5 Signs Your Nervous System Is Healing, Even If You Feel Worse First

Healing your nervous system does not always feel peaceful at first. In this solo episode of Live Like a Girl, Dr. Mindy explains why fatigue, crying, irritability, digestive changes, and even discomfort with stillness can sometimes show up as your nervous system begins moving out of a chronically activated state. She breaks down the relationship between heart rate variability, vagal tone, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and why learning to move more easily between stress and recovery may be one of the most important skills you can build for your health. Resources Mentioned FREE Nervous System Questionnaire https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/nervous-system-reset?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=nervous_system_resetQualia Magnesium https://www.qualialife.com/shop?rfsn=5237174.cd3714Reset Academy https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/reset-academy?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=reset-academyFind a Fast Like a Girl Coach https://www.drmindypelz.com/find-a-coach In this episode you'll learn: Why increased fatigue may appear when your body finally begins restingWhy crying and irritability can surface during nervous system healingHow your digestion reflects your nervous system stateWhy stillness can feel unsafe when your body is accustomed to constant activationHow 4-7-8 breathing can support the parasympathetic nervous systemWhy nature can be one of the simplest nervous system toolsHow magnesium and sleep routines may helpWhy humming, gargling, and chanting can support vagal toneWhen getting support from a practitioner or community may be helpful For more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page: drmindypelz.com/ep360 https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep360 Connect with Dr. Mindy: Join Reset Academy https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/reset-academy?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=reset-academyWatch the episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrMindyPelz?sub_confirmation=1Follow Dr. Mindy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr.mindypelz/Subscribe to Dr. Mindy’s newsletter https://www.drmindypelz.com/ Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, fasting routine, or lifestyle.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mindy Pelz?

  I want to invite you to something that I am crazy excited about. This October 3rd and 4th, I'll be joining an incredible group of speakers at Empower Your Life, a live event at the Alex Theater in Glendale, California. We'll spend two days exploring health, personal growth, mindset, and practical tools to help you create meaningful change in your life. I'll be there alongside speakers like Suzy Orman, Jim Quick, Jamie Kern Lima, Brendan Bouchard, Nancy Levin, and many more. It's going to be an amazing weekend filled with learning, connection, and inspiration.

• 0:44Mindy Pelz?

  I'd love to see you there. I'd also love to give you a big hug. And you can grab your VIP or general admission ticket by visiting hayhouse.com/DrMindy. That's hayhouse.com/DrMindy. I can't wait to see you. Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in. Let's dive in.

• 1:27Mindy Pelz?

  A 2025 review in the frontiers of cardiovascular medicine highlighted a meta-analysis over 38,000 people. That's a lot of people to study. And what they found is that there's one predictor of overload of stress, and it is called heart rate variability. And if you understand this one measurement and how it can show you whether your nervous system is balanced, whether you're able to handle the stress load that maybe your life

• 2:07Mindy Pelz?

  is providing you, whether you are setting yourself up for a heart attack, whether it's your nervous system that has you so locked that you can't lose weight, that this one measurement tells you all the information you need to know to answer those questions. Heart rate variability is a sign of vagus nerve tone. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in your body, and it is the number one driver of the part of your nervous system that helps you relax, called your parasympathetic nervous system.

• 2:52Mindy Pelz?

  And when your nervous system is actually stuck in fight or flight, if it's stuck in freeze mode, and your stress is so over the top, this one measurement, HRV, will actually take a nosedive. And what it is signaling is that you are not able to switch from a parasympathetic nervous system state into a sympathetic nervous system state. You are not able to switch back and forth, that you are actually locked into a fight or flight nervous system.

• 3:35Mindy Pelz?

  And what I want to show you on this video is learning how to go from back into a balanced nervous system by looking at your HRV, and we'll talk about it here in a moment, is one of the greatest skills you can learn for your health. It is one of the greatest skills you can learn for losing weight. It is one of the greatest skills you can learn for balancing your menopause symptoms. Knowing how to go from rest and digest to fight or flight and move in and out of that is the key to health. But here's what I want you to know.

• 4:16Mindy Pelz?

