Episode 134: Navigating and Nurturing Your Nervous System with Kymber Maulden

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Natalie Tysdal

Hi, Kimber, thanks for joining me.

Kymber Maulden

Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Natalie Tysdal

So let's start with just how busy we all are. We live in this like rush, rush world. And as women especially, we take everything on and then we wonder why we don't feel well. And I mean, physically and mentally. So let's get your tips on dealing with that in a busy, busy culture.

Kymber Maulden

Mm-hmm. Mm. There's so much. There's so many different directions I could take this. I think it's important for us as women, and I know this can be somewhat controversial in this day and age, to understand our differences between biological, emotional, spiritual differences between men and women. Because I do think that we have progressed as a sex very quickly in a culture that was economically, intellectually designed for men in a lot of ways. And so in order for us to be successful, to be our own people, to have our own sense of power and economic freedom and all that, we've had to take on a lot. And we're doing all of that, statistically we're doing all of that while still having children and doing all this house, you know, the home aspects of life and family. And so first of all, just understanding that, like recognizing that and acknowledging that is an important first step because I think a lot of us burn ourselves out.

We develop chronic illness, we age ourselves, we lose our sex drive or like our desire to be intimate in that way. And then we wonder why and we feel bad about ourselves. Like it's something that we did instead of acknowledging that it's actually a cultural issue.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah, I agree. And so much of what you focus on and I love how you mix these things because our nervous system, of course, I've talked about that here on this podcast, how we have to be in tune with that. But nutrition and our health plays a part in that. It all works together.

Kymber Maulden

Yep, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, so one of the things I started to notice pretty quickly when working specifically with women is that women do have these very sensitive systems. Because of our unique biology and reproductive functions that's tied in with our stress response, our metabolism and our nervous system. And this is true for all humans, but especially, I think, much more so for women. They intertwine a lot, the metabolism and the nervous system.

Things that we would do to support our metabolism, such as nourishment, balancing blood sugar, lowering inflammation, that's gonna tie in with our stress response, how we're managing our stress, how we are feeling, like the felt sense of our experience on the day to day, and using food to regulate is a really important, I think, and crucial step in taking care of ourselves as women.

Natalie Tysdal

We, you know, that's interesting because when I get stressed, I'm sure I'm just like most, most people, not just women, but you go, I go, I'm going to speak about myself here. I go straight for salty chips, dark chocolate, maybe dark chocolate's not as bad, but you go for this thing that's going to give you that immediate gratification. But health wise and I imagine from our nervous system is not that that's not helping those things. Am I right?

What should I be going for?

Kymber Maulden

Well, I mean, obviously we don't want like food to be our only tool. And I think that's, I discussed this last week on a nervous system podcast about how when we have a lack of resources to regulate ourselves and care for ourselves, when we don't have that emotional support, we don't have safety in our bodies, we will turn to food and food can become that thing that we, you know, will binge on or restrict or whatever. But you can actually learn a lot about your system's needs based on your cravings and the things that you go to when you're stressed. So like you just listed off two things that like salty chips, for instance, let's just, and again, like, I'm not saying that the actual foods we go to are like, we could find a healthier version of that. Cause you know, the industrial culture we live in really hijacks and takes advantage of these stress responses, but salty chips, you're getting sodium, which is one of the most important minerals for regulating adrenal function. And I mean, you know, when I look at women's mineral tests, I look at their sodium and potassium ratio to see how their adrenals are doing. Or their sodium magnesium ratio. And so you're going towards salty food for a reason. You're going towards carbs for a reason because we burn through glucose faster when we're stressed. So anytime that you're experiencing any level of stress, you're going to, your body, your brain is going to send a signal to you that you need more fuel in the form of glucose and chips are a carb. The potatoes is a pretty great source of carbs. And so...

