Dr. Andy Galpin

But that's what we're after. In either case, what we're really trying to do is make sure that we're widening the range of our sympathetic and parasympathetic experience rather than sensitizing it. What do I mean by that? It's not about just reducing stress. It's not about just down-regulating. It's the opposite. In fact, maybe not the opposite, but it is complementary.

The analogy I like to give here is imagine driving down a road and you're going down a one-lane highway. It's very likely for you to hit the guardrails on one side of the road when another car comes by because there's just not a lot of room to work. But if you expanded that highway from a one-lane road to a seven-lane road, you're far less likely to hit the guardrails. That's what I mean.

The analogy I like to give here is imagine driving down a road and you're going down a one-lane highway. It's very likely for you to hit the guardrails on one side of the road when another car comes by because there's just not a lot of room to work. But if you expanded that highway from a one-lane road to a seven-lane road, you're far less likely to hit the guardrails. That's what I mean.

When we become overly sensitized to the down regulation or the up regulation, we're driving on a one-lane highway. We want to not only become better drivers, right? I want you to have more control so you're not weaving as much. That alone will help you reduce your likelihood of hitting the wall.

When we become overly sensitized to the down regulation or the up regulation, we're driving on a one-lane highway. We want to not only become better drivers, right? I want you to have more control so you're not weaving as much. That alone will help you reduce your likelihood of hitting the wall.

But mostly what we're after is widening out that lane, giving you seven lanes so that when you do lose a little bit of control, you can feel it, see it, but you're not smashing up against walls. When I teach this, I like to use that highway analogy. That said, if you were to look at the research or talk to clinicians that work in this space,

But mostly what we're after is widening out that lane, giving you seven lanes so that when you do lose a little bit of control, you can feel it, see it, but you're not smashing up against walls. When I teach this, I like to use that highway analogy. That said, if you were to look at the research or talk to clinicians that work in this space,

you're generally going to see it described more as resilience. And what that means is you have the ability to experience high and low levels of changes in your autonomic nervous system without it having a dramatic impact on your lived experience.

you're generally going to see it described more as resilience. And what that means is you have the ability to experience high and low levels of changes in your autonomic nervous system without it having a dramatic impact on your lived experience.

Whether this is your psychology, your happiness, your anxiety, your depression, your perceived stress load, or your actual physiology, your hormone health, your energy, your metabolism, your sleep, your recovery, your physical performance.

Whether this is your psychology, your happiness, your anxiety, your depression, your perceived stress load, or your actual physiology, your hormone health, your energy, your metabolism, your sleep, your recovery, your physical performance.

We want you to all to be able to live a life that is your best, meaning you can handle things that challenge and change your body from a psychological perspective or a physiological perspective. And those things don't have dramatic consequences for you in the short or long term.

We want you to all to be able to live a life that is your best, meaning you can handle things that challenge and change your body from a psychological perspective or a physiological perspective. And those things don't have dramatic consequences for you in the short or long term.

So I feel comfortable in saying that most of us are better off with a more resilient rather than sensitive nervous system. What does that technically and practically look like? I will give you some tangible examples a little bit later.

So I feel comfortable in saying that most of us are better off with a more resilient rather than sensitive nervous system. What does that technically and practically look like? I will give you some tangible examples a little bit later.

But one thing you want to think about here is if you are somebody who feels like you are on constant sympathetic drive, you work out really hard at high intensity, you have a high stress personal life, a high stress place that you live, personal experiences, jobs, so on and so forth, then you might need to just focus on downregulation. That's fine.

But one thing you want to think about here is if you are somebody who feels like you are on constant sympathetic drive, you work out really hard at high intensity, you have a high stress personal life, a high stress place that you live, personal experiences, jobs, so on and so forth, then you might need to just focus on downregulation. That's fine.

We have hundreds of randomized control trials on people only doing down regulation work and it creating tons of positive experiences in their life. We've done this a bunch in my coaching programs. I've done this with my clients and athletes. No question that works there.

We have hundreds of randomized control trials on people only doing down regulation work and it creating tons of positive experiences in their life. We've done this a bunch in my coaching programs. I've done this with my clients and athletes. No question that works there.

But that's a little bit different and not always the best scenario when somebody is having issues on both sides, upregulation and downregulation. Because what can happen is if you're only ever paying attention to that downregulation size, that highway starts to get smaller. All right.