#27 Down Regulate your Nervous System with Krysta Dancy, MA, MFT, CD

We are back this week with Krysta Dancy and also Sarah. Sarah is back. If you could see us right now, if we once again recorded our episodes, you’d see that Sarah is in a bathing suit and I am in a sweatshirt. So we are in very different environments. She is in Cancun and living her best life. If you’ve seen our stories, we are getting ready to go to Cancun. I think we have less than three months before we’re all there together. And so we thought it would be fitting if we brought Krysta on to talk about what her plan is for nurses in Cancun. So she is coming with us. I don’t know if you know that. And if you didn’t, you do now. And so we wanted to chat a bit about the type of learning we’re going to be doing with Krysta in Cancun.

Yeah, Krysta, if you just want to introduce yourself again for maybe nurses that didn’t get to listen last week and then we can go ahead and get started.

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for having me. In case they didn’t catch me last week, my sort of day job is I am a therapist who’s specialty is trauma and birth and all the different ways that trauma and birth can connect with each other. Super lucky because I got connected to Bundle Birth Nurses and the work that you all are doing. And so I cannot wait that we’re going to do this together in person. I’m really excited for what’s coming. We have really good stuff in store.

I am excited as well. And Sarah, I know that you and Krysta have had a lot of conversations, I haven’t been a part of, and so I’m also going to learn with you.. And I’m excited to learn as well. I know that Sarah and Krysta have had a lot of planning conversations that I haven’t been able to get a part of. So I’m excited to learn on this podcast what our plan is. So Sarah, if you want to talk a little bit about your dream for the nurses on this week.

And for those of you maybe that aren’t coming to Cancun, I want you to get to experience just a smidgen and kind of tease it out. And then depending on how things go in Cancun, we’ll probably have more content to tease out to you in future podcasts, as it all comes together. And so as we were anticipating this experience, and true it’s an experience, that’s why we’re calling it a learning retreat instead of a conference. It is not a conference. It is not like anything you’ve ever experienced in the past. We wanted it to be sort of all consuming in a way that every ounce of your time is intended to provide you with the opportunity for rest, recovery and really healing. And who better to do that than to bring an expert trauma therapist along with us, one that we’ve worked with in the past that we know and love.

If you don’t know already, Krysta has four classes that she’s recorded with us available on our website that you can watch on demand. One of which we brag about all the time is the Healing Trauma in the Birth Professional class. And what I love about Krysta is how invested you are in professionals. And I think a lot of times in the outside of the actual hospital system birth world, there’s a lot of negativity, there’s a lot of criticism and I think misunderstanding of our profession. And what I love about Krysta and why we’ve invited her as literally one of the only nurses other than our admin people to come along is that you get it and you love nurses. You believe in this specialty and you believe in the change that we are all a part of trying to contribute to. And so as we thought about the last few years and even decided on physiologic coping as our learning topic, I am not a trauma therapist. This is not my expertise.

While I have done a ton of study, and I can definitely speak to that, and I would say that we’re pretty trauma-informed around here, at least we try to be, that I want you learning from the best of the best. And so to supplement your learning on coping and labor and the physiology of coping, what actually tools exist in the body to help the client or patient cope with their labor? And then how does that contribute to physiologic birth and vaginal deliveries?

It was like everything I’m learning and all the work I’m doing is it is entirely integrated with our nervous systems and sympathetic, parasympathetic, vagus nerve, all the stuff that Krysta is really an expert in. And so who better than to bring in than her, to help supplement and continue to level up our care. And so as we do that, and as I bring Krysta into the fold here because we want to hear from her, I want you to understand the foundation really is out of love for you and out of belief in that we can be better and trying to provide you with the best tools at our fingertips to really be the best nurses we can be.

And then also, it’s not only being a nurse. What really we value, honestly maybe more than you’re learning about patient care is your own healing, your own ability to, for lack of a better word, self-care, to down-regulate your nervous systems, to walk away able to do your job, to help avoid burnout, to have tools for the hard days and also the good days. And so that’s really what Krysta’s an expert in. And so with that being said, Krysta, I’d love to hear from you what you’re excited about with this learning retreat and what you’re excited to bring and what energizes you to bring to this population of 400 labor and delivery nurses.