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

And then as far as chocolate, like there, you know, there's different compounds in chocolate, like theobromine and, um, supposedly it does have some kind of calming aphrodisiac effect, but I just look at the minerals and the fat content. Like the, you know, it's a high, high calorie food, which to the brain is like, Oh, fuel, like anything that's going to be like rich, rich in satiating is going to send a signal to the brain. This is going to give me energy.

And then the fact that it's filled with copper and magnesium, it's one of the best, actually one of the best dietary sources of copper and magnesium. So.

Natalie Tysdal

So maybe it's not so bad that these are the things I'm craving that I'm like, okay, maybe I really, first of all, I know I have low sodium levels and so that's probably something I'm craving for that reason, but are cravings, do we give into them and go, no, you know what, I actually do need that, become more aware of those things?

Kymber Maulden

Yeah. And again, I think it's important that we understand them and that we cater to them in maybe a healthier way. But I used to suffer from this chocolate addiction phenomenon that I've had several clients who have similar experience. Where it's like a literal, I have to have chocolate now, I will go out of my way to get chocolate and then I consume too much of it. And then it disrupts sleep or gives me a stomach ache or whatever.

Natalie Tysdal

Mmm.

Kymber Maulden

Once I started really focusing on nourishment and getting my minerals and my fat soluble vitamins up, it just went away, like just completely went away. And it's not that like, I don't enjoy chocolate when I have it, I very rarely buy it because it takes me so long to finish a bar and I just don't think about it. So the point there is that like, we have nutritional needs that are often not met as modern humans and we have stress levels that are often not regulated. We don't even realize that's what's going on.

When you're stressed, you burn through your nutrients faster. So you're going to need more glucose, more protein, more fat, more nutrients when you have a higher stress lifestyle. So if you're a busy woman, you need to be eating more and you need to be getting more of your nutrients in. Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah, yeah. You just said when you, if I can recreate what you said a minute or two ago, when you focused on your nutrition, you didn't crave the chocolate as much. What did that look like and how do you help people regulate that?

Kymber Maulden

Yeah, I think one thing is making sure you're getting all three macros in and eating consistently. So there's like a lot of unhelpful dietary suggestions, you know, online and in the world these days. And yeah, and again, like a lot of them, if they do have data backing them up as being helpful, such as fasting, time restricted eating, they're usually supportive for men and non-cycling women.

Natalie Tysdal

Oh yeah, all over the place.

Kymber Maulden

because they actually increase stress and lower sex hormones. So one of the things I work with women around is just getting them to eat more often. And because so many of us are stressed and burn through our glucose stores, a lot of us don't do well when we go too long without eating. The body picks up the slack by producing more stress hormones to give us energy. So getting women habituated to eating more often, getting them to eating all three macros, so protein, carbs, and fat with every meal and snack.

Kymber Maulden

to the point where their hunger signals start to come back online, which are often suppressed by stress hormones. And then they can start to maybe eat, go from eating every three hours to every five hours. They can actually have a little bit more freedom in that. But for a lot of the women that I work with, and this reflects my long-term patterns as well, they have to be eating more consistently, especially when they're stressed, because they burn through the resources faster.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah. So you have focused on nutrition for a long time. You've started to build in the somatic side of this and your nervous system, which I find so fascinating and something that I've talked about here a few times in episodes of the podcast, but it's not as common for people to be in tune with their nervous system. So explain how you went from nutrition to nervous system coaching and how that all works together.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah, for sure. So a lot of the stuff that I've gravitated towards professionally is stuff that I have struggled with or needed to work on personally. So the nervous system is definitely one of those things where I have, you know, some complex trauma in my background and just like, I've always been in a flight state, you could say, always on the move. And so I think starting to recognize that

As my business grew, especially like I grew my business fairly quickly and my nervous system kind of crashed. It was like, this is too much demand, too much work. Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal

This is what happens to a lot of people though. It happens to you for a reason to help people, but a lot of people find themselves in that, and I did too, years in television news, just crash. I mean, my nervous system was out of whack completely. But for a lot of people, we crash and then we don't know why.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

Mmm.

