This Week’s Episode Special Guest: Dr. Nicole Cain
About Dr. Nicole Cain
Nicole Cain, ND, MA, is a pioneer in integrative approaches for mental and emotional wellness. With a degree in clinical psychology, training in EMDR, and a license as a Naturopathic Physician in the state of Arizona, her approach to mental health is multidisciplinary: medical, psychological, and holistic.
A sought after speaker and writer, Dr. Nicole Cain has shared her expertise on the Tamron Hall Show and presented alongside renowned doctors like Deepak Chopra. Her insights have been regularly featured in such publications as Psychology Today, Health Magazine, Huff Post, The Daily Mail, Katie Couric Media, Salon, Spirituality & Health Magazine, and more. Dr. Nicole Cain has been a guest on popular podcasts such as This Genius Life, Brendan Burchard’s Growth Day, Therapy Jeff, Heal Thyself, Well with Arielle, Love Happiness and Success, KPCW’s Cool Science, Just Between Us, and many more. A comprehensive list of media appearances by Dr. Nicole Cain, ND MA.
Dr. Nicole is also the founder of the Holistic Wellness Collective, a one-stop-shop membership program designed to support self-healers. This program guides users through the practical application of Panic Proof’s wisdom, offering helpful videos and a supportive community.
Guest Resources:
Website: drnicolecain.com
Book: Panic Proof: The New Holistic Solutions to End Your Anxiety Forever!
Social: @drnicolecain
Episode Sponsors:
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Episode Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Hormonal Health and Dr. Erica Schwartz
01:52 The Importance of Bioidentical Hormones
05:57 Misconceptions and Historical Context of Hormone Therapy
09:50 Empowering Women to Understand Their Bodies
13:53 Navigating Hormone Therapy: Timing and Longevity
17:40 Balancing Hormones for Fertility and Overall Health
19:30 Understanding Hormone Supplementation
21:46 The Role of Hormones in Aging
25:39 Proactive vs. Reactive Hormone Use
28:11 Hormones and Disease Prevention
30:30 Muscle Health and Aging
33:53 The Importance of Supplements and Lifestyle
[RESOURCES / INFORMATION]
SOLLUNA PRODUCT LINKS
- Glowing Greens Powder™
- Feel Good SBO Probiotics
- Feel Good Detoxy
- Feel Good Digestive Enzymes
- Feel Good Starter Kit
- Feel Good Skincare
KIMBERLY’S BOOKS
- Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart
- The Beauty Detox Solution
- Beauty Detox Foods
- Beauty Detox Power
- Radical Beauty
- Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
- You Are More Than You Think You Are
OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY!
- Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance [Episode 878]
- How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877
- How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger [Episode #873]
- How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]
Powered and Distributed by: PodcastOne
Transcript:
Kimberly Snyder (00:00.57)
Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest today, Dr. Nicole Kane. She has this newly published book called Panic Proof, The New Holistic Solution to End Your Anxiety Forever. Very powerful title. Dr. Nicole is a pioneer in integrative approaches for mental and emotional wellness. She holds a degree in clinical psychology and is trained in EMDR.
She’s also licensed as a naturopathic physician. So Dr. Nicole, thank you so much first of all for being with us on the show and congratulations on your new book,
Dr. Nicole Cain (00:41.314)
Thank you so much. I’m really happy to be here and I love talking about emotional well-being more than almost anything else. So we’re gonna have, I think, beautiful conversation.
Kimberly Snyder (00:52.436)
I know we will, especially after reading your book. And emotional wellbeing is one of our four cornerstones. And it just came about so organically creating these cornerstones, Dr. Nicole. I worked with clients, there was always this focus on food initially, but then it started to become so clear. Our wellness is holistic. And that really was how my journey unfolded into these cornerstones. It’s like, okay, food, then we have our body.
And then there’s this emotional piece, which we know affects our hormones, it affects our digestion. So before we go into the book and some of your tools and teachings, can you tell us a little bit about your story? Just a little bit why you were drawn to focus so much on emotional wellness and a little bit about your own journey with anxiety and panic.
Dr. Nicole Cain (01:46.688)
Yes, yeah, I’m a wounded healer as many of us are. And we were really intentional when creating the title, End Anxiety Forever. Wow, that activates a lot in a lot of us. End anxiety forever. It’s not just manage anxiety or suppress anxiety or how to stay calm all the time, but end anxiety forever. And
Kimberly Snyder (01:51.138)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (02:02.938)
you
Dr. Nicole Cain (02:16.554)
It started with a question. I remember asking myself, can I actually heal from anxiety or is this something I’m gonna have for the rest of my life? And it began with a lot of stress in childhood and thank goodness when we’re kids that we are so adaptable. And I grew up in a stressful household and my little self learned how to adapt. I became hypervigilant.
Kimberly Snyder (02:24.282)
Mmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (02:45.582)
I noticed everything that was happening around me. could see changes in the environment. I could see changes in facial expressions. So I was really good at being hyper aware. And I developed all these skills to then try to manage my environment, whether by fawning or cleaning the house for my parents or whatever it was. But those same traits for those who are listening, if you resonate with that,
Kimberly Snyder (03:00.13)
Right.
Dr. Nicole Cain (03:12.342)
that yeah, I grew up and I was really hyper aware. I was really attuned. I’m a people pleaser. We always say people pleasers often start out as parent pleasers that those very adaptations that helped us survive could be the seeds that produce feelings of fear or disempowerment or anxiety or panic. Or as you talk about a lack of that coherence in the mind, the body and the spirit.
Kimberly Snyder (03:22.499)
Right.