Oh my gosh. Everything you just said, I’m completely, if anybody could see me, I’m nodding, I’m smiling, I’m getting goosebumps, I’m excited. There’s so much I’m excited about. And as you were talking, Sarah, it made me think about there’s this spot in Healing Trauma in the Birth Professional, the video you were talking about, where I say we were taught how to do the work but not how to carry the weight of the work. And as you’re talking, I had this full circle moment of that is what this is like, “Oh, that’s what this is.” Because truthfully, and when you came to me with this idea, I was like, “Yes, you nailed it.” Because we can get information. In the online world of 2023, we can Google and we can get information and we can take online classes and that’s all really easy and convenient.

So it’s like what can’t we do through Google? What we can’t do is all the other parts of the experience. It’s one thing to talk to a nurse about how to give physiologic patient care. That is really important, but it’s also something that can be done through a screen if needed. But what we can’t do is teach them very well how to carry the weight of the work. We can’t do that as well as we can in person. And what I love about this whole vision that you have and the environment we’re in is that every single aspect of it is answering that question. It’s like, here’s some information to make you a better, more skilled nurse. And then here’s the rest of the day that’s just wrapping around you to actually give you the experience of support, calm, cheerleading, right?

I was looking in your stories all, I love all the little breakout spaces and the hammocks and the quiet pool and the sunset, and then the spaces to have fun and celebrate and have a party. What it’s doing is as much as it’s like, “Oh, this is fun,” on one hand this is just fun. But what I know because of the work I do is that we pay a lot of lip service to nurses about how they should be trauma-informed and we pay a lot of lip service to self-care, right? But then we drive and drive and drive and drive and push and push and push and push and we tell them to do everything else besides that, really truly in what we reinforce and in the way the environment is in modern care.

So what this is an opportunity to actually experience what kind of nurse you could be if you got the support you needed to carry the weight of nursing. And I think, honestly, I hope you’re prepared. I know you don’t at this point, have plans for a future one. I feel like this is going to be one of those experiences that everybody who does it is like, “When can we do it again?” People are going to make besties with other people and they’re going to be like, “We got to come back, we got to do it again.”

Because to me, this is the revolution that’s needed, which is yes, we need all this information, it’s super important, but we also need to create a connected space in which the caregivers also receive care. And that’s what you’re doing. So I was so on board because Sarah, just, anybody listening, Sarah came to me and this is so different from the usual offer that I get, and I just want to brag on you and your vision because often, people will be like, “I want you to come in and I want you to teach this thing in this timeline.” And that’s fine, but it’s very constructed and it’s like 45 minutes. Sometimes I laugh because they’ll be like, and then we also want to have a breakout and we want to have an experiential piece and we want you to teach all this information and we’ll give you 37 minutes to do it in. And that’s usually sort of like the offer I get.

Sarah came to me and said, “Krysta, I trust you. I know you. We have a similar vibe on how we want to approach this. What would it look like to create an experience that is uplifting, that is healing, that is supportive, that is affirming, and that is educational all at once?” And so this has been created with mission first. And that is such a rare ask. I’m so excited because not only am I going to be there teaching the trauma-informed aspect in the central nervous system and downregulation all the nerdy things that I just super love, but I also get to say, “Hey, now let’s try it out. Now, let’s do that. I’ve told you how, now let’s do it together so you can feel how, you can experience how.” So you can walk out of here being like, “Now I know how to do this with a patient because I’ve actually done it,” which is so different. It’s such a vision. I honestly think it’s going to have such a ripple effect.

Well, that’s the dream. I sure hope so.

I think you’re going to be in trouble because I think everyone’s going to be like, “How soon can we do it again?”

Well, and I said, this could be our entire business model. This could be truly all we do is plan this every year. Oh my God, what have we done?

I’m in. Let’s do it.

I know. I shouldn’t complain because we’re truly in paradise. Krysta, I want to know from your perspective, we talk all about trauma-informed care and we want to be trauma-informed and we do little health streams about it, but what’s your vision for teaching trauma-informed care? What does that look like, not the teaching portion, but what does it look like to practice in a trauma-informed care way, and what’s the outcome as a result of what happens when that happens?