Kymber Maulden

Totally. Yeah. And it's unfortunate that we have to get to the place where we crash first, before we actually start to recognize that this is like a real legitimate need, something that we need to prioritize. And so our nervous system is like our operating system. It controls everything and it regulates how our body, how our, you know, felt sense, our biology, how that handles the things we take on in life. So it really is this really crucial system that we want to understand and start to recognize in ourselves. Everyone has one.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

And like one of my, you know, nervous system teachers recently, something that she said is like every person you're interacting with, you're interacting with their nervous system. So the ways that they behave, their personality, the ways they show up, uh, that's regulated by the stress response and the patterns they've had running for a really long time. So what, what I started to nervous notice working with women, um, because I run hair tissue mineral analysis on all of my.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

uh, all my clients and like I can work with any lab and I find labs to be useful when we keep them in their place. But like I, I have found that the hair tissue test to be the most cost-effective comprehensive lab because it shows you, especially the company I work with, it shows you how your nervous system and your metabolism work together.

Natalie Tysdal

What does that look like? What is the hair tissue? What are you looking at in that? Are they samples? And yeah.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah, so you take a sample of your hair and you send it in and they'll look at, because you take it from the root and you're looking at what's leaving the cell, because that's what's coming out the hair is what's leaving the cell. And because our entire metabolism works on minerals, relies on minerals for enzyme production, hormone production, I mean, they really do play crucial roles in every aspect of our health. So you can see through looking at mineral ratios, the quickness or the rate at which minerals are leaving the body mineral levels, you can tell how your stress response, your thyroid, your adrenals, even digestion. It tells you quite a lot about what's going on inside your body. I started to see this pattern over and over and over again of down-regulated women. Women that have metabolisms that are so stressed and so sympathetic dominant, which I would have put myself in that category that they're really low in all resources. Like they're flatlining, but their foot is still on the gas pedal. So they've never really down regulated enough to actually slow things down and allow the system to calm down and stop burning through the resources so fast.

Natalie Tysdal

Wow. Yep. What does that look like? Like, so when you say to calm down to all of that, is that like a day off of work? Is that a year of changing things? Like what, what does, how do you do that?

Kymber Maulden

Usually not.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah. So, yeah. So one thing that I have come to realize with myself and then, you know, seen in so many clients is that you actually do have to understand your nervous system. Um, and because if you don't, you'll take your, those patterns with you everywhere. You'll go on vacation and you'll take that upregulated state. Um, and so understanding the things that you can do, like, and we can, you know, talk about the trainings that I have around this, but understanding the things that you can do, cause it's not a matter of will and it's also not a matter of just

Natalie Tysdal

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Kymber Maulden

understanding intellectually, this is where the somatics comes in. You actually have to spend time dropping into your body and creating a safe space within your body, like allowing your body to feel safe, to actually calm down. Because what tends to happen is when we're upregulated too much at the time, we're consistently sending a message to our brain that we're not safe. So then our bodies become an unsafe place to be. So we spend less time in them. So we don't actually know what's going on. Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal

100%. This is so, I think a lot of people will hear this and go, Oh, that's me all the time. But what I still don't understand is how do you get there? Is that yoga every day? Is that quitting the job? That's really stressful. Like how do you get in that? What did you call it? Unregulated or did D the down regulated state? How do you know when you're there and how do you get there?

Kymber Maulden

Oh, downregulated. Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah, yeah. So to go back to the hair tissue test, one thing that I really love about the company I work with is they can actually tell whether you have a fast metabolism or a slow metabolism based on your mineral ratios. So what I tend to see a lot is a really fast metabolism, which is like flatlining that over stress state, or a slow metabolism where the metabolism has actually already slowed itself down regardless of you because you've run low in certain resources, it's like a stress response to go into a slow, low protective state. And what I've started to see is about 80% of the population is slow and low. Yeah, it's the biggest percentage of people that I work with are slow and low. And so that means their adrenals are slow, their thyroid's slow, their blood sugar tends to be low, their energy's low, digestion is slow. As a result of that, you get all of these symptoms, right? Because your energy's low and your body's not able to produce the energy to match.