Dr. Nicole Cain (03:41.864)
And so when I would go to the doctor, the doctor was all about management. And the doctor would say, know, Nicole, anxiety is just a part of the human experience. You just have to deal with it. Our ways of dealing with it is you use top-down strategies, try to talk yourself out of it, or we correct the chemical imbalance with antidepressants. And then going into counseling, I realized that there is
Kimberly Snyder (04:04.314)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (04:11.63)
a limit to how much we could talk ourselves out of things. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced it, but I sure have where my body may be having an experience and it doesn’t really care what my logical brain has to say. so for those who feel frustrated and they’ve had people say, you know, just calm down, good vibes only think positively. That doesn’t always work, especially
Kimberly Snyder (04:25.977)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (04:38.444)
Yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (04:39.788)
because these adaptations can get stored in non-logical parts of the mind, body, and spirit, non-temporal meaning they could feel like they’re happening inside and outside of time. So as I’m kind of saying that, it sounds like I see you nodding. I feel like you’re kind of resonating with us.
Kimberly Snyder (04:57.602)
Yes. I mean, first of all, when we define a stressful household or things that happened in our childhood, it wasn’t until I started to read the first book that really sort of woke me up to this was The Body Keeps the Score by Wiesel van der Kolk. And it’s amazing, I think, how much people are talking about trauma now and maladaptive coping mechanisms from childhood. you know, it really doesn’t, it can be
Dr. Nicole Cain (05:14.68)
Bessel van der Kolk, yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (05:27.34)
an accident or one particular thing, but it can also be these ways in which our parents made us feel like we had to vie for love or attention. There’s so many ways I think that we develop patterns that can create anxiety. So I think now we realize how widespread this really is. And so that’s why I think it’s really amazing that this conversation is happening between us and also in the collective.
And the second thing I wanted to say about this mental idea is yes, we can be logical in our mind, but the body work has been so powerful for me personally and being able to shift out of patterns, including eating disorders and just anxiety myself. And really for me, it’s been going into the heart, the physical heart.
Dr. Nicole Cain (05:56.451)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (06:21.336)
like focusing on the heart and work with heart coherence and also the energetic heart and taking that pause. And I think it’s powerful to have these other strategies because to your point, I know people that have been in talk therapy for many years and they seem to be still trapped in that victim mindset or just the same story. So I think it’s great that this is becoming something that so many people are talking about.
Dr. Nicole Cain (06:44.055)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (06:50.714)
And I’m also interested, you know, because we’re talking about anxiety in your subtitle, but then panic in your title. So it’s almost like you’re using them synonymously or how would you actually define the difference? Because now a lot of us can say, you know, I feel anxious or I have anxiety, but then panic and panic attacks almost seems to be a separate thing.
Dr. Nicole Cain (06:57.005)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (07:11.192)
Yes, that’s a really wise question. And when we’re talking about ending anxiety, what does that actually mean? And what does that look like? And how does panic fit into all of this? And if we look at the conventional medical model, they use a book called the DSM, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, we’re on number five at this point, it’s a big purple book. And they categorize anxiety into
agoraphobia, which would be anxiety in public places like bus stops or baseball games. You know, when we’re outside amongst lots of people, they may say, it’s generalized anxiety, or they may say you have panic attacks or panic disorder. And so they look at those separately. But if we were to put on our researcher hat and go into downtown LA, or New York or any city and ask
Kimberly Snyder (07:46.927)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (08:07.114)
everybody, what does it feel like when you get a little bit stressed, overwhelmed, or activated? They’ll give you a whole list of symptoms that can affect them from head to toe. And if we reorganize and recategorize all of those symptoms, which I did, is we can put them into approximately nine categories, and I call those the nine types of anxiety.
Kimberly Snyder (08:28.43)
Why?
Dr. Nicole Cain (08:31.272)
And then now that we know all the different types of ways people can experience arousal and activation, then we look at how it can occur on a continuum. Because we see from the research that it isn’t distinct separate, now I’m anxious, now I’m not anxious, now I’m panicking, that it’s an ever-growing process. And if we can learn how to hear the body when it whispers, we’ll be able to
Kimberly Snyder (08:42.468)
Mm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (09:00.384)
understand its language, listen to it, and then meet the needs that it’s telling us it has before it has to accelerate and amplify into a shout, which would be mild annoyance, mild overwhelm, all the way up into panic, rage, crisis.
Kimberly Snyder (09:16.938)
Okay, so even annoyance is a type of, I’m getting thrown off, like this is a type of anxiety all the way to the extreme panic.
Dr. Nicole Cain (09:26.57)
And exactly, I teach it like stoplight strategies. So green light is when you’re feeling really good. You’re in the flow, you have good coherence, you’re creative, it’s that alpha state centered. And then as you get a little bit like more maybe happening more stimuli, maybe from the screen, or maybe your head’s just facing forward and you’re reading a book, but the body is like, I’m getting a little stressed, like it’s a deer in headlight position in that
Kimberly Snyder (09:37.248)
Yes, sector.
Dr. Nicole Cain (09:56.248)
feedback loop gets activated. And then there’s a moment, I call that the pay attention zone, where, ooh, I’m not feeling calm and creative and relaxed anymore. I’m feeling a little activated. And if that activation is paired with a sense of a lack of personal power or agency, then that’s fear, that’s anxiety. And so then as that mounts, maybe you started with a little butterfly in your chest.
Kimberly Snyder (10:08.633)
Mm-hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (10:19.704)
Hmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (10:25.43)
Or maybe your worry brain started going a little faster. And if that continues to amplify more and more and more, we’ll get into the yellow zone, which is moderate activation. And if it goes from there and goes into the red light zone, that’s crisis. weak, like a panic attack. Yes. And we can actually stop, reliably stop panic attacks from happening.
