Ep 1: How Trauma Impacts Gut and Hormone Health

Hannah Aylward (00:00.908)
Welcome to the Nutrient Dense podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of Han. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative healthcare. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else works.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out. And I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting. Hi, sweeties and welcome to the Nutrient Dense podcast. I’m so excited to be here with you today because today we’re going to be diving into the connection between trauma

gut health and hormone health and how trauma can cause a long lasting impacts on both our gut contributing to those chronic digestive symptoms like bloating, constipation, diarrhea, stomach pain, those classic IBS symptoms, along with how it can cause these long lasting impacts on our hormonal health and our hormone balance, influencing things like our fertility, our periods, PMS, overall energy, all that kind of stuff.

And this topic is pretty near and dear to my heart as someone who experienced a good bit of childhood trauma that heavily impacted who I am today and impacted my digestive health and my gut health over the years. And when I look back on my story, it is pretty clear that my childhood trauma played a big role in my health overall. And it also plays a role in how I show up today.

and how I have to be extra mindful of certain things when it comes to my health today. So to keep it pretty short, my childhood story came with a lot of walking on eggshells, a lot of emotional volatility, a lot of kind of like emotional explosion and not feeling very safe in my home. So I was kind of always waiting for that other shoe to drop.

Hannah Aylward (02:19.384)
So how did that kind of show up and how I coped with things? Well, I would try to control every little thing that I could because it seemed like everything was out of my control. Nothing really made sense. I would witness these things happen and I would go, why is this happening? I don’t understand this. My brain like could not compute. And there was a lot of kind of an emotional explosion yelling.

screaming that kind of stuff that left me as a little girl, you know, pretty scared and feeling very unsafe. And how that played out in my adulthood a bit more is really, you know, soon after that, I gripped onto things like over exercising, under eating, and kind of leaning towards this perfectionism or perfectionist tendency, trying to be the best that I could possibly be.

essentially to protect myself and avoid any negative outcomes that could come about because I wanted to minimize as much pain and fear as possible, minimize as much rejection as possible and just kind of try to control all of the bits that I could control once again, because it felt like everything was really out of my control. So we’re going to get into how those little bits and pieces

impact your gut health and your kind of like story overall. But what’s also interesting is, you know, these things impacted the state of my gut function, the state of my gut microbiome and my hormonal health, because I just got very, very used to running on cortisol, but these things still pop their heads up today. So I always say, you know, I like to be very clear and honest. I’m very like upfront with expectations with clients. I’m very

transparent with clients and I am not sitting on the other side with this mic acting like I’ve got it all figured out and I’m perfect and don’t you worry. We’re all dealing with our own version of this as life ebbs and flows and as we get thrown more curveballs because we always do. That’s part of life. So my tendency is that I will work, work, work. I will control, control, control, and I will kind of burn the candle at both ends.

Hannah Aylward (04:38.209)
striving for more and more and more. And how that influences my health is if I’m not careful, I wake up one day and I’m burnt out. And I have this moment where I think to myself, how am I here again? I’ve been here before. I know better than this. I know how to support my body on a physical level. I know how to support my nervous system, but here it goes again, because a lot of my self-worth over the years has been sourced from my ability to do.

There’s always kind of been a comparison in my life with someone and I’m the one who can figure it out. If you want something done, you give it to Hannah. If you have a big project, you give it to Hannah. She can lead, she can take the way I’m quote unquote inspirational, but I’m, I haven’t really been marked as this one. That’s just fun to be around or funny or a good time or whatever. So I’ve almost played into that story more and more as I’ve grown up.

and gotten older as well. And that kind of keeps me in this pattern of thinking that what I produce, the work that I produce, how hard I work, what I create in that sense is a reflection of my worth, right? So I gain self-worth from these things, not simply from being. And that’s kind of sourced from a deeper underlying belief that I’m not worthy as I am, just who I am.

that’s not enough. I’ve got to prove that I’m enough. So it’s a nice mixed bag. So, you know, I wanted to elaborate a little bit on that just because I know it’s going to resonate with someone. a lot of the clients that we work with, a lot of the clients that I see tend to be a lot like me, which is not a coincidence because you you attract, you put that energy out there and that’s what you attract. And I’m not surprised that people

that also operate that way in that perfectionist tendency in that go, go, go work, work, work way or attracted to my work either. Right. So I’m happier here. If that resonates with you, you’re in the right place and there’s so much that we can do to help you get better. And it’s so worth it. Like the nervous system work is so fricking worth it. Cause it’ll change your whole life. It’s not only going to change your digestion or your stress. It’s going to change your whole life, which is super cool. But wanted to elaborate on that a little bit there.

Hannah Aylward (07:01.308)
So you kind of had an idea of where I’m coming from. I’m not this like super quote unquote chill person that this lets anything like float on by. No, my patterning is controlling, minimizing risk, go, go, go, work, work, work, prove, prove, prove, be the best, graduated top of class, skipped a grade, that kind of energy. So relaxing, doing less is quite hard for me, but it’s very important.

that I kind of keep my finger on that pulse because it’s super easy, as I said, to wake up one day and I’m sitting here going, I’ve done it again, right? I’m exhausted and how stress physiologically impacts the body and how it can create and contribute to these negative health outcomes that so many people are facing today. Let’s kind of get into a bit more specifics on exactly what that looks like. So what I want everyone to know is

Trauma is really not what happens to you. It’s how it lives in your body and it influences your psychology, your immune system, and your stress hormones long after the event took place. It’s how you normalize living in a chronic stress state. It’s how you learn to run on cortisol, unable to sit still and always having to be productive.

which inevitably leads to chronic health issues like IBS, hormonal imbalances, painful periods, thyroid disorders, and poor sleep. So when we talk about trauma, sometimes the conversation gets a little lost because people think back to their childhood or they think back to their life and they’re like, you know what, I’ve had it pretty easy or I’ve had a good go, right? And that’s fantastic. And it’s not really, no one’s trauma is, I don’t want to deem it like

better or worse than anyone else’s, right? We have some big T traumas that some of us have been through and we have some little T traumas that some of us have been through, but not to undermine anyone’s experience. Everyone’s experience is valid and some people have been through incredibly, incredibly difficult things. That’s a given, right? But it’s more so about how your body responds to this trauma. So it can be something, you know, like your parents get divorced. You go through a divorce,

Hannah Aylward (09:21.668)
And then you take away the belief that you’re not enough or your parents would have never gotten divorced. Or maybe that divorce leads to financial problems for the family. You’ve got to sell your childhood home and you’ve got to move out. And then things are a lot more stressful from there. So there’s kind of like different situations that can unfold. That’s just one example, right? We can have big, big T traumas. We can have physical traumas. We can have huge emotional traumas. And then we can have smaller kind of smaller little T traumas.