Oh, I love this question. I feel like it gets to the heart of something that’s so easy to overlook. So trauma-informed care is super important. Trauma-informed patient care is super important. The prevention of trauma, working with people of previously existing trauma, all of that is where I first started working in this space. And anybody who knows me knows my story that I started out on the angle of this patient care and giving trauma-informed patient care and then worked my way into becoming a birth professional and being bedside. And so I came at it sort of maybe a regular route. I don’t know if I would say backwards. But I came at it teaching the professional how to give trauma-informed patient care. And then I got bedside because I thought, I really need to understand this, not in an after the fact discussion way, but in a real I’m there kind of way.

And that rocked my world because what I realized very quickly is that I was in a room with some lovely, passionate, caring people who were very traumatized. And I knew exactly what I was looking at because I look at it all day long in my office. At the same time, I was getting professionals coming into my office because they had heard from their patients that I was able to help them and they had no place else to go. So they started trickling in as well. And it was this whole second education of like, oh my gosh, this is so much bigger than the piece of the puzzle I was looking at. So we talk a lot about patient and trauma-informed care, which is I am very passionate about, I teach about, it’s super important. But my second learning was I don’t know how we’re going to expect these human beings to give trauma-informed care when they’re traumatized.

And not only is it not being taken care of, but it’s being normalized and in some cases, even purposefully penalized for you to reach out and say you’re not okay. And so I thought it doesn’t work to say, “Hey, you traumatized person who’s got layers and layers of unaddressed stuff, you give trauma-informed care.” That’s a broken model, that doesn’t work. I think other people say trauma-informed, they mean different things. What I mean is that we approach the entire system from the perspective of the human beings within the system, need certain central nervous system needs to be met in order to do good work and in order to give trauma-informed care. And it’s actually pretty straightforward. A little bit of knowledge goes a long way on the subject. It’s not as huge of an ask as it sounds, but it does require us to adjust our thinking and recognize that just like if there’s a piece of fancy equipment in the corner, every nurse knows that equipment is well maintained.

I think that what we’re missing is that trauma and distress and hardship and all the things that kind of go in a constellation with it are sort of only a matter of time in this work because you’re doing such hard work in such precarious circumstances, it’s only a matter of time for something to go sideways on you.

And so I want to shift and what I think now my definition has changed over time. What I think trauma-informed systems really look like is that we approach the people within the system with the same level of concern and care that we do that expensive equipment, which is, “Hey, it’s a matter of wear and tear that you’re going to need this support. Let’s be proactive in giving it to you.” And what we know is if we teach people ahead of time, like we’re going to do at Cancun, if we teach people ahead of time how to do that for themselves and for their colleagues, an ounce of prevention is worth all the care. They’re going to do better when the hard stuff comes and they’re going to be quicker to heal after the hard stuff. So it’s like all of the above. A trauma-informed system to me needs to look at it like, “Hey, the people within this really deserve investments,” and we know so much more about the nervous system now than we even did five years ago, we actually can do so much now.

Yep. And then what happens when we start doing that? What outcomes do you think will change?

Oh, good question. It’s a long list. We already know that if you’re addressing the trauma in the staff, you have lower turnover, lower absenteeism, lower incidence of illness, lower incidence of burnout. So all of the measurables are there, and the literature is very clear on this. What I also see personally that I would love to see literature confirm because I see it all the time is when you have staff that are in that place, the care they give to their patients is also trauma-informed.

Yes.

It’s so much easier as a nurse who’s experienced what you’re going to experience in Cancun or experienced what I’m talking about in general, to be able to go to a patient and approach them with that inner knowledge of, here’s what it is to regulate your nervous system. If you as a professional have experienced that regulation and have experienced that healing, and then you’re looking at a patient who’s in great distress, your instinct immediately kicks in because you felt it. You know it. So the care you give is different, the outcomes are better, the patient satisfaction scores I feel very certain would go up if we measure it. And it’s this trickle down. Plus, I mean, who doesn’t want that colleague? That colleague who’s done their work on that issue is like premier colleague, best boss, best coworker ever.