Natalie Tysdal

Wow.

Kymber Maulden

the demands of your life. So in order to move out of that, you have to one, focus on your nourishment because you're absolutely going to need a lot of resources, biological resources in order to build up your system. And then find things that you can do. And this is so personal, like I can't go to any client and say, quit your job, leave that relationship. You have to really work with someone where they're at.

Kymber Maulden

But finding things that you can do every single day that can tell your brain you're safe. So I do this with food, I do this with attachment and relationship support, and I do this with nervous system practices through something that I was trained in called neurosomatic intelligence, which is working with the nervous system using neuro drills, so applied neurology, as well as just lifestyle and behavior choices to lower that sense of threat that's being sent to the brain so that women's systems can calm down.

Natalie Tysdal

Wow. This is really big stuff because we get caught in this hamster wheel of moving fast, doing fast. And boy, I did that for years in the news business. I thrive. I still do. I thrive on deadlines and make it happen fast. And I can get something done if you give me a deadline, but if I've got all the time, I can't get anything done. And so it's like that feeds, but then that's that fight or flight.

Natalie Tysdal

That's that, okay, I'm racing now I can get stuff done. So a lot of us, I know I do live in that and think we're successful in that. And then we wonder when we're not healthy, um, or we get sick. Well, wait a minute, why am I getting sick? I'm eating. Okay. But our nervous system is all out of whack.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I can relate. I was raised by a journalist. And so that energy of like, even though I, you know, I didn't go that route myself, I, I got his nervous system, basically. And so I totally have had to work a lot. I even have a tattoo on my back that says it's safe to rest. Because I needed that like reminder of, I need to learn how to rest. I can't be in flight all the time.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah, right. Well, I recognized it and that was my life change. It was I don't want to raise my kids in that, although much of their childhood. I was home in the afternoon because I worked a morning show, but I was tired in the afternoon because I'd been up since 2.33 in the morning. So we have to decide, is this the culture I want to live in and raise my kids in? I made a very conscious decision to say, this isn't what I want.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah. Nice.

Natalie Tysdal

and I have to relearn and retrain my brain. And a lot of us have to do that. It can be hard to do that and make such a big change. But let's talk a little bit more about what you mentioned in somatic work and how we can become, I just did another podcast on this, but I wanna hear about what this means to you and how it's becoming more common and how we can get more in touch with our nervous system.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah. So I think one thing to keep in... Well, yeah, there's a few different things. One thing, have you heard of the term, maybe you talked about this with the other person, you interviewed top down versus bottom up. Yeah. So top down is when you are going through your upper corticoid function. So you're using your cognitive faculties to thus affect the nervous system. So this would be like mindfulness meditation, talking therapy.

Natalie Tysdal

No.

Kymber Maulden

Anything where you're still up in your mind, basically, you're still in your head, but you are affecting the way that your body is responding. So this is a lot of, I would wager to say this is like the vast majority of our culture is we are top down people. Most of our work that we do is top down. Bottom up means that we're actually going directly through the nervous system, through the body, to change the way the brain responds to the body. And so this is, we're doing this through breath work.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

We're doing this through just different embodiment practices, different movement practices, the neuro drills that I do. And so this is sending consistent signals to the body or to the brain through the body that we're safe, that we can be embodied, that we can be here. And then also recognizing that a lot of us are disembodied in various ways, from trauma, from stress patterns, from lifestyle.