And I don’t want to really call them small, right? So I hope I’m making that very clear here. And once again, it’s not a contest who’s got the worst trauma or anything like that. My point is really understanding that it’s how your body perceives the event. It’s not really the event itself, which is also why someone can interpret a situation like

getting picked on in class or being called on in class and not having the right answer to the question from the teacher and then being laughed at in front of everyone as a traumatic event based on how the body responds in that moment. So say that moment takes place, whereas some kids wouldn’t really affect much, right? And other kids then go into a fight or flight response. Their heart starts beating fast. They start sweating. Their palms are sweaty. Their stomach turns into knots. And then they take away the belief that

I should never speak up because I have nothing to add. have no value to add. We zoom out 10 years later, 20 years later, and we can see how that could impact someone’s life. If they feel like they never have any value to add or there’s no point in voicing their opinion or speaking up. It’s more so about your body’s response to the trauma. So we don’t all have the same traumas, right? Most people have endured something in their life.

if not many things, think most of us have endured many, painful things, but it’s more so how, how that has kind of stayed in the body, created these patterns in the body and in the nervous system and then how that influences our lives. So as I mentioned earlier about my personal story, and I like to share personal stories just because I learned with like examples, I’m

Hannah Aylward (11:33.476)
I was always the girl in class being like, Hey, can I see another example of this? This isn’t making sense to me. Can I see another example? And when I hear other people’s stories, I can connect to where I fit in, in that story, if that makes sense. So as I mentioned about my story earlier, I had a pattern of, there was a lot of walking on eggshells. There was a lot of not enoughness. There was a lot of emotional volatility. So that left me on guard. That left me kind of in defense. That left me go, go, go, go, go work, work, work, right.

And that is going to, that pattern is hardwired in this body of mine. Let me tell you, relaxing is harder. Saying no is harder. Slowing down is harder for me personally. And how does that influence my life? I can get defensive sometimes. That means I’m really, really used to operating in a stressed out state. I am used to running on cortisol.

my body knows running on cortisol very, very well. We’ve had a lot of practice there and it takes consistent awareness to take me out of that response. Now we’re going to get into why that would be damaging for your health, but I think that most of us know running on cortisol is not good for us, right? So just know that these little things can happen and then you see them playing out in your life time and time and time and time again.

And we want to be mindful because it’s very easy to wake up in 20 years, 30 years, 40 years and go, wow, I haven’t really relaxed one day in my life. I haven’t really felt safe in my body this whole time. I haven’t felt ease in my life this whole time. And that’s a painful thing to wake up to. So let’s try to do what we can to avoid that. Yeah.

do all the little work, the little important work, everything that we can. and there’s never any like guilt or shame or blame in this conversation either. And I want to be very clear about that. It’s definitely not a, should have known better. That’s, that’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do here. It’s more so gaining education and awareness so we can see, Ooh, this is something worth taking a look at and paying attention to in my life. So let’s get into the connection between your gut health, specifically your nervous system.

Hannah Aylward (13:48.582)
how these things are intertwined and how they influence one another. So really the connection between your gut and your nervous system is inseparable. So we have something called the gut brain axis, and this is essentially showing the connection between our gut and our brain. And this is really formed through the vagus nerve. So the vagus nerve is a pair of cranial nerves.

that connect at the bottom of the brainstem and they go all the way into the gut, but they touch on all these organs along the way down too. So your vagus nerve can also influence your heart rate, right? So it’s touching on all these other organs on the way down, but we do feel it in our bellies. It does connect in our gut. And that is why you may have experienced the feeling of butterflies in your tummy.

because that’s really showing you, know, you’re not eating anything. You’re not taking any supplement, nothing like that’s happening. Nothing’s actually going in your gut, but your nervous system is sensing a situation, whether it’s nervousness, anxiety, excitement, whatever. And then you’re feeling that in your stomach. Sometimes everyone kind of knows the feeling of before you get up to give a big presentation or you’re going to walk out on the stage or you’re going to go on that first date or you’re going to send that text message. That’s like super vulnerable.

whatever it might be, you know that feeling of getting butterflies in your tummy from that. Sometimes you may even have to run to the bathroom in that case because of that gut brain connection. And the vagus nerve is an incredibly important piece of this connection. One of its main roles is to bring us back down to a calm state or to a regulated state after we’ve been anxious.

And as I said, the vagus nerve really creates a two-way communication highway between your brain and your digestive system. It’s not just your brain biochemistry and physiology that’s impacted by chronic and traumatic stress. Your gut literally changes too. So I always say to my clients and to my community, stress doesn’t stay stress. A lot of us picture stress.

Hannah Aylward (15:56.594)
as this emotional stress, right? Mental stress and emotional stress. There’s also other stressors. can have environmental stressors. We can have physical stressors, gut issues, gut infections and imbalances. Those are big physical stressors, under eating, nutrient deficiencies. I’ll kind of go into that in another episode, but we can have stressors all over the map here, physical, environmental, mental and emotional.

But stress doesn’t stay stress because it influences your physiology. So it’s not just your brain biochemistry and feelings of anxiety that are impacted by this chronic and traumatic stress. Your gut is literally responding to these chronic stressors. So when you spend time in chronic states of stress, of anxiety, of this is never enough, of go, go, go, of I’m

totally overwhelmed and I can’t get my head above water. The vagus nerve isn’t functioning as it normally would in these states. And that means that blood flow is going to go away from the GI organs, blood flow is sent away from your gut and out to your extremities because this is really the fight or flight state. This is known as sympathetic dominance. So we’ve, is an automatic response from your nervous system when you encounter a stressor.

your body is brilliant and it’s doing this to protect you. But your body can’t tell the difference between a big stressor, a big sense of danger. Maybe it’s like a tiger running at you. That’s kind of the example everyone gives, but most of us aren’t experiencing that anymore. Right? So I like to give the example of when you’re about to like step off the curb and cross the road and there’s a car coming and you jump back up and you feel that surge in your body, you feel like, Whoa,

And that’s your stress response and your cortisol and your adrenaline kind of waking you up and helping you jump back on the curb really quickly, or getting that feeling of when you’re walking and you kind of slip on something, but you catch yourself. That’s your body stress response in action. You can think clearly, you can see clearly your like go-to response mechanisms are at play here. So this is not all bad in this state. It’s very helpful and it’s going to help you survive.