Yeah. And what does it mean to give patient care that’s trauma-informed?

Yeah. So there’s a lot of different definitions. Here’s how I look at it. I think trauma-informed is just a way of saying let’s actually be aware of the whole person, and be aware of the whole person includes the nervous system. So that means that when I look at my patient, I know that they don’t come in to hear a blank slate. They come here with some possible trauma history. So I approach it without awareness.

I also recognize that a central nervous system that doesn’t get what it needs in support, just like we support the physiologic systems, if we don’t support the central nervous system, then I am not preventing the possibility of trauma either. So it’s both, “Hey, you might come to me with trauma” and “Hey, this might be traumatic.” And I actually as a caregiver, can influence both. I can make this an environment less likely to do that. And I think what’s important to note is that sounds like such a huge ask. We do this all the time. We measure blood pressure and we check in on a pain score. We do this work all the time. It just requires a little bit of a perspective shift on what is trauma and what it means to be trauma-informed.

Right.

I have a question for you. I’ve been taking notes feverishly over here. Last week we talked about the thing we lack as nurses, especially night nurses, is REM sleep. And so I’m thinking recently, I had a long stretch of nights and I’m looking at my colleagues and I’m like, “Everyone is so tired. They’re so tired.” And so say they do the work. Can they still do the work, be proactive, not get sleep and be okay?

That’s a really good question. That’s a really good question. I think the answer is yes and no. Right? If you are not getting sleep, you got to think about it a little bit like a cup that’s overflowing. Your central nervous system can take some hits and keep going. So it’s about minimizing them. If you are not getting enough sleep, that’s a big hit. But it’s not a foregone conclusion that it’s just all done. Right? There’s other things you can do to support yourself, and then hopefully the sleep loss is temporary and not ongoing, and so you try to catch up later. It’s not this black and white of, “Well, you’re screwed, there’s nothing you can do. Good luck.” It’s like you have to think about it as a cup that overflows and your cup capacity’s different on different days, and it’s different for different people. And the way that we perceive our experiences is worth different amounts in the cup. So it’s this very subjective thing, but think about it like a cup. So sleep loss is part of it.

But if other than that, let’s say you have a super supportive environment. You have really kind coworkers, you love what you do, your workload is appropriate, and you get plenty of support in that. Let’s say your home life is supportive. Your significant other is a really caring, compassionate person. You have a work bestie that you get to decompress with. And so you have all these other factors in your favor, then that sleep disturbance or sleep loss isn’t going to be the thing that does you in. Does that make sense? But if you’re not getting enough sleep and you also don’t have support, don’t have safe spaces to downregulate your nervous system, don’t have appropriate workload levels, et cetera, et cetera, then that becomes one of them’s the thing too many. Does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense. Thank you. It’s great.

Yeah.

Can you tease us with some little facts of things you’re going to be sharing in Cancun, slash, also, we use this word downregulate. I use it all the time now. I was talking at dinner last night and I was like, “Oh, I’m just down regulating my nervous system.” My friend Anna that’s with me was like, “Huh?” And then we had a whole conversation about it. And so I want to know what are some of the ways and little tidbits, if you want to tease us with some of the information that you’re excited to share in Cancun, and then those that aren’t coming can also learn from?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So first question, what does downregulate mean? It’s just an overarching way to say, “I’m taking my nervous system from a fight and flight state into a calm state.” There’s a lot of different vocab words you can add to that, but that’s what it means. It just means I’m shifting gears. In your nervous system, you can think about it like the gas and the brakes. You have two sides. And when we are in work mode, we are leaning on the gas. And that’s okay, that’s okay to do. But we have to have a balance. There has to be space where we step on the brakes. And in a typical day, we actually are going gas, brakes, gas, brakes all day long. That’s really normal. And nurses know this because heart rate variability comes from this. When we look for heart rate variability, that’s because of the two sides of the autonomic nervous system balancing each other out.