  When you come out of a fight or flight situation, what's happening is it's like, I call it like a thawing out, where all of a sudden you are trying to relax, you're dipping into more relaxed state, you actually will feel worse, which is why so many people don't train their parasympathetic, why so many people have these horrible heart rate variabilities, why so many people have chronic disease and weight loss resistance because of the overstimulation of their stress.

• 4:57Mindy Pelz?

  And I'm here to tell you that I am one of those people, and I have been working on balancing my nervous system consciously now for a year and a half. And in this video, what I'm going to show you is that there are clear signs that your nervous system is starting to get itself balanced again, but you may not notice it because this one HRV is a tough measurement. It's hard to be able to understand it. You can get an Oura ring, you can get a Whoop band, these are all really great, but I've come up with something better, and it's a free gift to you. It's called a nervous system questionnaire. I'll leave the link here in the notes.

• 5:42Mindy Pelz?

  You can put NSQ in your comments, or my team will send it to you. We got QR codes. I want you to have it. It is free, and you can take a quiz that will tell you where your nervous system is at and what you do to get out, get your nervous system back into a balanced state. But on this video, we're going to show you the five signs of why your nervous system is healing and you feel horrible. And don't worry, I want you to feel great, but I want you to start to learn to rehab your nervous system because it'll change everything in your life. So here we go. First, let's start with the five signs of what's actually happening.

• 6:25Mindy Pelz?

  We know that your nervous system has a rest mode and it has a go mode. This is called parasympathetic. This is called sympathetic. If you stay in go mode too long, you go into freeze mode. And freeze mode is where we withdraw, is where we numb ourselves. That was Stephen Porges's work with the polyvagal theory. And so one of the first signs, most of us, when you take the nervous system questionnaire, I think most of you are going to find you're in what we call a yellow, which means you are activated. Your nervous system still thinks it is running from a threat. That is yellow.

• 7:08Mindy Pelz?

  And when you are in red, your nervous system collapses. And when you are in a green nervous system state, you can move in and out of stress really well. But what we've noticed here in YouTube, what I noticed in my clinic, what we see in our Reset Academy, is when people start to finally heal their nervous system, the sign, number one sign, is you may be more tired than ever. And honestly, that could look like wired and tired. Anybody else experience wired and tired, where you're sitting on the couch and you're just exhausted, and you're like, oh my God, I just feel so horrible, but your nervous system's like, get up and go, go do something. Put in the comments if that's you.

• 7:52Mindy Pelz?

  This 25 review described HR recovery, HRV recovery, after a stressor as the autonomic system's ability to return back to baseline. So you end up having this stressed out moment, and all of a sudden you rest, and you're exhausted because it took a lot of energy to stay in fight or flight. So if suddenly you need more sleep than you used to, that's not laziness. It's your body finally being able to rest. So if you have been trying to overcome burnout, if you're trying to manage your stress differently and you're exhausted, congratulations, your nervous system thanks you.

• 8:37Mindy Pelz?

  Stay with it because you won't always be like that. Sign number two, you cry more often. Okay, I mean, in our culture, crying is like a sign of weakness. But do you know that when you cry, you actually cortisol comes out of your tears? It is a mechanism inside your brilliant body that is making sure that the cortisol doesn't just build, build, build, build, build, but that it actually starts to come out of you. Crying is a good thing. Let's normalize crying, because crying is a way for us to start to release and get out of the activated yellow or the totally frozen and stuck red.

• 9:19Mindy Pelz?

  So there was brain scan research reviewed in this article I'm talking about that found people with a higher resting heart rate variability showed stronger connections between the amygdala, that part of your brain, the limbic system that is always looking out to make sure you're safe, and the prefrontal cortex, the part of you that regulates your emotions. And what they found is that a stuck nervous system, this one that's in red, keeps emotions locked down, doesn't express it.

• 9:57Mindy Pelz?