Kimberly Snyder (10:43.258)
Like a panic attack.
Dr. Nicole Cain (10:54.924)
And we can often teach people how to reprogram the mind, the body, and the other complementary systems so that anxiety is more data and it’s no longer anxiety. It’s just data like, I’m feeling a little tension in my chest. What could that be about? I’ve got this. I’m not afraid. I’m listening. And so suddenly the whole conversation changes.
Kimberly Snyder (11:08.334)
Okay.
Kimberly Snyder (11:20.138)
let’s use a real example so we can break that down because then it starts to feel like we’re still talking and I think what you’re referencing is more of this somatic experience. So two of my family members, Dr. Nicole, have very intense plane phobia. One of them is my grandmother and one time she tried to get back on the plane and she caused such a fuss they actually had to stop the plane.
Dr. Nicole Cain (11:32.056)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (11:47.512)
It hadn’t taken off yet, but you when you’re going down the runway and go back and let her off, like super intense. So if someone has, and we have a friend who’s really, really anxious about getting in elevators, right? These are like very tangible examples. Even if he’s in New York, he will walk up 20 flights of stairs. So someone starts to feel, and what David described to me is this claustrophobia.
Dr. Nicole Cain (11:52.163)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (12:01.528)
Yeah. Yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (12:06.766)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (12:14.136)
I don’t know where did it get created, maybe something else from their childhood. But if someone’s feeling that feeling on the extreme end of your scale, I imagine, what are some of the very things we do? Because you’ve been sitting on the plane, you can tell yourself, hey, there’s not a threat, but your body is registering a pretty big threat at that time.
Dr. Nicole Cain (12:25.4)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (12:37.25)
love how in sync we are with this Kimberly. I was thinking about a tangible example of flying because I used to have a horrible fear of flying. I was on a plane and we’re coming into Phoenix and there’s a lot of mountain air like hot air rising from the mountains. We hit a pocket of air in the plane like did this really quick kind of side tip and everyone around me had a very big emotional reaction which set my nervous system into like,
Kimberly Snyder (12:42.701)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (12:47.682)
Bye.
Kimberly Snyder (13:05.57)
Dr. Nicole Cain (13:06.434)
we’re gonna die. So I PTSD for over a decade flying, but I travel all the time. So I just had to keep getting on these flights and I just cry in the fetal position the whole time. And so I love the example of the flying and the way that it’s different for me. And then we could kind of unpack this a little bit more.
Kimberly Snyder (13:09.305)
Yeah
Kimberly Snyder (13:17.124)
Wow.
Dr. Nicole Cain (13:26.744)
But the way that it’s different for me now is I actually just flew into Michigan two days ago and we followed this huge storm front. There were tornadoes in Michigan. It was like this giant storm front that went through like the entire north part of the US all the way across. And so I’m getting alerts like tornadoes, severe weather, and I’m getting on a plane and I’m in recovery from really horrible fear of flying. So
my body remembered that a little bit. So I’m on the plane and I notice that the skin of my hand is starting to feel a little hot. And that’s my pay attention is oftentimes it will start with like a little bit my body is heating up. And then if I don’t address it and back in the day it would then turn into burning, which would then turn into electric zaps running through my teeth and claustrophobia and like,
Kimberly Snyder (14:05.274)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (14:20.354)
Hmm. Yes. Like I’m s-
Dr. Nicole Cain (14:23.362)
chewing on ice, trapped in there, right? And so there’s a couple of things if we unpack what happens in that moment for those who are like, my gosh, I’m here, happens to me in the highway, Kane’s talking about a plane, it’s the same biological process. So in that moment, there’s something, a memory or an activating event, an adaptation.
that in that moment when the plane starts bumping or whatever it is, that the amygdala, that emotional processing part of the brain decides that we’re in danger for whatever reason. And we could totally unpack whatever those root causes are. And we do that in the book. But we’ll walk through kind of the biology of it first. And so the amygdala is like, we might be in danger. We’re getting alerts and there’s storms. what if this? What if that?
And so that sends an automatic cascade down to the body, which will result in cortisol, stress hormone being produced, adrenaline being produced. And so we experience this autonomic arousal, this kind of fight, flight, freeze, flop, fawn, or fracture response. And what will happen then as a result of all those chemicals is the logical brain gets down-regulated.
So that top down, when you go to the therapist and they’re like, just think logically, you know that the plane loves to fly, can go through hurricanes, it’s fine, it’s all safe, you’re just feeling nervous. That part of your brain isn’t accessible. So like your grandmother, when she gets really frightened on the flight, she doesn’t have access to this logical part of herself because the body is like, we’re not analyzing the tiger. We don’t care about your wellbeing. We care about your safety. So we’re just gonna run away.
Kimberly Snyder (16:08.729)
Right.
Dr. Nicole Cain (16:16.824)
but she’s stuck on a plane, right? So I have a four step process for how to reprogram this. And so that when I was on the flight yesterday after practicing these four steps, I noticed my skin getting a little hot and I didn’t have the fear or the anxiety paired with it. And that’s the key difference is how can we feel the information from the body with compassion and curiosity
Kimberly Snyder (16:41.113)
Mm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (16:45.814)
and then respond to that. So what I knew is that my amygdala was getting a little louder. And instead of almost jumping in the stream and being carried downstream is I was like, I need to activate my logical brain. so using before things become red light zone, once we’re in that little pay attention zone, we still have the opportunity to activate logical brain.
and logical brain can shut down that fear cascade. So I was on the plane, I noticed a little heat, I was like, thank you, body. And then I started doing some of these techniques and I had a great flight and I didn’t cry and I didn’t have a panic attack and it was wonderful. So there’s the beginning and we can totally unpack that more.