That’s a sign of health. We know that already. So what we know is gas, brakes, gas, brakes is an important part of just being human, being alive and being healthy. What happens when you have a job where it’s all gas and no brakes and you don’t intentionally know how to engage the brakes in your body, is that you start to create a downstream distressed effect in your body. It starts with too much adrenaline and cortisol, stress hormones that we know are bad for you. And then long-term, it turns into inflammation, insomnia, agitation, and then chronic inflammation, chronic stress conditions down the road. So what we know is that your typical person and their typical job can just go to work every day and they’re doing gas and brakes all day. They go to their lunch break, they’re on their brakes, they get a call from the boss, they’re on their gas, they’re doing boring paperwork, they’re stepping on the brakes.

A typical person’s going back and forth all day long. But somebody who’s in a position like a nurse where they don’t have that same downtime, and they also don’t have the same predictability in terms of when demand is going to be placed on them and what it’s going to look like because they just have to be ready to respond all the time, that’s a lot of gas. And so it becomes important when you have a job like this, that you know how to intentionally shift the gears. And there is so much fun research about ways to do that. So what you were talking about was you were like, “Oh, I’m just downregulating.” It reminds me because that’s a conversation we had where we were talking about that.

So your vagus nerve is this nerve that kind of goes from the back of your brain all the way down your spine, and it’s called the wandering nerve because it sort of just touches every part of you. And it’s fascinating. I have pictures of it in museums, and people think it’s creepy, but I think it’s so fascinating. You can Google it, it’s really interesting. The vagus nerve is this superhighway, we are now understanding, of back and forth communication. So your brain and your head is not just the boss of your body, but your body’s also talking back to your brain. And so one of the ways that we can force downregulation is through doing physical things that force the reflexive response of downregulation. And so some of those have to do with like… I was just researching this last night, it’s so fascinating.

For instance, pressure on your eyes, gentle pressure on your eyes, stimulates the vagus nerve. That’s why when we get tired or stressed, often intuitively we’ll sort of rub our eyes or we love the pillow on our eyes. Gentle pressure on our eyes will actually lower our blood pressure, can be measured.

Whoa.

Right. And so there’s all these little tricks that you can do in the 30 seconds you have between patients, that you can do on the car ride home. Another one, so that we were talking about, I forgot to finish that thought. The reason that that is part of downregulation is because your vagus nerve, one of the points of access is in the back of your palate, of your mouth. So the back of your throat and the soft palate of your mouth actually is the closest we get to being able to touch our vagus nerve. So things like humming or even chanting or when we go, “Ugh,” because we’re just so frustrated.

Me all the time. Even though I’m not actually that frustrated, I just do a whole lot of grunting.

Right. And this is where I love working with birth nurses because it clicks for them, because all of these things are done intuitively by unmedicated people in labor. Why is it that people who are in labor land go, “Hmm”? Well, we think, we theorize they’re stimulating their vagus nerve. Why do children love to suck their thumb and put pressure to the top of their palate? We think it might be that they’re stimulating their vagus nerve. So what we know is as we unpack this gift of understanding our nervous system, there are concrete ways, and that’s one of the things that I just want people to know and that people are going to learn here and they’re going to learn from you and they’re going to learn from me, is that this is not a big mystery. It’s not some sort of airy fairy, like everybody calm down.

There are concrete, actionable things you can do with your eyes, with your mouth, with your throat, with your breathing, with your hands, with your legs, that actually stimulate that downregulation we’re talking about. And a little bit of knowledge can dramatically improve your life because now instead of your whole shift being just constant gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, you now made it gas, brakes, gas, brakes, which is how it’s supposed to be, and you prevented all of that downstream with just a little bit of change.

I got to say that correlation to variability was so great too. That’s so awesome. Yeah, variability’s a sign of health-

Yeah, that’s the autonomic nervous system. We’re supposed to be going back and forth. That’s what the variability is showing. It’s showing good neurological development, right?

Yep. That’s what we want.

And when we think about physiologic coping for our patients, because of course, that’s where I come in as well, is all of these things you try for yourself, you experience for yourself, and then you take and you apply to your patients. Close your eyes, here’s a warm washcloth for your eyes or a cool washcloth for your eyes. That’s going to help calm the body more than, “Oh, it feels good.” I think we think, it’s just because it’s soothing. But it truly has physiologic, that’s why we’re talking about physiologic coping, is coping isn’t just for patients. It’s then also turned out to you when you’re rubbing their back and you’re encouraging them to abdominal breathe, you’ll know why you’re encouraging them to abdominal breathe. And then you’ll have five seconds to do a breath with them and actually practice it yourself and think, “I’m putting on the brakes right now for myself.” As I’m teaching it, why not integrate this into the way you practice so that you can take advantage of moments you maybe aren’t even aware of in your practice to help really fill your cup back up.