Hannah Aylward (18:13.464)
In the short term, we run into issues when it’s happening chronically because your body can’t tell the difference between an instance where this response is really needed to save your life and an inbox full of emails, being late for that dentist appointment, having another conversation with your spouse that you’ve already have at this point is just pissing you off and you’re angry about it. Scrolling on Instagram and Tik Tok and getting fed all of this negative stuff over and over and over again.

Honestly, even if it’s not negative, it’s so much stimulation for your brain. It’s keeping you in that sympathetic dominant fight or flight state. So when we are in this state, blood flow is going to go away from our GI organs. The other thing that changes is the movement of food throughout your GI tract. When we are in this fight or flight state, this sympathetic dominant state, our gut motility is going to be impacted. It can actually be slowed down when we’re in this fight or flight state.

And this can cause things like bloating, constipation, cramping, stomach pain. The vagus nerve also plays a role in our stomach acid production, and that’s gonna influence our ability to digest food properly. Improper digestion is going to cause things like IBS symptoms, bloating, gas, pain. Now, stomach acid is one of the main digestive juices that we use to properly break down our food.

but it also acts as what I call like the conductor in the orchestra. And I learned this from another dietitian. She called it the conductor in the orchestra as it kind of like signals for the other digestive juices to be released and to do their job. And we can’t break down our food efficiently if we don’t have enough of these good digestive juices, things like stomach acid, things like pancreatic enzymes, things like bile. All of these are kind of our, I call them digestive output to

help us break down our food. Without them, we’re going to create this more dysbiotic state. This is how we develop SIBO. This is how we develop gut dysbiosis. This isn’t the cause for every single case, but this is very commonly playing a part in this. When we can’t digest our food properly, we’re gonna have this microbial overgrowth in our GI tract. And we know that that microbial overgrowth causes a lot of symptoms. So when we don’t have adequate digestive output,

Hannah Aylward (20:35.728)
We’ll get like a lot of burping, gas, bloating, that feeling of like having a rock in your stomach. That’s what some clients will say to me. Feeling like food is just sitting in your stomach. It’s not fun. It’s not a good feeling. You’re feeling like really full after just a couple of bites of food. It sucks, right? So our vagus nerve impacts and plays a role in our stomach acid production. So to kind of like wind that back a little bit, if we, our vagus nerve is not doing its job and it fits not operating,

Well, it’s not doing what it knows how to do so well because we are in this chronic stressed out state. We are going to be producing less stomach acid. Our gut motility is going to slow down and our blood flow is going to go away from our GI organs. That is going to cause chronic gut issues over time. One instance here and there, not a big deal, right? One instance of turning the corner and someone’s there and they scare you or whatever and your digestion’s compromised for 30 seconds. Not a big deal.

existing in this state, fueled by underlying trauma, fueled by not enoughness, perfectionism, go, go, go, work, work, work, never settle, not prioritizing rest. We can see how this could become a larger issue over time, right? We also know when our gut motility is impacted, our ability to digest our food is also impacted. And as I mentioned, that’s when we’ll see things like gut dysbiosis, SIBO,

low gut immune function and maldigestion as a result of this. And gut dysbiosis is really just an imbalance in our gut microbiota. It’s an imbalance in our gut bacteria. It’s just kind of a fancy word for that. It is going to increase inflammation and it’s gonna cause a lot of digestive symptoms. And this is when I can essentially tell that a client has got dysbiosis when they come to me and they say, I react to everything that I eat. I have been diagnosed with IBS and

My symptoms are very inconsistent. can’t really connect them to one food. I seem to be reacting to many different foods, but I also seem to be reacting to a meal on one day and I didn’t react the day prior. So I could eat the same thing for breakfast on Monday and Tuesday, and I feel fine on Monday. And then I feel really bad on Tuesday after eating it. It’s not the food, right? Something else is impacting your ability to digest and break down the food and how you also respond to the food.

Hannah Aylward (22:57.478)
So gut dysbiosis is at the core of like a lot of chronic GI issues. We run functional stool testing. I have a team of functional registered dietitians and a clinical nutritionist and we help clients in group programs and one-on-one programs really dig deeper here. We run functional labs. We see is there gut dysbiosis present? And dysbiosis can be an overgrowth of bad bacteria. It can be an undergrowth of good gut bacteria. It can be an overgrowth of

fungi or yeast, like there’s many kinds of different patterns that we’re looking for. We can have more of a histamine producing overgrowth picture. So we won’t really get into that today. But the point is chronic state of stress leads to maldigestion leads to gut dysbiosis, which also then leads to increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut. We also know that high cortisol. So when our body is running on these stress hormones,

from this trauma state, from this chronic stressed out state, when we are running on those stress hormones, we are going to use cortisol, right? The body’s gonna pump out cortisol as part of that stress response. When that happens, we will see our immune response, our immune system be suppressed, and we’ll also see a degradation of the gut lining happening. So cortisol has the ability to kind of wear away at the mucosal layer of our gut lining.

which will then further contribute to that leaky gut or increased intestinal permeability picture. It’s really just a barrier. So we’ve got your skin as a barrier and we’ve got your gut lining as a barrier because this is where you get most of the exposure to the outside world through your gut, through the food that you’re eating and putting in your mouth and then through your skin, everything that you’re touching. So we’ve got strong barrier systems here.

Now this barrier, when our gut barrier gets compromised, we’ll end up super symptomatic. And this is also playing a role in a lot of autoimmune conditions as well. So this is not something to take lightly. This isn’t to like scare you or anything like that. We can totally get you feeling a lot better and help, but we want to consider this stuff, right? So if we are thinking that we can supplement our way out of this or elimination diet our way out of this, we are mistaken.