Kimberly Snyder (17:17.306)
Mm.
Kimberly Snyder (17:31.992)
Mm-hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (17:36.802)
Yeah, I really have that personal experience of the thoughts spinning. I think a lot of us start to feel like, you know, there’s nowhere to go. I can’t get off. We’re up in the air. I’m trapped in here. And it can start to feel so terrifying to even be in your body. So yeah, that whole brain. so, you know, for me, with this body work, Dr. Nicole, it has been so much.
Dr. Nicole Cain (17:42.478)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (17:55.053)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (18:03.236)
coming to this other brain, right? Because the heart is a brain too with 40,000 neurons. And all this research helped me with, first of the spiritual, but then Dr. Roland McCready, who’s with HeartMath, is that we can change our perceptions in this other way of dropping in, because then there’s actually more messages from the heart up to the brain. So it’s like these tools, which I’m really interested in learning about all the heart work and other ones, where it’s not just relying.
on the brain. And then of course, as we get regulated, then it does start to bring in that common sense thinking again, and not the circular thinking and, you know, going around and around. I noticed it this weekend, Dr. Nicole, because I was at a very crowded chess tournament. My older son plays chess, and I don’t like crowds, like you were saying back to your spectrum.
It’s not that I don’t, I do a lot of speaking or, you I’ll be on stage, but then there’s kind of like, it’s like organized. There’s a book signing afterwards or whatever, but I’ve never liked music festivals where I’m sort of in the throes of everyone moving around. And that’s what this chess tournament was, like the jostling of all the parents and the kids. and I did notice that activation. And then I dropped in and soothed myself where I think in the past, and if we don’t have these tools, it’s easy to just spend.
Dr. Nicole Cain (19:10.327)
Mm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (19:16.91)
Mm.
Kimberly Snyder (19:23.474)
And then like you said, the cortisol, the hormones can get out of whack. So what’s an actual physical practice? You know, I talk a lot about the heart coherence work that you have, that you talk about in your book. As you mentioned, a bottom-up approach, not just talk therapy, but how we can regulate the nervous system in our bodies when we notice we’re activated.
Dr. Nicole Cain (19:38.872)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (19:46.648)
I want to begin by honoring you for noticing that and allowing yourself. Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (19:50.106)
It’s like in time, Because we learn, as you said, to listen to our bodies again.
Dr. Nicole Cain (19:55.572)
Yeah, yeah, you could have just popped a Xanax and suppressed it and or you could have been like, what is an herb like theanine or kava kava. And so I want to honor you for doing the harder work that takes the time to listen to notice to honor, and then to soothe. So I honor that. And so in that moment, it sounds like what you were describing is a little bit of yellow light.
So you’re a little bit more activated. It wasn’t at that moment where it was still like, ooh, I’m noticing I can still cognitively manage this. It sounds like your body was getting a little bit more yellow light. So in that yellow light zone, we want to do exactly what you said. We want to use bottom up because that logical brain, it’s not going to change the body. We just start with the body. And so I’d love to actually just to make it
Kimberly Snyder (20:37.315)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (20:53.748)
organized for people who may be newer to this conversation is go through it one step at a time, each of the four steps of what that bottom up might look like. Would that be okay? Super. step one is any time that we notice that we’re activated, we want to go to the body. And the best way I found to go to the body is with sound, touch, taste, temperature, breath.
Kimberly Snyder (21:00.9)
Okay.
Air.
Dr. Nicole Cain (21:21.142)
And you mentioned that you went to the heart, you went to the breath. Our breath is always with us. Our breath is free and it can be very powerful. And just like for those who’ve seen heart math, you can actually watch how the breath can change your heart coherence. You can watch out, can change the way that your nervous system is responding in real time. And so for those who need the proof, who need to see it, heart math is good for that. I also have a hack for how you can do that.
Kimberly Snyder (21:21.274)
Mm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (21:51.104)
if you don’t have an aura ring, if you don’t have a biofeedback device, and it’s by feeling our very own pulse. May I show you?
Kimberly Snyder (21:59.404)
Yes. And when I say heart math, we did a research study with heart math and you’re not that you ever have to, you know, do an H, you don’t have to have any sort of HRV device. Although HR, you know, heart math does have their wave pro equipment. it’s more about, you know, tuning in to how your heart, starts to calm your thoughts, but you don’t have to have, just to be clear, I don’t mean you need any sort of numerical feedback device, cause I don’t use one myself.
Dr. Nicole Cain (22:08.6)
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (22:15.406)
Mm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (22:27.988)
my gosh, it’s so brilliant. I actually, when I was learning about all this, I loved heart math because I needed to see it. I was like, don’t tell me to breathe. I don’t feel any different. so when I was able, yeah, some people are like, they’re like me, they’re like, no, I’m not convinced I need to see it. And so I…
Kimberly Snyder (22:36.654)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (22:41.4)
Yeah, some people.
Kimberly Snyder (22:49.236)
Yeah, no, there is. I understand why those devices are really popular and HeartMath has an app where you can actually put your finger on the camera and it can show you how you can train your HRV, which is really cool. So I think, yeah, whatever we’re drawn to. But for me, it’s more like, you know, at that moment, touching my heart and feeling that experience of calmness. And I’m not someone who’s, you know, particularly drawn to numerical, you know, data, but I know it can help a lot of people.
Dr. Nicole Cain (22:53.709)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (23:02.04)
That’s so cool.
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (23:10.958)
Mm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (23:17.486)
Yeah. Oh, that’s so good. That’s so good. And so what we could do is we could find our pulse and we can even incorporate that with the feeling of the heart, feeling it in the chest. And so to feel our pulse, if we’ve ever been to the doctor, and so for those who are listening to the audio, if you’ve been to the doctor and you know where they’ve placed their fingers on your wrist to feel your pulse, and so you can do that.
