didn't. But in some case, we did, right? Then you would have the time to relax because your nervous system would be activated and then it'd be shut off. But that's not how modern society works anymore. As you know, we're constantly stressed, constantly on pressure, constantly on meetings. And that's that sympathetic activation. And most of us kind of think we thrive in that environment. And we can for a little while. But the problem is that when you're sympathetic all the time, you're releasing hormones like cortisol, your neurotransmitters like neuropinephyron and epinephrine. And adrenaline. Yes. Nourigenin and adrenaline that are stimulating the whole system to work harder. Because if you're in that sympathetic nervous system activation all the time, I call it sympathetic overdrive, you're just shoving all those neurotransmitters and hormones out all the time. And that causes deterioration in immune system function, in hormone function, and in your mitochondria itself. So to define mitochondria, which we can do now, the mitochondria are part of the cell that helps make energy. When I was in high school, my daughter is in ninth grade. She learned she's got the basic cell. She just learned she's like, Dad, check out the basic cell. It's got a nucleus. It's got cytoplasm. It's got Golgi bodies. And it's got this one little cool organelle called the mitochondria. I'm like, huh, this is what I learned when I was probably that age two. You learned that cell has one mitochondria. But that is far from the case. Some cells in our body have thousands of mitochondria per cell. And some cells actually there's one human cell that has zero. And that's the red blood cell. Yeah, they're both right. But most mitochondria per cell are in our reproductive organs. Eggs, oocytes, sperm are the number one. You guys swim, prenatal energy to swim. Yeah. And the eggs have more though. Women have to create and make the baby. And so they have more. But just behind that is your brain, your heart, your liver, your musculoskeletal tissue. So detox, everybody is hugely eugenically intensive. Liver is. It will don't realize that. If you need it, if you're going to be able to detox, you have to have a huge amount of mitochondrial energy. So you remember, you are not powerless in this process. You have far more influence over your biology than you've been told when you learn to work with your nervous system. Instead of against it, you take back control of your health. And that's where real transformation begins. Thanks for joining me for office hours. I love diving into these topics with you. Remember, you are the CEO of your own health. And every choice you make can move you closer to healing and vitality. I want to keep these episodes as relevant and useful as possible. So tell me, what do you want to explore next? What questions are you wrestling with? What breakthroughs are you chasing? Share your ideas in the comments on social media or through the link in the show. Nose. I'm listening. Until next time, keep taking charge, keep asking questions and keep showing up for your health. If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Heimann. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the Dr. Heimann Show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Heimann for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Heimann Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health, where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions, neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. 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