  Because it feels like if I express it, something more difficult will happen to me. So when your nervous system is feeling less safe, you are less emotional. But as vagal tone improves, as HRV improves, as you start to strengthen this parasympathetic nervous system and you come out of these locked states, you have a lot of stored emotion inside of you. More tears are going to come. I did a great interview that a lot of you are enjoying here on YouTube with Dr. Frank Anderson, where he talked about how trauma from childhood,

• 10:40Mindy Pelz?

  from years ago, gets locked in our nervous systems and in our body and prevents us from losing weight and contributes to really crazy menopause symptoms. So let it out, cry away, get those emotions out, because that's how you start to balance your nervous system. Sign number three, you're healing, but it doesn't feel so good. But your nervous system's trying to heal as you get more irritable or you snap more than you normally do. So in the stress tests done in the study, they looked at HRV dropping sharply when a stressor hits. That's what we would expect, your HRV would drop. And then it rises as your body recovers.

• 11:23Mindy Pelz?

  And that rebound is a sign of nervous system resetting itself. It is a very good thing. So you go into a stressor and all of a sudden you're like game on and you're able to like do whatever you need to do, but then you can recover from it. Those of you that don't recover from it, you get irritable. So if you're in a constant state of irritability all day long, it tells you you're in a yellow state or a red state. You're not in this green balanced nervous system because your nervous system can't recover from the stressors. It's staying locked in that state.

• 12:03Mindy Pelz?

  So irritability is good because you will lash out and then you relax. One of the things I like to look at is I like to look at how quickly I recover from a stressor. Like I mentioned, for a year and a half, I have been really training my nervous system. It got so locked up from all the books I've written, all the book launches I've done, all the videos I've done here on YouTube, all the travel I've done doing interviews. My nervous system was so agitated that I withdrew. I became numb. I became almost like a wall. And as I've been healing, I cry more, I'm irritable more.

• 12:46Mindy Pelz?

  But what happens is I recover quicker. So I have an experience with stress and then I can let go of that. That is a healthy nervous system. Okay, sign number four, your nervous system is actually healing is your digestion changes. So rest and digest is what the parasympathetic nervous system looks like. People who are constipated are often in a yellow activated state. People who maybe have diarrhea are oftentimes in a nervous system state that is moving things through them too quickly. So when you get that balance back and the nervous system starts to heal,

• 13:31Mindy Pelz?

  you might get bloated, you might have new hunger cues. You might notice that your digestive system is changing. You might one day be constipated, the next day, maybe you have looser stools. But your digestion tells you how balanced that nervous system is. Constipation is definitely a sign of a locked state. Okay, sign number five. This one I've experienced so much. If this is you, please put it in the comments so I at least know I'm not alone. Stillness feels uncomfortable. It feels like torture. Anybody else have that experience? So when a system is wired for alert,

• 14:16Mindy Pelz?

  when it is constantly scanning to make sure a threat doesn't get it, then when it's quiet, it screams at you louder. And it says, oh my God, you're not scanning for safety. Get up, go. So when you sit, you feel horrible. So they call it signal complexity. And it is the nervous system's ability to handle calm in unstructured moments. I am going through this right now. When I slow down, my nervous system yells at me. This is one of the reasons those of you who've been following me for a while or you've been in my Reset Academy,

• 14:59Mindy Pelz?

  I am so in love with my new sport surfing. Because I can go out into the water without any electronics. I have to think about the waves to stay alive. I can't be thinking about stress. I had to find another way to calm because sitting on the couch felt torturous. Because all my nervous system wanted to do is tell me I wasn't scanning for safety. So again, if that's you, understand that's a sign the nervous system is trying to balance itself. Get that nervous system questionnaire so that you can see where you're at. So here's what I don't want you to do

• 15:42Mindy Pelz?

  if you are trying to heal a nervous system. If you have any of those symptoms I just said, don't tell yourself you're getting worse. You may actually be getting better. Second, if you are in a maxed nervous system, please don't push through with caffeine or push harder into a fast or push harder at your workouts. If that's not helping you, if you're not feeling calmer after those, get off the more train. Number three, stop suppressing irritability. Stop suppressing tears. Those of you that are going through menopause, go watch the video I did with Leanne Rimes where she talks about the rage she's feeling. It's great that she has rage. If you're angry, express it.