Kimberly Snyder (23:40.302)
Yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (23:44.75)
I’ll also show if those are watching a video or a clip. So you go to the side of the palm, you go down from your thumb and right at that line, the junction in the wrist and the hand, the palm of the hand there, you’re going to feel little tendons and in that space, you’ll find the pulse. And if you’re like, Oh, I can’t find it. You may also gently feel one side or the other of your neck and feel your pulse, or you might even feel your heart under your hands.
Kimberly Snyder (24:02.714)
Mm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (24:13.964)
And so then what we can do with the breath is we can imagine doing, I like to do a four square breath or we can extend the breath. And so you may place your hands and feel your pulse. You may place your hands on your heart and we can inhale for four counts. We can hold our breath at the top for four counts. And then we sigh as big of a belly sigh as we can.
what you’re going to notice and I know you know this Kimberly is that you’re going to feel your heart rate slow down on the exhale. And the exhale is the most powerful part of the breath. It stimulates our vagus nerve and the vagus nerve. It sends a signal between the gut and the brain and your nervous system to tell us that we can be calm to tell us that we’re safe. So in the beginning of that four step process, you can use the breath kids do this I wonder if you’ve
If your kids have ever done this, Kimberly, if you’ve ever noticed, like when they were little, did they ever get mad and just be like, like they maybe ball their fist, exhale really hard, kind of growl.
Kimberly Snyder (25:25.09)
Yes, yeah, I think all children do that to an extent. We’ve been doing, you know, hard work and meditation. We actually wrote a children’s book about this as well, based on these practices. So they’ve been doing that. And I do tell them to sound out, you know, noises. And then they sort of, you know, like Peter Levine’s work, they always do like a little shake or they kind of get themselves back in.
Dr. Nicole Cain (25:30.822)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (25:36.397)
I love it.
Dr. Nicole Cain (25:42.616)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (25:48.93)
Just shake.
Kimberly Snyder (25:52.172)
Again, it’s amazing we’re having this conversation because I was never taught any of this stuff. In one generation, how much awareness and things can change. But yeah, it’s amazing.
Dr. Nicole Cain (25:54.925)
Yes!
Dr. Nicole Cain (25:58.52)
Yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (26:01.838)
We’re so in sync, it’s amazing. So yes, your work is so cutting edge. It’s like you’re ahead of where the research is, it’s so good. So when we’re using the breath, what kids naturally know to do is what we can go back to is the physiologic sigh or the, or maybe even yes. And then you’re activating your pharynx with the noise.
Kimberly Snyder (26:24.62)
Yeah, letting go.
Dr. Nicole Cain (26:30.156)
that stimulates vagus nerve. Even we know this from chanting in different cultures, different religions. Yes. So that’s a good hack. And for the first step, I also teach people about using scent. And so there are specific scents like lavender, which if you inhale lavender and it’s actual pure real lavender, not a chemical made to smell like lavender.
Kimberly Snyder (26:36.034)
I mean… yeah.
Mmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (26:55.146)
is it can go into the cribriform plate and go to the brain and it can stimulate the brain to make GABA. And we can apply it topically and the research has shown that the lavender can be absorbed into the skin and help the body make GABA. We love GABA. It calms us. It’s like a natural Xanax, but our body’s making it. And so.
Kimberly Snyder (27:17.242)
It’s so powerful how scent can do that. It isn’t one of our strongest scents. Scent is one of our strongest senses. And to your point, really pure essential oils, which are made from plants and have this essence in them.
Dr. Nicole Cain (27:20.194)
Yes, it is.
Yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (27:30.584)
Yes. Yes, I love to make a panic pack. And this is great for adults and kids where you get a little bag and you can put a couple of oils in the bag. Or if you’re going to be on a plane and you don’t want to carry bottles, just put some oil on a cotton ball and put that in a Ziploc. And I always suggest too, so you might smell while you’re feeling really stressed, just like put the cotton ball up to your nose, stick your nose in the little
Kimberly Snyder (27:36.41)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (27:46.232)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (28:00.11)
little baggy. And then after the anxiety and stress has passed, then you use a second scent to kind of clear the air. My second scent is usually citrus, something bright and happy. And then another thing you could do is sour, sour like a warhead or a lemon drop or ginger. It can stimulate the vagus nerve, which goes through the root of the tongue. And so
Kimberly Snyder (28:01.517)
I love that.
Kimberly Snyder (28:26.7)
a ginger chewy candy or something. You know those nausea ginger, there’s like nausea ginger chews or something that have less sugar, something like that.
Dr. Nicole Cain (28:29.27)
Yeah, like yes, which is.
Dr. Nicole Cain (28:40.29)
Yes, double benefit. let’s say that you experienced, remember earlier we talked about the nine types of anxiety. One of them is gut anxiety. And so that’s where we can get nausea or even irritable bowel symptoms or heartburn. And so the ginger chew, like you just said, will help calm nausea. It’ll stimulate vagus nerve to calm the nervous system. So it has kind of a double benefit. Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (28:45.934)
Yes.
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (28:54.542)
Thank you.
Kimberly Snyder (29:06.752)
I love that. I love how tangible that is because it’s this combination, right? Like we’re breathing, but just like the cornerstones, there’s the food, there’s the body to really ground this in. So I’m going to bring up another kind of anxiety to you, Dr. Nicole, again, I love these personal examples because I think it really drives home how accessible this is and for all these different situations. So I think a lot of us, including myself, can struggle a little bit with boundaries.
Dr. Nicole Cain (29:16.78)
Yes, yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (29:23.192)
Yeah.
