Bottoms-up nervous system management with Jonny Miller and the relationship between psychological stress and chronic illness from Dr. Gabor Maté.

Bottoms-up nervous system management with Jonny Miller

I began my mental health journey with a "top-down" approach, primarily through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT operates on the idea that you can reprogram your brain to combat emotional distress by identifying and changing faulty thought and behavior patterns. While this method had some merit, it wasn't a complete solution for me.

Why? Because CBT suggests you can "think your way out" of mental distress. However, this perspective falls short of acknowledging the crucial mind-body connection supported by fields like psychoneuroimmunology and other belief systems that emphasize holistic approaches to well-being.

What I learned from my friend Jonny Miller, an entrepreneur and nervous system expert, made me reconsider this brain-centric view. Contrary to popular belief, neurotransmitters flow more from the body to the brain than the other way around. For instance, about 80-90% of the fibers in the vagus nerve—which plays a significant role in the "gut-brain axis"—are designed to send messages from the body to the brain. This suggests the body has a lot to "tell" the brain, not just vice versa.

Jonny Miller has learned about this through challenging firsthand experience. His journey toward nervous system mastery began a handful of years ago. In 2017, Jonny's fiancée suffered from an anxiety attack — the changes in her brain chemistry in that moment led her to the misguided conclusion that she needed to take her own life.

Since then, Jonny has come to believe that these tragedies could have been avoided if she and others like her had known about and had access to body-based self-regulation practices.

In the years since, Jonny has co-authored the comprehensive Emotional Resilience in Leadership Report and spent thousands of cumulative hours researching, training & mentoring high-performers and professionals — from the CEO of a rocket-launch company to startup founders recovering from burnout as well as busy parents, early-stage solopreneurs & school-teachers.

He is also the creator of the Nervous System Mastery course where he has taught hundreds of high-achievers and entrepreneurs how to rewire their neurobiology with evidence-backed protocols.

Thankfully, Jonny has also created a free course that teaches you the fundamentals of nervous system regulation in what he calls his “five to thrive” program.

It’s a perfect starting point for busy, stressed-out professionals seeking tools to help them manage their anxiety levels, improve their performance, and increase their overall resilience in the face of life’s challenges.

Also, for readers of this newsletter who are interested in taking Jonny’s full 5-week course on nervous system mastery, you can use the discount code 'CLUES' for 20% off as part of the upcoming Spring cohort. You can apply here for the full course: https://nsmastery.com/

Developing bottoms-up nervous system literacy is essential to managing your well-being. As you dive into the free course on clues.life, and Jonny’s multi-week course on Nervous System Mastery, you’ll learn about the following:

• That we live in a broken culture that traps us in co-dependant addictive cycles – meaning we are addicted consumers of various external substances, pills or products promising to change our state.

• Why are we trapped? Because no one taught us the art & science of 'interoception' — meaning your capacity to experience your inner landscape & consciously self-regulate.

• Worse still, prolonged periods of stress cause 'allostatic overload' to accumulate—this increases the fragility of our nervous system leading to anxiety, exhaustion & ultimately burnout.

Connecting chronic stress to chronic illness from Dr. Gabor Maté

There are also world-class psychologists who are concerned about our society’s growing stress, inability to unload our stress, and the rising prevalence of chronic illness that may arise due to accumulated stress.

According to Dr. Gabor Maté chronic stress—especially emotional stress that stems from early life experiences—can have significant long-term effects on the body, manifesting as chronic conditions like autoimmune diseases, cancer, and various mental health issues.

His key argument is grounded in the mind-body connection: the body’s physiological responses to stress are intricately tied to our emotional and psychological states. In his book "When the Body Says No" Maté explores how suppressed emotions and unresolved psychological trauma can lead to a persistent stress response. This ongoing activation of the stress response system can weaken the immune system and create a fertile ground for chronic illnesses to take root.

He also makes the argument that our healthcare system often compartmentalizes physical and mental health, failing to treat the person as an integrated whole (the typical brain-body divide). This fragmented approach hampers effective diagnosis and treatment, particularly for diseases that have their roots in emotional stressors.

He uses the concept of "biopsychosocial" models to indicate that biology, psychology, and social factors interplay to create chronic illness conditions. In simpler terms, your emotional baggage doesn't just weigh on your mind; it has tangible impacts on your body too.

Maté’s work serves as a compelling call for a more integrated, holistic approach to health, one that pays as much attention to emotional and psychological well-being as it does to physical symptoms.

This line of thought aligns with emerging research in fields like psychoneuroimmunology, affirming that the health of the mind and the body are inextricably linked. Dr. Christopher Palmer of Harvard Psychiatry tells a similar story in his book Brain Energy, which I highly recommend. He goes into detail about how our diet negatively impacts our metabolism and how that cascades into chronic mental and physical illness.