Discover how calming your nervous system can boost clarity, focus, and business growth—without the hustle and burnout.
IE 439: Stay Calm, Stay Profitable: Regulating Your Nervous System for Business Growth with Lahana Vigliano
Dr. Lahana Vigliano is the founder of Nuvitru, a holistic practice that is based in Austin but does virtual health appointments.
She started in 2015 and helps women with hormone imbalances, digestive issues, metabolism, and other health issues that may not be diagnosed, such as stubborn weight, constant bloating, and headaches.
They help women with diagnoses or generally not feeling well. A lot of her patients are high-powered women in business, climbing up the corporate ladder, have families, and are juggling lots of things. Women are truly on a roller coaster their whole life and Dr. Vigliano is there to help.
Can you explain what nervous system regulation is and why it’s so important for business owners?
Our nervous system is like the command center of our brain, our spine, and nerves. It controls everything from our movement, our thoughts, and things we don’t think about, breathing, for example.
It is the communication network that is constantly receiving and giving signals. It plays a huge role in how we feel, our energy levels, and our overall health.
When we have a regulated nervous system, we are able to shift back and forth between the sympathetic nervous system (the flight or fight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest phase). It is not ideal and we don’t want to be stuck in one.
We want to be able to shift back and forth and not be stuck. Business owners tend to be stuck in the fight or flight – the sympathetic nervous system. It is important because it is the way we handle our stress. It is the way we show up as leaders and make decisions.
As business owners, they are exposed to many different things; high-pressure situations, deadlines, problem-solving, and managing people if there are employees. The most important things that we need are good communication, clarity, energy, resilience, steadiness, and calm instead of chaos.
When we have the energy, focus, and creativity, we are able to have a successful business. We don’t have the burnout that makes us unhelpful to others. You get the flu and are not helpful to your employees, or your kids, and feel useless to everyone in your life.
We don’t have brain fog or anxiety and that helps how we show up as leaders in both our personal and professional life. If we are always in chaos, it seems to get mirrored in every area of our lives, and no one wants to work that way.
The brain fog and anxiety spiral that many of us go through as business owners are largely impacted by stress. We continue to add that as CEO’s who oversee all the things that are happening in our business.
What are some common signs that a business owner’s nervous system is dysregulated?
A lot of people feel like if they have anxiety and panic attacks, that is a sign but if they don’t have those, then they are not stressed. But it goes beyond that.
It is different for every individual. One person may have anxiety and heart palpitations but another person may have brain fog, fatigue, or trouble losing weight. That may be how their body talks to them.
GI issues, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or irregular periods can be a sign that chronic stress is an issue. Headaches, migraines, getting sick too easily, muscle tension, and poor sleep quality and quantity are all red flags that your nervous system is off.
It does show up in different ways for different people. It goes beyond just feeling anxious.
Jenny recalls a time when she had heart palpitations and drove herself to the ER because she thought she was having a heart attack. It was from stress.
Nothing in particular had happened that day and everything seemed fine. She had just come back from a conference, had great ideas, and wanted to implement them immediately. She had been away for a few days from her family and was feeling behind. Looking back, she could see what it was but at the time, she didn’t know.
Some stressors are not healthy, like being in a toxic relationship, getting in a fight with your best friend, or being past a deadline. A lot of people don’t think about the things that they love being a stressor.
Being an entrepreneur, business owner, working out, or other healthy things are examples. These can also push you over the edge.
You shouldn’t necessarily drop your business or stop working out, it is necessary to bring your body back to safety and make sure you have a balance between the two. Many people know there is so much good in their life and they are achieving things but that can still be stressful on the body.
What are some daily practices business owners can use to regulate their nervous system?
Some people wear an aura ring or other body monitoring devices. Their body keeps telling them they are stressed and their aura ring (or apple watch, etc.) tells them they need to relax even though they do not feel stressed.
We are so used to high-stress points and chronic stress that it becomes our baseline. People say they are not stressed because they don’t “feel stressed.” Your body is stressed but you are used to it.
You are running at an elevated level of stress as your baseline and you don’t know what it feels like to get out of it. You can work out but a red flag would be working out seven days a week in high-impact ways, not to include a gentle walk.
This would include workouts where you are moving, grooving, and sweating. If you are doing that seven days a week, you are probably doing way too much.
Other things to consider might include how people are feeling, how their nervous system is, and the balance of different types of workouts they are doing. With getting your body in parasympathetic mode, everything goes on safely.
Does your body feel safe? If it doesn’t feel safe, it is in the flight or fight mode, to get you away from a tiger. Being chased by a tiger or someone breaking into your house is the same stress response.
When your body is stressed, it doesn’t know the intensity. It only knows that it is stressed. You give off the same hormones and chemicals as you would in both situations. It is all about bringing safety in different aspects.
Diet and lifestyle, making sure we are eating enough, and eating the right foods. Ninety-five percent of women are not eating enough. They can swear to me they overeat but they are not eating enough. That is a stressor.
Breathing is so overlooked. You can spend two minutes box-breathing where you inhale for four seconds and let it out for four seconds on repeat. Meditation and taking deep breaths to move your diaphragm instead of shallow breaths which keep us in the flight or fight status.