We just, we disconnect from certain parts of our body and we don't, you know, the brain isn't recognizing those parts of the body. It's not recognizing the signals from those parts of the body. Or it's recognizing them as a threat. It's getting threat signals from some, either inside the body or outside the body. That's increasing our threat response on a regular basis. We may not be aware of this. So I think one thing is like not.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

give not telling people that they just need to embody, right? Like, oh, just go and meditate. Uh, because people leave their bodies for a lot of reasons. And so they might not be in their body for a reason of safety. Like they might not feel safe in their body. So giving them tools that they can slowly, like in neuro-somatic, we talk about minimum effective dose, not just telling someone to drop into their body right away or to like do some somatic practice that's going to bring up a lot of stress for them. If they haven't you know, if they haven't actually created the safe environment for them to do so, if that makes sense.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah. How do you do that though? How do you create the safe environment? For someone who's listening, thinking, I think I need to experience this. I need to work on this. Can they do it on their own or do they have to work with someone to understand and get to that place?

Kymber Maulden

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah, you know, I don't like to say that you need someone else. Like that's not my place. Cause again, everyone's situation is so unique. Their resources are unique. Um, what they're open to any given time in their lives is, is very personal. I think it really helps to have someone else. And this is also where relationships come in. Like I actually went through an attachment coaching program and, uh, an arm training, which stands for neuro-effective relational model. It's designed to work with complex trauma, because what I started to realize is that a lot of my clients can do very well with nutrition supplements, and then I find they're very lonely. Like they don't actually have supportive connection in their lives, they don't have a lot of like deep intimacy. A lot of them have attachment disruptions and disorders that they're not really addressing or even know how to. And so...

That's a big piece of this because it's going to be harder to drop down in the body if your nervous system, if you're isolated and you're carrying too much on your own, right?

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah. Well, and that's true, isn't it, with everything? It's like you can figure some of this out, online courses, books, whatever, but having someone guide you is always going to be easier with working out or nutrition or anything when you have someone really, you're going to get deeper quicker.

Kymber Maulden

Mm hmm. For sure. Yeah. And then also just acknowledging things that we often don't realize we need in this culture. Touch is a big one. So like realizing, like realizing like I need touch. If you're single, you still need touch. Like, and so I think a lot of people, you know, will have casual sex or we'll do things that they're actually trying to get their touch, they're trying to get their intimacy needs met, like just basic human needs for touch. They don't know how to get that in a non

Natalie Tysdal

That's true. Yeah. Someone pointing out.

Kymber Maulden

sexual way so they go to these, you know, behaviors. Yeah, and so I think that like acknowledging, I need touch, I need friends that will hug me, I need to cuddle with my friends. You know, having actual like non-sexual outlets for touch is really important and a lot of people do not have that.

Natalie Tysdal

Boy, that could be said for anything too. Like you mentioned touch, but that can be said for nutrition. Like if you're not getting the right nutrition, you go for the bad things to try to fulfill. Like, I mean, we have these basic needs. We need to understand. Wow, so much good information. What other tips do you have for people who are just trying to get started in understanding their nervous system and how their nutrition combines with that? But what advice, other advice would you give people?

Kymber Maulden

For sure, yeah.

Kymber Maulden

Hmm. Yeah, I would say like look at the things that you can do in your life right now that can start to help you slow down. Because I think that's where we're going to start to witness our patterns is us just intentionally slowing down. A lot of people want more to do lists like they want more things to do but I actually what I find is creating more space in your life even just like in little increments throughout the day to experience pleasure, joy.

connectedness, slowness, rest, that's gonna give you the space to actually just be with yourself. So you can start to witness those patterns because you will start to see them. Like if you slow down and take your nervous system more seriously, you will start to see, oh, I can't slow down in these certain ways. My mind's racing or I'm always on my phone scrolling or I'm always trying to seek out something that I can do so that I can feel productive because I don't

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

you know, because I don't feel good in my body. And that's the thing that I do to give myself a sense of worth and value is I'm productive.

Natalie Tysdal

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you almost have to schedule that slowdown because there will always be a phone, a TV, distractions and sort of really schedule that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But to schedule that walk or that meditation or whatever it is. And it's hard when a million things are going on around you to stop and shut the world off and schedule that. But as you said, the benefits of that.