• 16:26Mindy Pelz?

  If you're sad, express it. Stop having that I'm going to stay professional phase. You need to be able to let it out because that's how we start to balance the nervous system. The fourth trick I don't want you to do is restricting food the moment your digestion changes. If you are having digestive problems, let me show you how you can balance your nervous system so that you can start to be able to balance your digestive system. So here's what you do. Step number one, we're going to start letting fatigue win. If you feel exhausted, go with it. Even if you're like, I'm going to sit on the couch. This feels horrible.

• 17:09Mindy Pelz?

  My nervous system is screaming at me. Just give your body a moment and let it do it. If that is difficult to do, then when you're sitting, try breath work. My favorite form of breathing is called four, seven, eight breathing, where you inhale through your nose for four, you hold it for a count of seven, and you exhale for a count of eight. The research is showing that the longer exhale is pivotal for training this parasympathetic nervous system, for moving you out of these yellow and red states and into a green state. The longer exhale is one of the simplest ways

• 17:53Mindy Pelz?

  to send a cue to your body that it can relax. It actually activates stress receptors, these receptor sites in the vagus nerve that slow down your heart rate. And they start to nudge you towards a more balanced nervous system. Let's talk about cod liver oil for a second. And I know what you're thinking, cod liver oil, really? Dr. Mindy, that sounds like something my grandmother took. But hang with me here for a moment because this is one of those old school remedies that modern science keeps proving right. Cod liver oil is one of nature's most concentrated sources of omega-3 fatty acids.

• 18:39Mindy Pelz?

  Also, it's high in vitamin A and vitamin D, all in a form your body can actually recognize and use. This is such a powerful combination that is profoundly anti-inflammatory. It's protective to your brain. It supports your hormones. And it does something I care really deeply about, which is it starts to repair and nourish your gut lining at a deep cellular level. This is something I personally take every single day. And one of the things that I have noticed the most is what it's done for my skin. I recommend it to women who are navigating hormonal shifts, dealing with chronic inflammation,

• 19:22Mindy Pelz?

  or simply trusting to protect their long-term health. So Standard Process is the company I deeply align with and trust. It's a whole food-based, clean company and it has held the standard of quality for decades. And I expect only the best from Standard Process. They are definitely one of the top supplement companies in the world. So if you want to try it, check it out. You can learn more and get some for yourself at drmindypells.standarprocess.com. That's drmindypells.standarprocess.com. Enjoy. Step number two I want you to apply

• 20:07Mindy Pelz?

  is I want you to let yourself feel whatever is coming in.

• 20:14Mindy Pelz?

  Get it out. If you're mad, get it out. If you're sad, get it out. Stop holding it inside. And if you can't do that around other people, get out into nature because what we know is that time in nature is one of the simplest ways to support the release of cortisol, the release of sympathetic energy, and it calms the whole system. Why? Because nature is never in a state of fight or flight. Nature lives in a state of parasympathetic. Lie on the ground in your backyard, go for a walk at the beach, go hug a tree, get into a park.

• 20:57Mindy Pelz?

  Anything that puts you into the frequency of nature is going to start to train your nervous system that it is safe. Step number three is that I want you to start rebuilding sleep. And this might look like increasing your mineral support. So there is an interesting connection between cortisol, too much cortisol, and too little magnesium. So the first thing I want you to do in rebuilding your sleep is I want you to try a magnesium supplement. My favorite is Qualia. It's one I use every night. I'll leave a link in the notes so you can access

• 21:38Mindy Pelz?

  that and get codes. And the interesting thing about magnesium is that when you're stressed, you deplete magnesium. And when your magnesium is depleted, you can't sleep. And when you can't sleep, you get stressed. And all of a sudden, you're in this vicious loop. So when we go to rebuild sleep, magnesium is a key part of it. Another key part of rebuilding sleep in order, through the lens of the nervous system, is to say, tell your nervous system, "It's nine o'clock right now. We're going to go to bed." And we get up at six o'clock, whatever yours is. But that definite rhythm of I go to bed at the same time, and I get up at the same time,

• 22:24Mindy Pelz?

  that kind of routine is calming to your nervous system. So let's make sure that you are sending a signal to your nervous system by laying down at nine o'clock and getting up at six, whatever your amount is. One trick that I've done is if nine o'clock shows up and I'm not tired, is I get into bed anyways because I'm training my nervous system. We are balanced now. I'm telling it. We're balanced. We stop, you don't have to scan. We're balanced. We're fine. So it's a message to the nervous system.