Hannah Aylward (25:08.794)
we have to look at the nervous system. Digestion is a nervous system regulated process. It starts in the brain. When we are in that rest and digest state or that parasympathetic nervous system state, we are primed to properly digest our food. When we are in that sympathetic dominant state or that fight or flight state, our digestion is going to be immediately compromised. So we have to take a look at the health of our nervous system when it comes to

wanting to overcome these chronic digestive issues that we might have and our hormonal health and our ability to absorb nutrients and our hair growth and our skin health and everything honestly, but we’ll stick to gut hormones for the purpose of, of this talk today. So essentially these chronic gut issues can be almost like a symptom of being stuck in this stressed out state. And like I said, you know,

I say very often stress does not stay stress. It influences your physiology. And when I teach master classes, I always use this same graphic for my students because it really breaks down exactly what happens in the body when you enter that stress state and how that will influence your gut health. Quick overview of that again, it’s going to wear away the mucosal layer of that gut lining, contributing to intestinal permeability or, you know, leaky gut.

It’s going to suppress stomach acid production. It’s going to slow down gut motility. Blood flow is going to go away from the GI organs. All of these things essentially over time lead to this dysbiotic state in our gut microbiome that then also contributes to intestinal permeability, which is that kind of combination right there. This is what’s causing most people’s IBS. This is what’s causing most people’s food reactions and intolerances and food sensitivities.

The conversation, it’s a little bit more nuanced than this. Everyone’s story is different. Everyone’s labs look different. No person’s protocol is the same as someone else’s and people can have some kind of underlying imbalances, things to tweak. But these are, there are very common patterns that we see and this is one of them right here. It’s also very easy to get stuck in that chronic stress state.

Hannah Aylward (27:25.493)
when you feel like your body’s freaking out nonstop and you feel like you’re reacting to everything that you eat, it’s kind of like a hamster wheel. It’s the question is always, my anxiety cause my gut issues or did my gut issues cause my anxiety? And the answer is both y’all. Like they are contributing to one another at this time. So regardless of where it originated, we have to look at the nervous system and we have to look at the gut on a physical level.

These two things are essential for helping you get better. In order to get on the other side of these chronic gut issues, we need to address both of them, the physical gut imbalances and the chronic stress state. And we can help this, you know, through all of the lab work and the protocols and all of that amazing stuff that we do. But we also, on the nervous system side, we want to reestablish self-regulation through balancing the nervous system and increasing our vagal tone.

these things can be very, very helpful. We also want to take a look at our belief systems and our thoughts. What thoughts are we thinking on a daily basis? What are the stories that we live our lives by? What are these belief systems that we’ve essentially just been like indoctrinated into because that’s what our parents believe. And that’s, not even saying if it’s right or wrong, right? But we just want to check it. Is how I’m living my life, how I want to be living my life is

how I think of the world and my abilities, how I actually want to, were these beliefs just given to me? Are these a response of trauma or am I, do I have a choice in this? So my life really started to change when I said, I have a choice in this. A lot of these beliefs and these big fears that I have in my life actually have nothing to do with me. My parents’ divorce has nothing to do with me. My, one of my parents, like emotional,

explosions honestly has nothing to do with me. So I have a choice in how I show up and I have a choice in these patterns that I choose to live out every single day. And once again, it is not always easy. I grew up hearing from my mom that being lazy is the worst thing that one could be. So how do you think that impacted me today? Of course, as a little girl, you know, on when we really like go deeper and deeper into it.

Hannah Aylward (29:44.521)
I just want to be loved by my mom. think every little girl wants to be loved by their mom. So if this is what my mom thinks, then okay, I definitely don’t want to be lazy then because I want to make her happy and I want to impress her and I want her to love me just like basic survival. And then also just like, you know, mother daughter connection. It’s very intuitive. I don’t think we even like choose that. So how did that influence me? I work really, really hard and I’ll work myself into the ground. And if I’m not working hard enough, I’m not doing enough.

And what does working hard enough even mean? Right. So I bring this up once again, because we want to check this stuff and see like, where does it come from? Is this even what I believe? What is happiness to me? What is enough to me? What does successful look like to me? Where do I get this idea of perfectionism? Because I kind of logically know that it’s a lie, right? No one actually knows.

everything and no one actually does it perfect because we’re all just human and we are simply doing the best that we can, every single one of us. So it’s like, can logically know these things, but you can still not feel that safety in your body. But bringing awareness to these patterns, to these beliefs, to these thought systems is part of this journey because it can be really hard to just kind of like breath work and meditation your way out of these deeper beliefs.

Because if you believe if one of your core beliefs, just like mine is being lazy is bad, right? Which like lazy, I mean, what does that even mean? We want to like dissect all of this. What resting every once in a while, right? Like we live in a society that does not prioritize rest. So like what is lazy? But if you have the belief that being lazy is bad, then giving yourself space, sticking to a meditation practice, sticking to a breath work practice.

not working into the late night. mean, all of these things, you’re going to be fighting your belief systems. I hope that makes sense. So it can be helpful to dissect some of this. Where do these patterns come from? Where do these thoughts come from? And how are they influencing my health today? So this is the good, good work you guys. So we can see how these patterns, these stress patterns influence our gut, right? Your stomach acid, gut lining, all of that good stuff.

Hannah Aylward (32:07.061)
but it’s kind of like, how can we jump in and support this and take a look at our beliefs and how we show up on a day to day basis and learning self-regulation and learning some vagal tone, vagal toning exercises can be really, really helpful because you can’t always control what happens to you. Life is going to throw us curve balls. We will encounter difficult things.

I kind of believe, this is take this or leave this, cause it’s just my belief. think life is beautiful and literally anything is possible. And I also think life is a little like inherently tricky, right? It’s a little challenging. We, we love these people and they leave or they die, right? Like there’s a lot of, there’s so much beauty in the love. There’s so much joy in the love. And then there’s so much pain in the loss. And that’s just kind of like part of this life. We can’t control everything and how.