Yes. And to piggyback on that, one of the things we’re going to talk about in Cancun is co-regulation, right? And so one of the things that a lot of people don’t realize is that because we are social creatures, we are co-regulators. And I think it’s easiest for us to see this with an infant and parent. The parent’s agitated, the infant’s agitated, right?

Yes.

We are co-regulators. And so what we know is that if we are in a state of distress or fight and flight, if the person nearest to us is in a state of regulation, we can actually sort of hitch a ride and we can co-regulate through connection with them. And so we’re going to learn more about this together and experiment and try it. But how is that applicable? As a birth nurse, is anything more applicable? Because when you go in back to trauma-informed care and you see a patient who’s dysregulated, if you don’t know how to regulate yourself, you don’t know how to regulate them. It doesn’t matter what you’re saying to them verbally. If you’re saying, “Calm down, everything’s fine,” but your nervous system is not regulated, then all you’re doing is contributing dysregulation to the interaction, even if you are trying your best to put on a poker face.

On the other point, if you know some real quick little tricks to regulate and then you can engage in regulation with your client, all of a sudden that co-regulation kicks in. And now not only did you prevent a traumatic outcome and improve their connection to the room, you also improve the outcome of their physiologic birth. And as the nurse, you’re in a way better space too, because who doesn’t love to feel like calm under stressful circumstances?

Right.

Everyone wins.

And this is that analogy we talk about in mentorship and throughout some of the other stuff of you’re the thermostat and you have the ability to be the thermostat, that when you walk in and you bring your energy, as simple put as that, that contributes to the environment of the room. And now you’ll understand the pathophysiology of what that looks like and then how to do that more effectively. I am so excited. I’m like, can you just teach the whole thing, Krysta?

Well, that’s really sweet of you. I think they’d be disappointed if they missed out on your teaching though, because you’re doing some really cool stuff too. Not just the nervous system, but also with fascia that I’m really excited about.

Oh, yeah, the fascia stuff’s going to be insane. It’s going to be so fun. And this is where fascia is also extremely integrated with your nervous system. It is sort of the anatomical structure other than your actual nervous system that contributes in such a synergistic way that I’m so excited about it. And it’s one of those sort of hacks. When you talk about the pressure on the eyes or the vibration of the palate, that fascia work and truly a fascial release is another way to downregulate the nervous system and then actually change the surrounding structures to create more space and movement for baby to come out.

And this is where it’s so cool to be in a birth space because not only is that great for your patient, that information, but nurses take a beating on their bodies, right?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

So knowing this information for yourself, it helps everybody. The tide rises all ships on this one.

Well, and this is why we have a whole myofascial moment circuit that’s going to be set up in the afternoons. And then we also have a sound bath available-

Which are two things, by the way, I’m really excited. When those things happen, I’m going to go from being a leader to just being a participant. I’m going to be like, “Yay.” I cannot wait.

Same. I’m going to be on that floor just soaking in the sound and probably jump in the circuit myself. I’ll be needing it after teaching. So will you. Those myofascial moments are ways for you to experience self-release that then you can turn around and apply to your patients and sort of see that you can give them a little task and understand why it’s happening, explain that quickly to your patients, and then have a little bit more oomph behind your teaching because you’re like, “No, no, no, I’ve experienced this,” or “I’ve integrated this into my life.” And you add credibility to that, and then you walk away all released and downregulated and calm and healed. Not entirely, I think we’re all on a healing journey, but that would be the goal. That’s the dream of all of this.

One other question, Krysta, that I have, going off, piggybacking again off our conversation last week was we said we want you in the hospital, we want your programs in the hospital or trauma therapists in the hospital. Would nurses doing this work mitigate that need or does it need to be both? Does it need to be a program in the hospital or could it be nurses doing this work and… Could it be nurses just doing this internal work and with them and with their management team, could that work? I know it would be better than it is now for sure, anything being done. But I’d be curious to know.