• 23:02Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, step number four is give your irritability a practice ground, like a practice place. You're going to practice your irritability. Let's just make it that easy. So instead of suppressing your snappiness, you want to express the snappiness. But that might not mean you're going to yell at somebody. It can be humming. It can be gargling. It can be those breath holds. Hold your breath for a count of four and then exhale for eight. You want, when you are irritable, to have practice tools. I can tell you what I've started doing is I hum. When I'm in bed and I can feel my nervous system doesn't want to let go, I just hum. I'm like,

• 23:47Mindy Pelz?

  "Mmm, mmm." I just start to go into a hum state and it really relaxes me. So if you haven't tried humming, I highly, highly recommend it. But instead of lashing out at somebody, now you could go talk to a friend and talk about your problems if that feels good, or why you're irritable, or a therapist is great. But in the moment, if you can't yell at your boss, you can't yell at your kids, you can't yell at your spouse, try humming, gargling, chanting, breathing. Those are practice ground for your nervous system to give an outlet. And step number five is get some support.

• 24:33Mindy Pelz?

  We've got to get you mastering stillness. We've got to get you into that place where you can sit and your body can go, "I'm safe. I'm okay." And so if the quiet feels unbearable, it's not a personal flaw. It's your nervous system has never been given the opportunity to sit and be safe. So you might try like a somatic therapist, or a nervous system informed practitioner, or a community. Come on into our Reset Academy. You can put Reset Academy in the comments and my team will send you a link. We have thousands of women over there supporting each other. We have calls, meditation calls and gatherings.

• 25:14Mindy Pelz?

  And we created this incredible supportive environment where you can not only become insulin sensitive again, but you can regulate your nervous system. So you don't have to go at this alone. It's oftentimes, it's more beneficial to get around a like-minded community who supports you and is cheering you on in your nervous system healing. Here are the five things you can do immediately. Start with your breath. Right after this video, you can do four in, hold for seven, eight out. Second thing, make sure you're getting outside, getting into nature, you're getting light.

• 25:56Mindy Pelz?

  So right now, get off your phones. After you watch this, go for a walk. And get out and start walking around, get into nature, get into light, all of that can be really calming to your nervous system. Number three, create a lights-out time. Remember how your kids had a bedtime? Put yourself on a bedtime. And what did you do for your kids? You read them books, you gave them a bath, you wind them down so that they can get to sleep. Number four is you're going to start to attach or grab on to a vagal tone exercise, like humming, gargling, chanting.

• 26:38Mindy Pelz?

  And you can attach this to teeth brush, where you brush your teeth, when you get ready for bed. Walk around chanting, listen to chanting music. When you go to brush your teeth, gargle. Gargling is great for stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. And number five is you want to say one thing out loud to a person. So maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your best friend, maybe it's your therapist. Like go in and tell somebody, "My nervous system is healing and it feels like crap right now. I feel horrible." Well, that's because you're moving out of go mode. And so all of a sudden, you're in this trying to relax, but you can't because your nervous

• 27:22Mindy Pelz?

  system was so trained to be in fight or flight and to watch safety constantly. But I can tell you as one person who has been really working on her nervous system, really working to improve her vagal tone, this works. And when you first do it, you will feel horrible. This is why I created my nervous system questionnaire so you knew where you were at. And then I gave you lifestyle tools that will support that nervous system state in helping you get back to balance. If you're already balanced, then that nervous system, NSQ, will show you how to stay balanced.

• 28:03Mindy Pelz?

  But this is everything because if you are struggling with your life, with your mood, with your health, we've got to start with the nervous system. So as always, I hope that helps.