Frustrating is that sometimes, right? So since we can’t control everything, at first we have to accept that. And then we can learn these tools to kind of help us reach regulation again, that state where the nervous system feels safe, we feel calm, and we can actually think straight. Because if we’re just going through our day in a chronically stressed out state, I mean, this is going to influence

not only your gut health, it’s going to impact your memory, your decision-making skills, everything, because you can’t even think straight when you’re in a pure survival state. So we’ll talk about some exercises at the end here that you can implement and start implementing into your life on a daily basis to help tonify the vagus nerve and support a healthy stress response and more so like stress resiliency, because a quote unquote balanced nervous system is not always stress free. It’s more so about

how quickly you can re-regulate. Does a really stressful event take you out for three days or does it take you out for an hour? That’s kind of more so what we want to be looking to close the gap on. You will still get stressed. You will still be thrown curve balls. Things are still going to come your way that you didn’t see coming and they’re going to impact you. I almost had a freak out last week because my computer started tweaking on me and I was already at capacity with my workload and I was like, you know what? I’m going to freak out, but I can’t.

Hannah Aylward (34:21.169)
because I have to get some things done because I’m an adult. So I gotta, I gotta take some breaths and I have to keep going. But thank God I have these tools at this point. Or I mean, that would have taken me fully out. I was able to recover and I was able to get things done and I was able to kind of shrug it off and laugh it off. And that’s after years and years of hard work implementing these tools. Once again, not perfect, but I am deeply in practice of all of this. The key to this is really having a healthy functioning Vegas nerve.

so we’re, we are going to get into that a bit more. The other thing I just wanted to, you know, make it make another note on or emphasize a little bit here is this perfectionism piece. And I say this because I see it in so many of the incredible, incredible women that we work with. And when you’re doing this gut work and you’re taking these supplements and you’re following these diets and you’re putting in so much effort, I mean, I congratulate every single one of our clients for even signing up to work with us because it feels scary.

It’s an investment in your time and it’s an investment in your money. It’s an investment in your energy and you’re committing the next few months to like completely transforming your life. And that’s going to take some work. It is the best work and it is going to be well, well worth it, but it, takes some work, right? And you’re going to have to change some things. So it’s so common for the women that we work with to want to totally control every piece of it. They’ll even try to control some of their protocols. They’ll question every supplement that we give them.

They will, they’re trying to keep their finger on the pulse of everything, which I get, you know, it’s like, of course you can ask us questions, but this over-controlling piece is part of this nervous system, like rev up, this like hyper arousal response. And they’ll also try to do everything perfectly. So I will say in our programs time and time again, we do not expect you to do this perfectly. No one does this perfectly. And that’s the reality of this. And that may make me a bad health coach.

but I do expect you to show up for yourself, but I expect you to show up for yourself at the highest level that you’re able to today. And that’s what I want you to do for yourself. This is not about checking every single box every day, and it’s not about doing it perfectly. I don’t do it perfectly. Honestly, you can give it a good 85 % and you can get great results. That’s what I always say, cause life will happen and one of your kids will get sick and you will miss your flight and you will get a bad phone call and you will, you know,

Hannah Aylward (36:44.309)
purchase a new home or whatever it is. mean, we’ve had clients all over the map inside of my programs, purchasing homes, getting, you know, sicknesses, traveling, getting married, going on honeymoons, losing a loved one. I mean, we’ve, we’ve experienced all of this together with our clients. So things will happen. It’s not about doing it perfectly, but when we are striving for this perfectionism, the nervous system is trying to avoid fear or criticism because if we don’t do it, if we can,

do it all perfectly, then we’re able to stay safe. No one can say anything bad about us. No one can criticize us. And we have less to fear because we followed all the rules and we did it right. Let that sink in for a moment. This is your nervous system trying to protect you. You might think if I don’t do this perfectly, something very bad or dangerous is going to happen. And I get that because that’s like my entire childhood experience. So I, I’m with you on that one. So

If your nervous system is dysregulated towards this hyper arousal, this perfectionism, working more, trying harder, these are the ways that you control your stress activation. This is how it kind of expresses in your body. And this pattern of excess driving to somehow manage the outcome of a situation can make you anxious, angry, frustrated, unable to switch off. You may be someone who’s like, I can’t meditate.

It’s not for me. I don’t like it. And to that, I say, you got to try again. This is a big sign. If you can’t, if we can’t calm the brain at all, that’s a big sign that you’re used to operating in this hyper arousal state. And in this state, your survival brain, it’s hypersensitive and it’s reactive. And if your nervous system is hyperactively trying to cope, it will be producing more stress hormones. And this can push you further into fight or flight.

which eventually will lead to burnout. Just like I said earlier, right? I know this pattern very, very well. This is kind of ebbed and flowed and come in and out of my life, my entire life, because my, my go-to is hyper arousal. My go-to is over-functioning and my go-to is doing all of that for a while and then eventually burning out. And when we look at burnout on like a hormonal level, we tend to see low cortisol after high cortisol for a really long time.

Hannah Aylward (39:06.559)
We tend to see low nutrient stores, low mineral status, low secretory IgA or our low gut immune function and higher risk of gut dysbiosis and increased intestinal permeability because of all of it. So once again, I mean, we can see these patterns impacting our gut health and our hormone health. So when we stay in that perfectionism state, when we stay in that

Everything has to be perfect state. Your nervous system is chronically activated. You’re in that sympathetic dominant state and more and more and more will just lead to burnout. It’ll lead eventually to low cortisol. And let me tell you, as someone who has experienced low cortisol, you don’t want it. I think it’s honestly worse than high cortisol. And I say that to everyone. When your cortisol levels are low, you have no motivation. I always say like your juice, like your lust for life, things that brought you joy before.

They’re not really making you happy anymore. They’re not really bringing you joy anymore. I love pushing my business vision. I love this mission. I love helping clients. I want this business to get big. I want us to help more and more and more people. I love my team. This is very consistent in my life. I’m so grateful for this work that I do helping all of you. When I had low cortisol, I was like, honestly, I just want to watch Netflix. I don’t really care about building this any bigger right now, which is, which is fine. Right.