Taking deep breaths signals to your body that there is nothing emergent. If you are able to take a deep breath, then everything is okay. You can’t take a deep breath if you are running from a tiger. Taking a deep breath signals that everything is safe.
Making sure you have fun in your week is another practice you can put in your life. When was the last time you really had fun? Not the fun of going to a conference but real fun, like in your childhood.
Human connection is another practice. You need to schedule these things. If you love scrapbooking, you need to schedule it in and not feel guilty about it.
Infusing fun into your life might be something you have left off because you have kids, a job, or a lack of time. Treat your fun as a doctor’s appointment. You wouldn’t miss it. Ideally, you wouldn’t reschedule it. You would make it a priority.
Having a balanced workout routine is a good practice. Sleeping is a top priority.
The vagus nerve is the biggest nerve that runs from your brain to your gut (the second brain). One of the best ways to stimulate your vagus nerve, which helps us get that rest and digest, is humming loudly. It vibrates and turns on your vagus nerve.
Singing really loud and gargling helps vibrate the vagus nerve. Deep breathing can stimulate it as well. Vibrating your lips helps stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. There are little things you can do, like humming while you are working. It doesn’t have to be big.
The foundational things dealing with food, sleep, exercise, deep breathing, and taking breaks from your computer are all things that are helpful. Jenny is in the middle of teaching her 15-year-old to drive. Although her daughter is a good driver, Jenny has to remind herself to take deep breaths when her daughter responds to her suggestions.
Jenny also has a lot of clients trying to do videos and podcasts and using the vagus nerve exercises is a great way to set themselves up beforehand. When Jenny currently sets up to record, she is humming and singing to make sure her system is working correctly, not realizing it is helping her regulatory system.
How can entrepreneurs create a work routine that supports nervous system health?
If you have the control to start your day later, Dr. Vigliano recommends this. You can fill up your cup first and show up the way she wants to show up for people, instead of in a chaotic sense.
She loves having a nourishing breakfast, getting movement, getting sunlight first thing in the morning to help reset your internal clock and benefit sleep, and having minimal phone time. She doesn’t roll out of bed, check her emails, and go on high alert. She usually waits until closer to 8:30 or 9.
She loves to do something that she enjoys in the morning, especially on her rest days and not on her workout days because she has more time. She will listen to 20 minutes of podcasts or an audible book.
She wants to check things off that she does for her own health before the workday gets started. Once that gets started, you are in the flow and on the go.
Having that boundary of a work end time on most days. You will have projects and other things you might do but that is not most of the time.
Dr. Vigliano end her day and starts cooking dinner for her family and is doing sports with her kids. She might watch a show while she cooks dinner. She loves combining things that relax her.
She loves reading and infuses some fun into her day. Everyone has a wind-down routine that is different. Consistency is the key, especially when it comes to sleep.
Sleep is the priority. If you don’t get enough sleep, your cortisol levels are higher the next day, your blood sugar and hunger are all over the place. Your sleep sets you up for the perfect day. If you are not having good sleep, that is the one thing you need to work on.
Whether you drink a cup of chamomile tea each night or you meditate at night, it needs to be consistent. If you want to go to bed at 9:30, at 8:00, you need to start your routine, whatever that looks like. Wind down so your body is very relaxed.
In the middle of the workday, schedule your lunch or two 15-minute breaks. Don’t let your calendar tell you what to do and then you don’t have time to eat lunch. Block off whatever works for you. Take your break. Take a breather. Get out of work mode to jump-start your creativity for the second half of your day.
Make sure you have breaks in your calendar to eat and decompress so you can be productive in your full workday.
Jenny admitted that a few days a week, she works from her car during kid’s sports practices, doesn’t get home until late, and doesn’t have a wind-down routine.
Having teens is a different kind of hard and new season in life with higher stress levels. You always go through new seasons in life. Jenny’s grandmother used to say to her “This too shall pass.”
Dr. Vigliano had her first child young and was going to med school. She has had to balance being a mom and continuing her dreams. She had to work hard to keep a balance and not get lost in it.
It is important to maintain balance because you only have so much time with your kids but you are also in this life for a reason and don’t want to put that on the back burner while everyone else is thriving.
The best way to do that and not feel the mom guilt that is associated with it is to remember that if you don’t put out your gifts, talents, and solutions, you are being selfish to those who need the value that you have to offer. Sit and be okay with the fact that you have those talents for a reason.
Do your best to balance it. While you are doing all of the wellness things and pursuing your dreams, your kids are watching you.
What advice would you give your daughter if she came to you and was stressed? You would tell her to make time for fun and take a break. Yet, we don’t follow the advice we give to be a role model.
You want to break the generational hustle, bustle, and lack of taking care of yourself model. Your kids are your biggest motivation in life. Make sure that what you are doing and what they are watching is something you want them to do as well. If you don’t have children in your home, you are influencing other children in your life too.
Free classes offered by Nuvitru
There is a stubborn weight loss class, hormone class, thyroid class, gut health class, and others. The classes walk you through and educate you on the basics and they unpeel the layers of why you may not be functioning well.
At Nuvitru, they are trying to get to the root cause of health issues. Dr. Vigliano looks at the care plans you may have received and tries to find the root causes of why you are having issues. The classes are a fantastic starting point to determine root causes and give you fun ideas and takeaways that you can start doing.
Click here to access the Nuvitru classes.
Action Steps:
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