Kymber Maulden

Especially, yeah. Yeah. Especially once you have children. I think that's.

Natalie Tysdal

really being in tune are immense for sure.

Kymber Maulden (

Yeah, and I think that like in this culture, there is so much, right? Like, we live in a culture that encourages us to be non-essentialists. And so we can focus on everything, we can give our focus away very quickly. And I think taking on this concept of like essentialists in the sense of like, what is the most essential to me in my life? And how can I dial in on that? And build skills to work in rituals around that. So like family, health, career, just like those three things.

okay, those are the three things that are gonna be my things. And then you'll, you know, that way you can kind of start to weed out the things that are just distracting you from those things, or that are like lowering your capacity to cater to those things. Yeah, and the phone thing you mentioned, like the scrolling, that's a big one. Like I think a lot of us, you know, I've had clients that are like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm having a hard time down regulating, I'm stressed. And I'm like, okay, so are you taking breaks throughout the day?

Kymber Maulden

Yes. What are you doing on those breaks? Scrolling on my phone. And I'm like, okay, so that's, I know if you're scrolling and it's not work related, it's to you consciously, you're like, oh, I'm not stressing myself out because it's not work related. It's just fun. But the truth is, is like, because we have these nervous systems that are designed to take in information. And if you give them information, we're going to respond accordingly. When you're looking at a screen, whether it's a phone or a laptop, you're actually activating the

Natalie Tysdal

Thank you.

Kymber Maulden

function of your ocular system that up regulates your brain. So you can't down regulate and calm down when you're scrolling on a screen, even if you're laying in bed in a, like, you know, relaxed state. Well, you, yeah. Yeah. It's like an actual physiological thing. It's not something we can consciously choose or not. So what I will have my clients do instead of scrolling is go outside and stare at the sky for 15 minutes, because that actually triggers the different function of the ocular system that down regulates the brain. Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal

Relaxing. You're not relaxing. That's a really good point. Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal

Boy, that's so important. Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

Just like those little things like that actually like literally down regulates your system and tells your brain, Oh, we're okay. Things are good.

Natalie Tysdal

Yeah. And to have it at the screen far away from you in another room, because it's too tempting. I know myself, you'd get the ding, and you're, oh, who is that? I'm not going to think about that. Oh, but who is it? Oh, but you know, and for me, it's, is it one of my kids? Is everything okay? And then all these things go through your mind, you know, and they're fine. They know that if they need me, they can call two or three times and then I'll go to the phone. That's okay.

Kymber Maulden

Yeah.

Kymber Maulden

The dopamine. Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal

Oh, so much good information. Where can people get more information, follow you and get more tips?

Kymber Maulden

Yeah, so I'm trying to get better about being on social media. I hang out mostly on Instagram. So if anyone wants to find me, Kimber Malden just is my handle. You can also find me on my website. And yeah, I work one-on-one privately with clients. I also have a health course. And I run hair tissue tests. So that's something that I absolutely love to do. It's the only one-off consult I offer women. In fact, I also work with their partners, their male partners sometimes. So it's the only thing that I do with men.

And it's just basically like helping them understand their health through the lens of minerals. So it's a lot more than just looking at a lab and giving them numbers and actually helping them understand how their systems work and empowering them to integrate this stuff into their lives.

Natalie Tysdal

So when people get those, the results from that lab, do you give them nutritional advice based on that? Or what do you help them with when you get those results?

Kymber Maulden

Yeah, yeah, I go over, I spend time prior to the call going over the labs and then I create like a very thorough Google Doc that breaks down every number, what it means, and then I make dietary and lifestyle suggestions. Yeah.

That's great. What a great, great offering. Kimber, thanks so much. I've learned a lot today and just encourage people to go and follow you and hope to talk to you again soon.

Kymber Maulden

Thank you so much, this was wonderful.