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (29:35.034)
and you talked about parent pleasing is people pleasing and I’ve done a lot of that in the past. So I was saying to my friend recently, you 10 years ago, even six years ago, just saying yes to so many things and not feeling good about it and feeling drained. And so I started to say, no, I’m in the only yesterday. You know, someone was texting me to do something and I kind of, I think wrote a little bit too much and I was like, no, like not this week because it, and then she was like, well, what about when you get back from Hawaii?
Dr. Nicole Cain (29:35.278)
Mm.
Kimberly Snyder (30:04.984)
And I started to get a little bit of that green or yellow like crossing and I want to be nice and I want to stay in my heart, but this doesn’t feel good. And I started to say something else and I was like, well, what about this day? You know, when people kind of cross a little bit because we want to be kind and we want to be compassionate, but also for whatever reason in my past, creates a little bit anxiety when someone tries to go over.
Dr. Nicole Cain (30:09.154)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (30:33.258)
my goodness. I had a teacher who said to me, hey, Dr. Nicole, you know what I love about you? And I was like, what? And he’s like, you always say yes. And I was like, my gosh, that’s a problem. Because I was, yeah, it was like this red light moment. And so I totally honor you. And I have a hack for that. Yeah. And so there’s a part of you that has adapted.
Kimberly Snyder (30:34.906)
You know what I’m
Kimberly Snyder (30:47.044)
They’re cleaning.
Kimberly Snyder (30:55.556)
Tell us. Tell us.
Dr. Nicole Cain (31:02.252)
to where saying yes all the time was useful, protective, maybe even life saving.
Kimberly Snyder (31:09.082)
Or you feel like if you say no, you’re being mean, you don’t want to people’s feelings, and it triggers like something.
Dr. Nicole Cain (31:11.703)
Yes!
Dr. Nicole Cain (31:16.044)
Yes, yes. So this is activating a stored process. And so that stored process involves the mind, the body, the nervous system. It may even involve specific gut micro bacteria. may be involved in your immune system. Some people, when they get really activated, I see their chest gets really red and they get little hives, right? the… Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (31:31.865)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (31:40.726)
Yeah, I read that in your book, a lot of the chest focus, which is so around the heart.
Dr. Nicole Cain (31:46.174)
Yes, the heart is like everything. So there’s this exercise for what you’re describing and what was really helpful for me is to try to go to the root of where that came from. And inner child work, my friend. I’m gonna teach you and teach your audience how to do it in three minutes flat. Yeah, yeah. So let’s say that you have the bandwidth to do this in real time.
Kimberly Snyder (31:48.516)
for her.
Kimberly Snyder (31:58.528)
All the way back in childhood.
Kimberly Snyder (32:06.114)
Wow. Okay.
Dr. Nicole Cain (32:12.382)
and you’re at work, somebody sends you an email, you’ve already tried to gently put limitations on whatever you’re saying no, and they’re pushing your boundaries. Let’s say in this scenario, you get that flush of anxiety, you feel your heart is stressed, you’re like, my gosh, it feels so yucky.
Kimberly Snyder (32:29.732)
But in an integral, can I clarify one thing too? In this case, this authenticity where we can start to say, I don’t have to say yes, it doesn’t mean I have something, another event that day. I just don’t want to, right? And this is like a newer thing for me where I’m like, I don’t have to, I don’t want to, right? I have limited free time. And so that, you know, there’s something in that too. I just wanted to say, it wasn’t that I had another event or I was trying to squeeze in. I just didn’t want to hang out with this person.
Dr. Nicole Cain (32:33.004)
Yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (32:44.738)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (32:48.482)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (32:56.685)
Yeah.
Yeah, which is totally amazing and good to honor and acknowledge and to give yourself that gift is we don’t always have to people please everyone else. So that’s a part of ourselves. So what we’re going to do is you’re going to get out your clock, maybe your alarm on your phone, and we’re going to kind of rush through it just for sake of podcast time. But we’ll go through the dance steps. So you’ll get out your phone clock and you’ll set the alarm for 60 seconds.
Kimberly Snyder (33:17.613)
Okay.
Kimberly Snyder (33:28.6)
Okay.
Dr. Nicole Cain (33:29.9)
And so then for 60 seconds, you’re going to maybe place your hands on the part of your body where you feel that stress the most. For you, a lot shows up in your chest. It shows up around your heart. Do you feel it anywhere else?
Kimberly Snyder (33:43.162)
Um, for me, I also often feel a, like a tightening in my stomach. And I used to be, I used to hold on, I used to get, be really constipated.
Dr. Nicole Cain (33:50.048)
Yeah, submit.
Dr. Nicole Cain (33:54.286)
So maybe place one hand over the tummy and one hand over the chest. And for 60 seconds, you’re going to notice that feeling. You’re going to notice it as much as possible, really honor it. And for that 60 seconds, you’re going to maybe imagine a specific scenario. You’re going to pull that up. Text message. You’re going to notice that because what we deny will amplify what we
Kimberly Snyder (34:14.01)
This person’s text messages.
Dr. Nicole Cain (34:23.756)
resist will persist. So the first step is to always acknowledge. And so then 60 seconds will pass and your alarm will go off and we’ll take a breath because the breath is powerful.
And then we’ll pick our phone up again and we’re going to set a second, 60 seconds. And so now you’ll put your hands back in place and then you’re going to ask yourself, when is the earliest time I can remember feeling this way? I can remember feeling this emotion. I can remember feeling this sensation. And then just allow your mind to drift to the earliest time.
Kimberly Snyder (34:44.451)
Okay.
