Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

Begin Again with Davina McCall

How I Healed My Nervous System (and changed my life)

29 Jan 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 3.559 Katia

At the moment is a terrible time for fear.

0

Chapter 2: What is the nervous system and why does it matter?

3.579 - 9.993 Katia

This is a time when people can get very dark. What tips can you give to people who are thinking, I feel a bit lost?

0

10.153 - 17.77 Nadia

If it's hysterical, it's historical. I've experienced anxiety and I was so used to being made to feel small.

0

Chapter 3: How can you recognize the signs of an overwhelmed nervous system?

17.75 - 36.428 Nadia

But it made me look at it like, why am I like that? But I realized and literally my whole body went into an orgasm just from letting go. It's completely changed my relationship with my kids and with my husband.

0

Chapter 4: Why is asking for help essential for healing?

36.448 - 50.75 Nadia

And for me, I started my first loving relationship, you know, at 48. How do people get there? The nervous system, it's basically scanning the world, asking, am I safe or am I in danger?

0

50.91 - 60.831 Katia

What are the traits of someone with an unhealthy nervous system? Wow. And then you have come together to author this book called Glimmers.

0

60.911 - 77.741 Nadia

Exactly. A glimmer is the opposite of a trigger. It's about building capacity so you can be stressed and come back to ease. We're going to talk you through a glimmer check-in. It helps relationships, work colleagues, as a parent. Not everyone can go to a therapist.

0

Chapter 5: What is co-regulation and how does it impact relationships?

77.881 - 79.043 Nadia

Instead, you can...

0

81.082 - 108.068 Katia

I've got Nadia and Katya here. And you two have spent your lives basically trying to help heal us all and through self-love and self-care in freedom and in lockdown. Also trying to kind of help us with our nervous systems, which we now know are so imperative, not just to our wellbeing, but also our health.

0

108.048 - 123.913 Katia

um and our relationships i mean everything yeah um but you have come together to author this absolutely glorious book called glimmers i mean you had me at glimmers like i just love that word and

0

124.45 - 149.395 Katia

the kind of picture that it paints um but these are tiny moments to transform your life and thank you so much for both coming here today thank you for having us um so i want to kick off with asking you both what is our nervous system i think actually it's something that we don't a lot of us don't really understand when somebody says regulate your nervous system yeah well but what is it um

0

150.016 - 164.531 Nadia

So it's our internal surveillance system. And it's just, I mean, this is like a really simple version of it. It's very scientific and we're not scientists. So we're going to give you the really simple. Good. I'm not either.

Chapter 6: What are glimmers and how can you spot them?

164.551 - 197.64 Nadia

Yeah. So it's your internal surveillance system and it's basically scanning the world asking, am I safe or am I in danger? And it creates these protecting defense mechanisms that keep us safe throughout our childhood and even before we're born so our nervous system's being built in our mothers and it's being transferred through their mother to our mother to us and so if you're

0

197.789 - 222.2 Nadia

Mother has had a really hard time during birth. You're going to pick up some of that in your nervous system. Our mum lost a baby when her baby was 11 months old and Nadia was conceived like a month later. Or the month that she found out. The month that our sister died, she had conceived me.

0

Chapter 7: How does journaling aid in self-assessment?

222.24 - 236.672 Nadia

And so only through teaching pregnancy yoga and helping women with their babies did I understand that all that grief was in utero. So I was kind of growing in this womb of grief.

0

Chapter 8: What role does vulnerability play in navigating new relationships?

236.652 - 259.06 Nadia

And then I came into the world and just from the experience of other women, I started to see how they behaved with their babies. And imagine if you'd lost one right before. You're just in fear all the time. You don't know whether to pick it up, put it down. And sometimes as an adult, you kind of don't understand, like, where is this grief coming from? Because it's not mine. Yes.

0

259.5 - 280.885 Nadia

You know, and it's someone else's. And you start to explore your nervous system. And it's a real... deep dive into who you are and where all of these patterns come from and the glimmer is this this pause and this little moment of safety where you can pause and make a different decision

0

281.759 - 308.418 Katia

So when you're talking about the nervous system, if you are in, and I know the expression is fight or flight, and I think that's such a good explanation for it because you can almost feel. Yeah. When it feels, yeah, it feels tangible, you're ready. I think what's interesting as well is that as an adult going into work, you know, when I started working in a restaurant, Fight or flight was great.

0

309.3 - 322.158 Katia

It was like, go, go, go. Like, arrive, get on it. Like, so... I felt, like, totally on the kind of... On top of everything. But there was also a sense of burnout.

0

322.778 - 342.595 Nadia

Yeah, it's when you get stuck in it. So fight and, you know, that's the sympathetic nervous system. So you've got these branches of the nervous system. You have the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. And... again, really basic. The sympathetic is your fight, flight, and the parasympathetic is your rest and digest.

342.936 - 353.532 Nadia

So when you're in your sympathetic and your fight and flight, if you can't come down, like the problem is getting stuck. So when we get stuck in it and we're

353.512 - 383.058 Nadia

with the way that society is resting isn't considered valued it's like you don't you're lazy you're this you're that if you rest and we don't do it we feel guilty to rest yeah and so we're on this like low level threat all the time in our nervous systems and that also comes from it's like what we were talking about in the car today like needing to pee and you don't You don't go. You hold it in.

383.078 - 401.355 Nadia

Oh, I see. You hold it in. Yeah, you hold it in. And that's sending your system like, oh, why aren't you going? Or you're hungry, but you decide that, oh, I'll eat later. Again, you're not listening to your system. So it keeps you in this low level threat. And then over time, it builds, it builds, it builds. And we get stuck.

402.466 - 419.175 Katia

So what are the kind of personality traits that someone would say start adopting if they were living with or have an unhealthy nervous system, if they were in the sympathetic?

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.