Introduction

Hello wonderful listener, I'm going to talk about the nervous system and how to regulate your nervous system because very soon, if you are listening at the time of recording, next week I have a regulating nervous system free tutorial which I would love for you to come to, because in that tutorial I am going to talk about all things to do with food supporting your nervous system.

And if you are listening way after the 6th of October 2026, it does not matter because that tutorial will be put up on my website for a very small fee because this is a tutorial you do not want to miss.  I'm just going to talk now about the nervous system.

Okay, wonderful listener. How are you feeling in your nervous system? Our nervous system does an incredible job at looking after us. It can control and coordinates our body, all of our bodily functions that are going on when we are just even sitting and listening to this podcast. The nervous system receives information from our senses.

  when we're feeling hot, that's our nervous system telling us that we're hot or if we feel heat from the stove. We don't touch it because it's going to be hot. It gives us this information of what we can and can't do.

It also processes and interprets information.   that our nervous system is what tells us if we recognize a familiar face or we remember someone's name. It controls our movement and muscle activity, regulates the heartbeat and breathing, and it helps control digestion. It also influences hormones and metabolism, responds to stress and danger. It regulates our sleep and wakefulness. It supports memory, learning, and concentration. It influences mood and emotions.

It communicates between the brain and the rest of the body. It also helps maintain internal balance.  It adjusts our body temperature when you become too hot. That's what I was trying to talk about before, but I got it mixed up, it’s different. It receives information from our senses, that's one thing.

And then it also helps maintain our internal balance, adjusting our body temperature when we become too hot. That's why we sweat, and it allows us to respond and adapt to our environment.  For example, if we're going to move into the shade when we're getting too hot and because the sun is too hot, that's what our nervous system does. And in this very, very fast-paced life that we are finding ourselves living in, or most of us are, our nervous system can easily become dys-regulated. It can be dys-regulated from all sorts of things.

, can you think of why it might be dys-regulated. My use of the phone overstimulates me, dys-regulates me. If you're in a situation where there’s, , you're in fight and flight mode too much, that's also going to cause dys-regulation. Illness and infection, there’s many reasons. Persistent pain, blood glucose fluctuations. If you're having a large fluctuation or you're having inadequate food, then that's going to dys-regulate your nervous system.

Lack of sunlight can also dys-regulate your nervous system and just the ongoing psychological stress from work, or if you're a mum you've got to take your child here and your child doesn't want that and they need dinner and then you're trying to juggle everything and fit everything into a very busy life, that can dys-regulate your nervous system. Then there are some illnesses that also have nervous system dys-regulation as part of them.

In the tutorial that I will be running on the 6th of October 2026 you can get it for a very small fee, after that date.  I'll mention those illnesses. and health conditions that you can have that have a dys-regulated nervous system.

 I think most people have had a dys-regulated nervous system at some point. Sometimes I feel like I'm an elastic band that's going to snap. And sometimes I do snap and mostly it's at the people that I love the most and the closest to me and thankfully they will put me in my place and say, hey, get a grip.

Or another a way that my nervous system is dys-regulated is, and it has been actually as a young child. I have the  neurotransmitter GABA, it's got a big, long name that helps our system calm down and it balances our excitability.

I have a lot of excitability and I always have as a young child my mum and dad had difficulty getting me to sleep. When I went to sleep, I slept really well, but up until then I was too excited and I still have that now. Like if I can feel exhausted by the day but and I eat my dinner and I'm absolutely exhausted by 7:30. And then if I go and do something, like I might go and play the piano or get onto my computer, I get this big surge of energy again and I get this excitability and I could stay up all night.

And that is actually my nervous system. It is  dys-regulated and I need to calm that down and there are things like, last night I decided I wasn't going to go and work because I've been working all day.  I put my feet in a tub of water with some magnesium and I read my book.

I think you've heard, if you've listened to my podcast on ADHD, it's very hard for me to soak my feet in a tub of water unless I'm doing something. It actually sends my regulation, my nervous system feels even more dys-regulated if I'm sitting there not doing anything.  reading my book really calmed me down.

There are other times where I'm actually a very good eater and I never normally miss a meal. But if something stressful happens, like last year when Mak was in hospital because he fell off the ladder. I missed a couple of meals because I was like, I've got to go and do other things for Mak and so on.

 I missed a couple of my own meals. And that really dys-regulated my nervous system. Or another one is when I was drinking coffee. I was fine when I was in my younger years, but as I got older the caffeine really affected my nervous system and sent me into big anxiety.