Dr. Nicole Cain (35:08.728)
that you can remember feeling this way. And you may notice multiple times, multiple incidences, and there’ll be lots of time for working with those. We’re just going to allow ourselves to notice the earliest time. And you may have a thought or an image or a memory. And so while you’re doing this, Kimberly, I’m curious if you have anything coming up. Yeah. Okay. So what we do is we’re going to notice that part.
Kimberly Snyder (35:21.551)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (35:31.565)
I do.
Dr. Nicole Cain (35:38.062)
We’re gonna honor that part.
We’re going to notice that period of time. So right now we’re just noticing for another few seconds. And then we’ll just breathe and notice that part. Notice those memories. Notice the incident. And then the alarm will go off. And then we’re going to set it for our last 60 seconds. And this is called the time stamping the time warp.
Kimberly Snyder (35:56.824)
Mm-hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (36:02.01)
Okay.
Dr. Nicole Cain (36:08.224)
So what you’re going to do is you’re going to notice that part and you’re going to speak to that part and you are going to say, I hear you. I see you. I acknowledge you. And I am so grateful for you being here and sharing your needs with me. And I want you to know that I’ve got you and that we’re not in the past anymore.
and that it’s whatever year it is that you do this exercise. So we’re recording this in 2025. So you could say, my friend, my part, it’s 2025. And you don’t ever have to go back there because we already did that together. And so I would like to ask you if you would be willing to set down that heavy burden that you’ve been carrying, a feeling like you have to say yes or that you can’t say no.
and that you’ve been taking care of us. And you might even imagine that part of yourself is carrying a bag or a backpack and imagining that part, setting it down, and maybe even noticing what it feels like to set that down. And then in the last 10 seconds or so, you may even invite that part to do something fun that your younger self always wanted.
Kimberly Snyder (37:25.721)
Mm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (37:35.756)
and that you can take that bag. And if you want to carry it, you can, or you can get rid of it. And some people like to yeet them to the sun. They like to burn them. Sometimes they put them somewhere for safekeeping, whatever you want. And then give your little part that gift of something lovely and fun. And then you’ll take a couple of breaths as you wind into the end of that 60 seconds and
When that alarm goes off, you have finished your three minute hack and you will have done some bottom up unconscious trauma work in a really transformative, powerful way.
Kimberly Snyder (38:20.77)
Thank you so much, Dr. Nicole. I really felt you can share a little bit if you’re… But my question is, do we keep doing this exercise? it’s, you know, I know from the heart coherence, it takes time to reprogram. And sometimes there’s, you know, it’s nonlinear. Sometimes you make a big shift in a pattern. Sometimes it takes time. Is it similar to this practice where you may have to do it a bunch?
Dr. Nicole Cain (38:25.846)
Yes, please, if you’re comfortable.
Dr. Nicole Cain (38:38.787)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Sometimes our parts, I think the littles are much more open to setting it down more easily. And I find that our older parts like our teens, our tweens, our young adult parts are a little bit more reticent. So it may take a little bit more work. And so stick with it. And so if you can do it in real time, that’s going to help.
Kimberly Snyder (38:57.114)
Hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (39:05.956)
I didn’t.
Dr. Nicole Cain (39:14.542)
clear it quickly. But you can also pick something every single day. You can spend three minutes every single day and be like, what are we going to work on today? Maybe I, it does. Maybe you’re like, I’m going to get on a flight. flying to Hawaii on Friday. Right. And you’re like, I have a part that’s a little nervous about that. So we’re going to notice the nervousness. We’ll see the earliest time we felt that way, start coaching that part so that before you even get on that plane,
Kimberly Snyder (39:22.052)
Hmm.
And that releases it.
Dr. Nicole Cain (39:43.17)
you’re already feeling empowered.
Kimberly Snyder (39:46.382)
So with my example, was this woman wanting to need to do this thing and I was trying to be nice and then she was pushing me. And so when I felt that feeling, what I got brought to was being at the pool, I must have been five or six and my mom had this idea that I should be on the swim team. And I didn’t want to be on the swim team. I remember crying about it a bunch, but she was like, no, no, this is good for you. Like she had this idea that it was good for us.
So she made us be on the swim team and I really didn’t want to. And so was like, I wanted to please my mom and I felt misunderstood and not heard. Right? So that kind of comes in with the boundaries now where I want to be pleasing, but I don’t like it. You know, so it’s like bringing that voice back and also feeling, you know, for me it’s that steadiness, that centeredness where I can be kind, but it’s okay to say no.
Dr. Nicole Cain (40:25.046)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (40:31.501)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Dr. Nicole Cain (40:42.146)
Yes. And talking to that five-year-old because she helped you so much. She helped you to please your mom and try to make your mom happy and be a good girl according to the way she understood it. And now you don’t ever have to go to a swim practice again if you don’t want to. And she doesn’t ever have to go to a swim practice again. And the…
Kimberly Snyder (40:47.802)
Kimberly Snyder (40:53.005)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (41:04.122)
So it’s like, if you mean like recreating that memory at that time, as like rewriting it for your Godzilla, huh?
Dr. Nicole Cain (41:07.402)
Yes.
Yes, because that’s stored in the mind, the body and the nervous system without a timestamp. The hippocampus has logged that away. It’s like, this is a core memory. This is something we need to keep producing to keep us safe. So you get to go back with your logical brain and we’re accessing
Kimberly Snyder (41:17.813)
I see.
Kimberly Snyder (41:26.102)
I see.
Dr. Nicole Cain (41:33.826)
parts of our experience that aren’t stored where there’s logic. Your five-year-old didn’t have a fully developed prefrontal cortex that could be logical like this. So you’re bringing, you’re creating bridges. This is neuroplasticity at work. And so when you work with your five-year-old, you are doing amazing transformative work. And I imagine that if you keep nurturing her and every day do three minutes with her, that you’ll find that, wow, I said no.