But I was like, I don’t, this isn’t even bring me joy anymore. Researching health stuff. Like I love, I love when new data comes out. I love getting into the nitty gritty science stuff to then kind of dissect it all and translate it for my clients. And I love learning new things. Me and my team, we are always in new trainings to better our skills, to better help you. When I had low cortisol, I didn’t want to do it. And that scared me because as someone who has always loved these things,

I couldn’t really feel joy from a lot of what I was doing. And that felt kind of scary to me and worrisome to me. Other symptoms of low cortisol would be like low sex drive, getting sick very often. You’re also at higher risk for autoimmunity when your cortisol is low. So these are some serious things that we want to take a look at, right? And you could even like skip periods or have really painful PMS. Digestion tends to be a bit wonky here too. So we don’t, we want to avoid getting there if we can.

Hannah Aylward (41:25.759)
And most of the times we get to that low cortisol state after we’ve been running on high cortisol or that chronic stress response, that chronic activation response for a while. So I had been existing in that state for a while, arguably my whole life. So eventually it got low. I started waking up with headaches. I started waking up feeling like I’m so tired. It doesn’t matter how much I sleep. I started waking up with no motivation. It would take me an hour to get out of bed. It was not, it was not fun. So I want to prevent that from.

happening for as many of you as possible. And it starts with learning self-regulation now before it gets to that state. It’s really essential to slow down and connect to these goals that we have and these missions that we have and these purposes that we have. I feel so connected to my purpose in this life, but I have to make sure that my goals and my next steps and my visions for the business are coming from a place of like healthy striving, full of choice and vitality and energy.

versus I have to do more, this isn’t enough, I have to do it perfectly. I’m sitting on the couch recording this podcast episode because I’m a little tired. So I thought better done than not done at all, right? Better done than perfect. And that’s where I’m out. That’s what I allow myself to do nowadays in my career.

old me would have never let myself do this. Now I’m like, honestly, I just got to get these done. I want to get this information out for you guys and I want you to listen to it. I want this to change your life as quickly as possible. If I keep waiting for the time, the day that I have all this extra time when we’ve got a full roster of clients and full roster of all these different initiatives and projects, it’s never going to happen. So it’s better that I do it imperfectly and get this out to you. Now that’s my take. Now that took a lot of, inner work.

and awareness to get me to this place. So we want these goals. We want these visions for this next chapter of our life to be coming from like a really, I like to call juicy. Like when my life feels juicy, when it feels it’s like it’s flowing, when it feels like I’m aligned with my purpose, when it feels like these next goals, like putting out this podcast is a big project for us. It comes from a place of this is going to be awesome and it’s going to be fun. And it’s going to help me help more people. That’s where I want it to come from. I don’t want it to come from.

Hannah Aylward (43:46.377)
It’s just another thing that I need to do or I’m not enough. don’t have it. Right. We want these things to come from like healthy, healthy striving versus this heaviness and kind of like suffocation energy that comes with perfectionism. So here are some signs and kind of symptoms that you can look for or really like ask yourself, do you experience these things to know if you’re kind of running off of these stress hormones? Because sometimes we tell ourselves, we’re not that stressed.

a mom, I got two kids, I run a business, I do X, Y, Z. I’m not that stressed. So a better question that we can ask ourselves is, are you overwhelmed? Do you feel overwhelmed on a day to day basis? If the answer to that is yes, you are experiencing stress. A lot of us just have very high stress tolerance at this point in our lives because we’ve done a lot and we’ve held a lot for a long time. consider myself in that group, right? I can do a lot of stuff. That’s not

That’s not really what bogs me down. It will eventually, but I can hold a lot. So I just kind of normalize it. And then eventually I go, wow, I’ve been doing way too much for too long. Here I am again. So signs that you’re addicted to running off of stress hormones, addicted to the hustle, go, go. It’s easier to keep go, go going than it is to slow down and recalibrate and rest. If you feel like you’re always cold, if you have poor sleep, if you have trouble relaxing, if you don’t feel good, unless you’re being productive.

If you don’t like meditating or you’re bored meditating, if you’re always worried about something, if you can’t sit still and relax, that’s really hard for you. You got to scroll, you got to check emails, you got to do X, Y, Z. You got to make the list, the grocery list, the to-do list, whatever it is. If you feel anxious, if you’re addicted to exercise, this is how mine initially kind of came about. I was totally addicted to exercise. It made me feel good. And then it didn’t.

If you’re used to not eating breakfast, if you’re used to running on coffee, if you’re drinking many cups of coffee each day, if you feel like your mind’s always racing, these are all signs that you are addicted to running off of these stress hormones. So it can feel really hard to rewire these patterns that the nervous system and the brain are so used to taking, right? So it takes a lot of intention to kind of unwind the nervous system.

Hannah Aylward (46:02.573)
and let us relax. And the vagus nerve can really help us when it comes to shifting into that parasympathetic state. I just want you to be honest with yourself. I want you to take a deep look at yourself after I listed all of those things off and ask how often are you really on and how often do you let yourself truly turn off and not worry about anything, the dishes, the to-do list, what you look like, what you’re going to eat next.

your gut issues, I mean, whatever it is, do you ever let yourself turn off at that level? If you don’t, this is what it looks like to run off stress hormones and it’s not sustainable and it’s not even real energy, it’s cortisol. And over time, this is going to cause chronic gut issues. It’s gonna cause hormonal issues. It’s gonna cause sleep issues, hair loss, infertility, low libido, estrogen dominance, lack of muscle, increased belly fat.

We don’t want to go down this path. Brain fog, memory issues. my gosh, when I get really stressed, I stop remembering things and I’m like, okay, this is really freaking me out now. I know I need to make change because I can’t remember things. That feels horrible. So we want to focus on this re-regulation if this is the case. And whenever you’re embarking on a gut healing journey and a gut repairing journey, or honestly any journey, any health journey, your body has to feel safe enough.