So this is where I think that in all areas of health, for some reason, it’s just like an easy metaphor for me, or an easy analogy is probably a better way to put it, I think about heart disease. There are things that you do to prevent it, and then there are things that you do when you have signs of an acute episode. And it’s not an either or. So the way I look at it is there are things that can be done to help buffer, to help your nervous system out to make it less likely things are going to become traumatic. And then there are also things that you can do as an individual if something does happen that is distressing. And all of that is super valuable, but it’s not an either or because the other side of it is that sometimes things are acute, sometimes things happen that are beyond that nervous system’s ability to cope.

And we have to have a plan for that. And that’s where I think the system comes in because anybody who’s had acute PTSD, I’ve had it, I obviously work with it all the time. Anybody who’s in that state knows that you need a lifeline. It’s like a person in a ocean without a life jacket. It’s not the time for you to fix it yourself, it’s the time for the system, including your support system and the system, meaning the institutional system, to jump in and throw the life jacket.

So to me, it’s both, and. I think that there’s an element of systemic need to invest in sort of ongoing maintenance, just like we would with the equipment. Ongoing care, ongoing support, and then quick access to central nervous system informed trauma therapies. What we see in the literature is that when somebody within a short window of a distressing event has access to this, literally one 90 minute session can completely change the trajectory of their trauma. It goes from they would’ve had trauma to they don’t have it. So how amazing would it be if people just had that, had that accessibility right away, stigma free, easily accessible for them. I think we would see everybody improve all the way around. Does that answer your question? I don’t think it’s an either, or. I actually think it needs to be a both, and.

Yeah. It totally does. And you’re so great with all those analogies. That makes perfect sense. So thank you.

Especially to us nurses.

Right.

It’s got to be both.

What do you want-

Yeah-

It’s got to be both.

Yeah. So I think the answer is just it’s got to be both. Just like it would make sense to us, so a birth analogy would be hypertension. There’s things that the patient needs to know how to do for themselves, both on the prevention and the addressing of it, but then there’s also system support that needs to take place both in the prevention and in the addressing it acutely, all of the above.

What I want people to know is that there is so much reason to be hopeful and optimistic about this topic. That is what I always want people to feel. I want them to understand that what we know now is huge compared to what we knew even five years ago. It’s continuing to increase exponentially. What we will know five years from now is going to be even better than what I can tell you today. And so help is on the way on this topic. I hope you come to Cancun. I think Cancun’s going to be a part of that. I really do think that everybody who doesn’t get to go is going to have FOMO because it’s going to be such a blast. And I think that it’s going to really shift the dialogue on the subject, and people are going to make friendships and bond and ask to do it again and again.

And you should be prepared for that, guys. I don’t know what you’re going to do. But whether or not Cancun’s in the cards for you this time around, just know that this is not airy fairy, this is not demanding more of you. This is totally something that can be addressed in concrete ways that can dramatically improve not only your career longevity, but the quality of your life. We no longer have to just keep suffering and wondering. There’s so much reason to be optimistic and hopeful about this, and I hope people take that more than anything else that I say.

Thank you, Krysta, for spending your time with us on this podcast. If you’re listening and you want more from her, remember that we have our Healing Trauma for Birth Workers in our store. We also have Preventing Trauma, Level 1 and Level 2, in the store, which are amazing resources. If you are in mentorship, you have some of those classes in your mentorship. We are excited to learn more from you.

You also have the ability to see her live and in action, in Cancun. We have some tickets left for our Cancun MOVE Learning Retreat in May. So please head to our website to learn more about that. Thanks for spending your time with us during this episode of Happy Hour with Bundle Birth Nurses. If you like what you heard, it helps us if you subscribe, rate, leave a raving review and share this episode with a friend. If you want more from us, head to Bundle Birth Nurses or follow us on Instagram.

Now it’s your turn to go sign up for Cancun and then press on your eyeballs, vibrate your soft palate, and get a really good night’s sleep. We’ll see you next time.