Calm Your Nervous System: Simple Daily Practices for When You're Wired, Hangry, or Too Busy to Rest | Nadia Narain & Katia Narain Phillips

Dan Harris (0:03)

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. As somebody who walks around with a hair-triggered nervous system, constantly scanning for threats, anxious since sentience, I was very, very, very interested when I heard about these guests who you'll be hearing from today. We're gonna talk about simple ways to regulate your nervous system that you can integrate into your daily life. And said guests are Nadia Narain and Katia Narain Phillips. Nadia is a personal friend of mine. She's a long-time yoga and breath work teacher. Her sister, who I'm meeting for the first time, and I'm delighted about that, is a body worker and somatic practitioner. They have a new book, which is called Glimmers, Tiny Moments to Transform Your Life. Nadia and Katia, welcome both to the show.

Nadia Narain (0:53)

Hi, Dan. Thank you for having us.

Dan Harris (0:56)

Nadia, let me start with you. But Katia, jump in at any time. I'm playing favorites, right? But obviously, there's no rules here. You can both jump in anytime you want. But one of the things you talk about in the book is kind of giving readers nervous system 101

Can you give us that, please?

Nadia Narain (1:16)

A lot of books about the nervous system are quite complicated. And they keep you a little bit up in your head. And we had so many friends that were like, we didn't even know we had a nervous system.

And so we wanted to write something that people could understand in all parts of their life experience. But also the title Glimmers is ways that you can help to create capacity in your nervous system. So that it's not that we want to stay calm all the time, it's that we want to create flexibility when life gets difficult, when things get challenging, we also can enjoy the parts of life that are enjoyable to live through.

Dan Harris (2:02)

Katia, what is the nervous system?

Nadia Narain (2:05)

Great, I got that one.

The nervous system is really complex, but the part of the nervous system that we're talking about with glimmers and triggers and all of that is the autonomic nervous system. So things that are happening automatically, your breath, your heart beat. So say when we're children and we have something happen to us, your nervous system will automatically protect you.

So everything is happening to protect you. But as we're getting older, some of those protective mechanisms aren't really working for us anymore. So we can stay stuck in old nervous system patterns, which when something comes up in our adult life, could be seen as a trigger. And that trigger is usually something from the past.

Dan Harris (3:00)

Have you ever heard the expression, if it's hysterical, it's historical? Yes, very much.

Nadia Narain (3:08)

Yeah. And a lot of that comes up especially in relationship. You know, when you're in intimate relationship, a lot of the stuff that does come up that can be hysterical is usually, it happened when you were a child and you project that onto the here and now.

Dan Harris (3:26)

I just want to say though, because Nadia, you know my wife Bianca, so you know that if we ever have a fight, it's her fault.

Nadia Narain (3:32)

Always.

Dan Harris (3:36)

But you're so right. I mean, she'll say something completely innocent and some part of my reptile brain computes it as my mom criticizing me and all of a sudden heart rate goes up, my breathing gets shallow and I act like a dick.

Nadia Narain (3:53)

Yeah. And when you're in long-term, I mean, that's kind of the nice thing about long-term relationship and you know about this stuff, it's really, you can work through it together.

But if you don't have an awareness of what's happening, it's just really easy to blame the other person. And just coming from that, I think the main thing about the book and what we've really learned about the nervous system, which is kind of the most important thing for me, it's just awareness of it. So having that awareness that, oh, I might be in a more sympathetic state or I might be in a more parasympathetic state and what that means and what that feels like and really understanding those sensations, we're able to really tune in and then have a pause and make a different decision and also not get so stuck in it by having that awareness of what's happening in our nervous system.

Dan Harris (4:52)

What is sympathetic versus parasympathetic? We've talked about this a million times on this show and I always forget.

Nadia Narain (4:58)

Yeah. So you've got your sympathetic nervous system, which is kind of like your fight and flight, but also it's not always negative. It's what gets you up in the morning. It's what gets you excited. It's having an orgasm. So it's excitement, it's movement. And then the parasympathetic is more calming, but it has two branches also. So you've got the rest and digest and then you've got shut down.