Your body has to feel safe enough to heal. And this is going to require you to eat enough, rest enough, and turn off enough. You cannot supplement your way out of this. So these are things to start with. Am I eating enough? Is my mind racing 24 seven? How can I support myself there? Am I saying yes to everything? How can I start saying no to some things? Do I have any boundaries in my life or do I let myself just get pulled?

all around the map where my needs end up always coming last. These are some things that we want to start to ask ourselves and definitely prioritize your sleep while you’re at it. So before we get into the exercises and things that we can do as well, just a quick note on our hormonal health here, cause I’ve talked about cortisol during this and I’ve talked about kind of, I’ve kind of hinted at some ways that the chronic stress response and the trauma can contribute to our hormone health. But we know when under stress,

Hannah Aylward (48:29.583)
Our body’s going to pump out adrenaline and then it’s going to pump out cortisol. And cortisol is one of those stress hormones involved in that stress response. We know what that does to the gut, but we also have how that’s going to influence our blood sugar. Cortisol is going to raise our blood sugar levels. That’s not great. When blood sugar levels go up really high, they crash really low. That’s going to leave us feeling anxious, jittery, irritable, like kind of like a snippy. Like you do not want to talk to me when my blood sugar is crashing.

We want to avoid that as much as we can, right? We can’t balance our hormones without balancing our blood sugar. So if we’re running on this chronic, this cortisol roller coaster, right? If we are constantly in that stress response and then cortisol is bumping up our blood sugar levels, we cannot have proper hormonal health under those circumstances. Then we also have the fact that progesterone

balances our estrogen level. you know, when we’re talking about like female sex hormones, we’re largely looking at progesterone and estrogen and progesterone balances our estrogen and it calms the brain. It stimulates the metabolism and it supports good sleep. It really helps us feel balanced and it helps us feel kind of like, like I say, juicy. It’s a feel good, right? It helps us feel good. And you only make progesterone when you ovulate.

Whether kids are in your future or not, the menstruating female body is primed to have children and your physiology wants you to have kids, whether you want to or not. And there’s no judgment. mean, you do whatever you want with that, but this is just on a biological level, right? So your body is essentially asking itself, am I safe enough to ovulate? Am I safe enough to, to drop an egg to have a baby this month? If I’m not, I won’t ovulate. If I am, I will ovulate.

we have to ovulate in order to produce adequate progesterone. This hormone that helps to balance estrogen, it also plays a vital role in pregnancy. It thickens the uterine lining. It supports a growing fetus. It can prevent preterm labor. Low progesterone levels make it difficult to conceive. It can increase our risk of miscarriage, right? So if we are not ovulating, we’re not gonna have adequate progesterone levels. In this state as well,

Hannah Aylward (50:50.295)
estrogen and progesterone are balancing each other out. They work together to balance each other out. They’re kind of, you know, hormonal balance, hormones are never completely balanced. They’re always kind of playing this dance with each other. When we have low progesterone, our estrogen will be higher because it’s more so is our estrogen higher in relationship to progesterone. And estrogen can be high if we have low progesterone, just like relatively speaking.

or it can be high because we have too much estrogen too, right? So when we’re looking at symptoms of estrogen dominance, so that’s going to be like painful periods, cramping, clotting, painful like breast tenderness, all of those symptoms, bloating, right? These are all symptoms of estrogen dominance. And when we want to get to the root of estrogen dominance, we want to help to detoxify estrogen properly.

And also look at our progesterone levels because sometimes that estrogen can be high just because progesterone is so low. trauma, chronic stress, nutrient deficiencies, chronic gut issues, restrictive diets, never doing enough, constant blue light, not enough time spent in nature, not enough time playing, laughing, smiling, always being on. All of these things, they don’t help you feel safe. They do the opposite. That over time will lead to low progesterone.

which, as I mentioned, counterbalances estrogen and then eventually leads to high estrogen levels. So we want to take a look at this chronic stress response and how we can help to regulate the nervous system to help support healthy hormonal balance because we know chronic stress is going to influence cortisol, it’s going to influence progesterone production, and it’s going to influence our estrogen dominance if we’re kind of presenting with

estrogen dominance and so many women are struggling with infertility. So many women are struggling with miscarriages, also just really painful periods, bad PMS and breast tenderness and cramping and clotting and all of that, which are typically signs of estrogen dominance. So we have to have to help the body feel safe enough to heal and feel safe enough to ovulate so we can then produce adequate progesterone. We also have to make sure we’re eating enough.

Hannah Aylward (53:07.195)
to this properly. So if I don’t eat enough, my next period will be more painful. And I know that for a fact, the things that I know make my next period more painful, drinking more alcohol around like the holiday times, right? So every holiday season, then women’s cycles in like January and February will be like super painful. And they’re like, why? And I’m like, it’s cause you drank more alcohol and that’s messing up your liver detoxification and your liver is detoxing estrogen. So it’s too much, right?

It’s putting a heavier burden on your liver. So you’re, you’re not detoxing estrogen as efficiently. So drinking too much alcohol and then not eating enough. These are like the things that are going to make my period more painful, more crampy, like more painful cramps, all of that really, really fun stuff that we have to deal with. So we can see how trauma leads to these patterns in the body influences how we show up influences, how safe we feel in our body and

our stress state and this chronic stress that lives within us and the almost like levels that we uphold ourselves to, which eventually leads to chronic gut issues and hormonal imbalances. It’s all connected, which is honestly beautiful because your body is magnificent. It’s incredibly intelligent and it’s self healing. And once you address some of these underlying root causes, the good news is, that you’re going to see

everything get better. And that’s what I always say to clients because it can feel very overwhelming when it’s like, my gosh, this is influencing this. And then this is influencing this. I’m like, good thing there’s like five foundations that everyone’s got to do. And then you’re going to, you’re going to notice winds across the board, you know, and that’s where this functional approach really comes into play. We’re not just like playing whack-a-mole with symptoms. going, what’s at the core of all of this and how can we improve that? And then by regulating the nervous system, we see gut get better. We see hormones get better. We see energy sleep.

hair, skin, right? It’s all connected. Beautiful. So the ability to really return to regulation is the essence of resilience. So when we’re looking to build nervous system resilience, which once again, it’s not about always feeling calm or always feeling happy, but that’s really not the case for any of us. So let’s just get that on the table. It’s more so about how quickly can I return back to a regulated state? This is the essence of resilience.

Hannah Aylward (55:31.525)
So I wanted to just give us a few little exercises that we can add in and take away with us in order to help to tonify that vagus nerve and kind of help that body reach regulation again with an understanding that there may be deeper work for you to do here. There may be deeper work for you to explore when it comes to your patterns, your thoughts and your belief systems and these traumas. I’ve done a lot of work with my therapist. We do EMDR together.