 There's lots of reasons, lots of symptoms of our nervous system being dys-regulated, some people will get fatigue and very low energy and some people get this very wired but not tired feeling and then it can lead to insomnia. 

In the tutorial I'm going to be talking about the different foods that you can have for regulating your nervous system.  The reason why I'm bringing this in is because, often we talk about regulating our nervous system and people are told go and have a spa and write in your journal and get yourself out of the fight and flight mode.

 I know some people who have a dys-regulated nervous system, they're in dangerous situations. They need to get out of those dangerous situations or seek help to get out of those dangerous situations. And their nervous system is their parasympathetic nervous system, their vagus nerve, and their GABA, which is the neurotransmitter that stops excitability. It's all out of whack. There are things that you can do to get that all back into wack.

And it's often talked about. Restorative yoga, doing somatic experiencing.  sessions, doing craniosacral, they are all amazing. Absolutely amazing. But if we are not looking at food as a source to support the nervous system, then all of these are just going to be band-aids and we want more than band-aids.  

We need to do all of those things, but we also look need to look at the fundamentals and looking at the foods and what our body needs.  Of course,  our body needs fibre, it needs vitamins, it needs minerals, it needs macronutrients and micronutrients, it needs protein, carbohydrate and fats. And we need those essential fatty acids like omega 3s. And we need all of the nutrients. But there are specific ones that really help with the nervous system.

For example, we need glutamate. And glutamate is an amino acid. And we need B6 because without glutamate and B6, our GABA will not be able to build and we will not have that neurotransmitter working well enough to stop us when we're too excitable, and to calm us down.

 Also, there are the short chain fatty acids which are butyrate and the other two that have escaped me, but I'll just look at my notes. Butyrate is the big one that we talk about a lot in nutrition.

And let me find them, where is it? Butyrate, propionate, I'm probably saying it wrong. I don't want to get that wrong. Acetate and propionate, yeah. They are foods that help produce, no, they're not foods, they are fatty acids, but there are foods that help produce those fatty acids and foods that we can get.  I'll just give you an example for butyrate, all of them actually. wWe need fermented foods, they're really good.

Or the resistance starters, like when you cook rice and then you cool the rice down. There are foods that can really support your nervous system and we should be eating these on a daily basis. Folate is another one, iron is another one, magnesium and zinc also.

And we should be eating these on a daily basis to have overall good health but also to really focus on our nervous system health, and it's important that you can look at your recipes and you can add them into your recipes.  For example, in the tutorial I'm going to give you some recipes and we can also look at the recipes that you already have and see how you can add more of these foods in.

 We definitely can make a big difference by adding foods into our diet for our nervous system.  I would love you to come along to the tutorial. Hopefully you're listening to this before the 6th of October 2026.

And if it's after the sixth, or a week after, you'll have access to the recording for free. And then it will be put up on my website for some silly amount, like $11 or something, or it might even be $15, but I'm not sure at this point. But yeah, it's really worth listening to.  Come along to the tutorial. Go to the show notes at https://www.Veets.com.au /59 and you will see the link to sign up for the free tutorial. Otherwise, if it’s after the 13th of October there will be a link in the show notes that links you to the page tutorial.

 I’ll just give you one tip now. Fermented foods. Until you go to the tutorial, start adding fermented foods into your diet. Sauerkraut every day, miso in your soups.  That's a great idea. 

Recipe

You can add tempeh and I'll give you the recipe that I love with tempeh. I just cube it up and I put a little bit of olive oil and tamari and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. Then it crisps up quite a bit and you can run that through anything. You can run that through your rice salads, you can put it through stir-fry, you can put it even into curry if you wanted, if it's a green curry or a Malaysian curry, but  what I love to do with it, and this is what Jessica who teaches us how to make Tempeh does is, she takes it with her when she's going out to eat, because often when you go out to eat as a vegan there isn't enough protein.  She takes it with her and she puts it with her meals. I think it would be a great snack, it could be a good mid-morning snack, to have a few pieces of tempeh.

Fun cooking tip. 

I haven't thought about it but a fun cooking tip, and I’ve probably said it time and time again, but I'm going to say it again, is to, when you're cooking beans or legumes for a recipe, make more,  then you can freeze them.  if you could freeze little packets of chickpeas, for example, that also makes a really nice snack.

And chickpeas is one of those foods; it's a prebiotic and it's super important for regulating the nervous system. 

Oh wonderful. Thank you for listening. If you like listening please like, share and subscribe.

And if you have any questions let me know. I would love, love, love, love, love, love to hear from you.  Hope you have a beautiful day.

Byeeee.