Kimberly Snyder (41:47.373)
Hmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (42:01.974)
And I feel fine. don’t feel like I have to please them at all. Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (42:05.338)
That’s so nice. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for taking us through that. And what’s great as well is because it is manageable. Three minutes, right? And so which chapter is that in Panic Proof, Dr. Nicole, for anyone going to the book? I mean, obviously you recommend we read it in order. There’s part one.
Dr. Nicole Cain (42:16.202)
Yes, and it feels so good. It feels so wonderful.
Dr. Nicole Cain (42:30.519)
Yeah
Kimberly Snyder (42:31.79)
The secret message is part two, how your panic is protective and part three, how to be panic-proof. Is that where the practices are in the third section?
Dr. Nicole Cain (42:36.968)
Yes. Yes. And there’s an index in the back and it’s called the three minute hack. I would love for people to read the story of Esme in part three, because it’s a conversation and we walk through this process. We also do this exercise with Jenny, who is like,
Kimberly Snyder (42:52.035)
Okay.
Dr. Nicole Cain (43:03.362)
fun and quirky. And so these are real cases that I’ve like kind of amalgamized to walk us through how to do it. And then there’s another exercise that people might really love in part three of the book, it’s called meeting place. And it’s amazing how beautiful and complex our minds and our bodies are.
Kimberly Snyder (43:09.37)
Mmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (43:25.312)
and we can learn about these different facets of our personalities doing meeting place, which is kind of like a nod to internal family systems, a nod to EMDR, but it’s more integrated into healing anxiety, really, truly the roots of anxiety.
Kimberly Snyder (43:33.337)
you
Kimberly Snyder (43:42.338)
I love that. I love how integrated your whole approach is and you even have an herbal tinctures recipe here in the back on page 341. And it really was leaning into herbs and like you said, the lavender oil that really helped me heal my birth trauma. I had some really traumatic births. One was rushed to the hospital, I attempted a home birth and it was like 50 hours and…
Dr. Nicole Cain (43:49.303)
Yes!
Kimberly Snyder (44:09.24)
My baby’s head wouldn’t fit and was going into distress. And it was this, you know, combination and, and, know, learning more tools, like the ones you teach that really helped these incidences as well as, like you said, a lot of things that happened in childhood. So thank you so much for sharing some of your wisdom, Dr. Nicole. Is there anything else that we didn’t, we covered so much, you gave us a really beautiful, tangible practice.
Dr. Nicole Cain (44:09.26)
Ugh.
Kimberly Snyder (44:35.788)
In the book, we can learn more about your nine types of anxiety, but is there anything else you want to leave us with that we didn’t cover? And also share where we can get your lovely book, Panic Proof, which we will also link to directly in our show notes, everyone, at mysaloonah.com.
Dr. Nicole Cain (44:51.102)
Yes, I would love to encourage people to practice going into activation. And so the first step was to ground into the body. The second step is to onboard our logical brains, which that inner child exercise we did could be part of step two, there’s more in the book. Step three is bridging the gap between the mind body. So the coherence, the heart centered work that you do would marry so well with that. And step four,
Kimberly Snyder (44:56.954)
Mmm.
Dr. Nicole Cain (45:20.308)
is we don’t want to always stay in the green zone. We want to grow. We want to expand our window of tolerance and do hard things so that our world can get bigger. And so we want to practice getting a little bit uncomfortable, acknowledging that I’m holding space for it, because then you can go beyond just surviving and maybe not being anxious, but where your world is actually becoming bigger and more expansive, where you can feel more alive. And so
Kimberly Snyder (45:43.0)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (45:49.658)
No.
Dr. Nicole Cain (45:50.424)
Practice all four steps and it will literally change your life. It’ll be amazing.
Kimberly Snyder (45:57.028)
That’s amazing. love that expanding your window of tolerance, you back to your subtitle, ending your anxiety forever. So we don’t have to stay in our little box and our comfort zone, but to feel that, that centering power into any situation, even ones that formerly might trigger us quite a bit.
Dr. Nicole Cain (46:03.64)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole Cain (46:15.094)
Yes, yeah. And then you asked how they could find me and I love hanging out on Instagram and I’m on YouTube and my website and all of that is Dr. Nicole Kane and the book is panic proof and that’s anywhere books are sold and it’s even at the library so I would love for you guys to let me know what you think.
Kimberly Snyder (46:18.648)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (46:33.274)
Crazy.
Thank you again so much. We will link to Dr. Cain’s website and all of her handles as well in the show notes so you can easily find it. Love the cover. If you guys are watching this on YouTube, if you’re listening, it’s this beautiful purple. It feels calming, I’m sure. Purple is one of my favorite colors as well.
Dr. Nicole Cain (46:53.166)
Same. Yeah, totally.
Kimberly Snyder (46:58.158)
Well, thank you so much for your heart and just, you know, your genuine intention to really share and to help others through anxiety so we can be in this, you know, freedom of our true selves and to just bring all our energy and our love to planet Earth. And when we’re anxious, we can’t really do that, can we?
Dr. Nicole Cain (47:20.642)
Yeah. thank you so much. It was really great to spend some time with you, Kimberly. Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (47:25.85)
And you as well. Look forward to connecting more. And thank you everyone so much for tuning in. Head over to the show notes. Again, we’ll have all the links. I’ll also link to other articles and podcasts I think you would enjoy. Remember, we are switching to a once a month Thursday show, which will rotate around the cornerstones for April. We’re doing food. So check that out as well. Look forward to seeing you guys on social. We’re back here soon. Till then, sending you so much love and see you soon.
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