I’ve done neurofeedback. I’ve done a lot of inner work. I’ve done a lot of like hypnosis and kind of reprogramming work. It has changed my whole life. There’s no doubt about it. I don’t think I would even have this business without this. It’s game changing and it makes me more compassionate. It makes me more loving. I can show up for my relationships stronger. I’m a better daughter. I’m a better sister. I’m a better boss. I’m a better girlfriend. I mean, it’s like, it like makes me emotional. is.

It is one of the most worth it things you could ever do in your life. And I’m just genuinely more trusting. I feel more at ease and I’m way more connected with like source God, the universe than I was before, because I’m just like, I trust and I can, I can loosen my grip on the massive control and I can reregulate. And that’s what I want for each and every one of you too. So it’s pretty cool. That’s all wrap it up. It’s pretty cool.

Okay. So a few exercises that we can do are there’s something called the VU breath and I walk my clients through this and my healing guts and shaken butts program. So that’s my signature group program. It’s a four month program. We run functional stool testing. We build out customized protocols. We walk through like targeted nutrition, all of that good stuff. Teach you how to balance your blood sugar, support detoxification and support your nervous system to help you overcome your chronic digestive issues. I’ve been running this program now.

since 2019, which is honestly insane. We’ve helped hundreds and hundreds of people inside of this program. I’m so proud of it. But one of the things that I do in this program is I walk clients through the VU breath in these live breath work sessions that I offer sometimes. So essentially what you do here is you take a deep inhale through your nose and then on the exhale, you purse your lips and you make the sound VU.

Hannah Aylward (57:46.929)
So I’ll do it here for you so you can kind of get an understanding of it. And this is something that you can do at home when driving to work, when washing your hair in the shower, when cooking dinner. There’s really no excuse to not use this technique when you really need it. So we’re just gonna take a deep inhale and you can do this with me. Deep inhale in through the nose, filling up that lower belly and then exhale to voo. Voooo.

We’ll do one more together. Inhale through the nose.

Hannah Aylward (58:27.793)
you

Hannah Aylward (58:31.621)
Beautiful. So you can do a few rounds of that and that’s going to help to tonify the vagus nerve. And I like to put one hand on my heart and one hand on my lower belly as I do that as well. So I can feel the power of my sound creating the vibrations that are, that’s helping to tonify my vagus nerve. That’s helping me enter regulation again. We can also do something called the double breath.

I feel like Andrew Huberman made this very popular, but this has been around for a while where essentially you just take a deep inhale through your nose, fill all the way up. And then at the very top, you suck in a little bit more air and then you deep exhale it out. So I’ll do it for you here so we can do it here together. So we’re to take a deep inhale through the nose, filling all the way up, sucking a little more air at the top. Exhale.

And again, deep inhale, filling all the way up. A little bit more at the top, exhale.

Just like that. Other things that you can do to support your vagus nerve and help your nervous system reach regulation again would be cold showers, gargling water. You can do that first thing in the morning after you brush your teeth, you’re already rinsing out your mouth. It’s super easy to add into your routine. You want to gargle water and really gargle very hard. That’s going to help to tonify the vagus nerve. Singing, laughing, these things also support a healthy nervous system and building nervous system resilience. And

I had to say love and compassion, love and compassion for yourself, allow your efforts to be enough. Always hold yourself accountable because no one else can change your life but you, but treat yourself with love and compassion as these are really the antidote to trauma. So you have a couple of exercises that you can implement and you can go away with straight from this episode and put them into your daily life. And just as a quick recap here,

Hannah Aylward (01:00:34.703)
We know that trauma can leave the body in this chronically stressed out state, in this chronically anxious state. It can also leave the body in this hyper arousal state where we’re in that sympathetic dominant nervous system state or that fight or flight state. This essentially down regulates digestion. It’s gonna negatively impact our gut lining. It’s going to suppress stomach acid production. It’s going to slow down gut motility.

all of this will lead to IBS, cramping, bloating, chronic digestive issues, gut dysbiosis, SIBO, all of these kinds of conditions. It’ll also weaken immunity over time too. And then we can also see that chronic cortisol that’s released in that fight or flight state essentially decreasing progesterone production because it will inhibit our body’s ability to ovulate. And then that can leave us in this more estrogen dominant state.

We also know that cortisol can actually influence our thyroid function too. I didn’t get into too much of that, but listen, there’s nothing it doesn’t influence. So we want to take this, this work seriously, right? And we don’t really want it to be another thing that we have to quote unquote do to stress this out more. But what I like to say to clients is you are already doing all of this stuff in your life. You are going for it. You are keeping tabs on so many things. You are putting in so much effort to be the best that you can be.

You deserve to show up for this life and your mission and your purpose and your loved ones in a regulated state. You deserve that and you should get to experience that on a daily basis. If you’re going to do all this stuff anyway, you might as well do it in calm versus total chaos, right? I have no doubt that you’re going to succeed and do a million things that you set out to do. It’s more so how are you going to show up when you are doing those things?

That’s the big, big work here. So I hope you gained a lot from this. Thanks for hanging out with me today and we’ll chat soon. If you are ready to finally get to the bottom of your chronic digestive issues, your nonstop bloating, gas and stomach pain, your constipation and diarrhea,

Hannah Aylward (01:02:55.001)
your low energy food sensitivities and food reactions and the very fun food fear and anxiety that comes along all of these gorgeous symptoms. We would love to help you and have you inside of my healing guts and shaking butts program. This is my signature gut repairing program that I have been running for five years now going on six years, which is honestly insane. And we’ve helped hundreds and hundreds of clients inside of this program.

In the program, we build out customized protocols based on symptoms, history, and functional lab results. So we run functional stool testing and we utilize natural supplements and targeted nutrition and strategic lifestyle adjustments to repair your gut at the root cause level. So you can tolerate more foods with less pain and say goodbye to all of these pesky digestive symptoms that you’ve been dealing with for so long. So we will put the link.

to sign up for the HGSB waitlist in the show notes below. And if you also want to talk with someone on my team about working with us, what that would look like, if you’re a good fit to work with us, then you can go ahead and book a strategy call with us. And that way we can chat through your symptoms and your history and best next steps to get you feeling better. And you can grab that link to book a strategy call in the show notes below as well.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and come back next week for a new episode. See you then.