This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - How to Become Panic Proof with Dr. Nicole Cain | 269

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Feeling like anxiety and panic are running the show? You’re not alone. But here’s the thing—anxiety isn’t supposed to be part of what it means to be doing woman’s work. Yet, so many of us experience it that it feels like it’s become part of the job description. In this episode, we’re flipping the narrative from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What is my body trying to tell me?”—because it’s time to panic less and live more. Our guest, Dr. Nicole Cain, is a trailblazer in integrative mental and emotional wellness. With a degree in clinical psychology, training in EMDR, and a license as a Naturopathic Physician, Dr. Cain takes a multidisciplinary approach that combines medical, psychological, and holistic health. She’s also the author of Panic Proof: The New Holistic Solution to End Your Anxiety Forever. If you’ve been feeling like anxiety is calling the shots, this conversation is here to remind you—you get the final word. Your body isn’t betraying you; it’s communicating with you. Thanks to Dr. Cain, you’ll learn it’s not about fixing what’s "wrong" but about tuning in, listening, and giving your body exactly what it needs. So here’s to living lighter, loving harder, and reminding anxiety that we’re the ones in charge. Connect with Dr. Nicole Cain: Website: https://drnicolecain.com/ Free quiz: https://drnicolecain.com/anxiety-quiz Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/737883/panic-proof-by-dr-nicole-cain/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/drnicolecain/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrNicoleCain/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe-hcFYhi5QMmXcR_kNippQ/ Podcast: https://drnicolecain.com/podcast/ Related Podcast Episodes: How To Breathe: Breathwork, Intuition and Flow State with Francesca Sipma | 267 How Our Dysregulated Nervous Systems Are Impacting Us with Victoria Albina | 244 Toxic Productivity with Israa Nasir | 254 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

I am Nicole Kahlil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast where together we're redefining what it means, what it looks and what it feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today. And on this episode, we're going to talk about anxiety and panic. Because it's not meant to be part of what it means to be doing a woman's work, but enough of us are experiencing it that it might feel like it's part of the job description. So let me say upfront that this isn't going to be one of those think good thoughts or just breathe kinds of episodes.

Because I don't know about you, but when I'm on edge and somebody tells me to breathe, there's a small not so mature part of me that wants to hold my breath until I turn blue just out of spite. And telling me to think happy thoughts when my heart is racing feels like the emotional equivalent of being told to calm down.

And never in the history of calm down has anyone actually calmed down by being told to calm down. And never in the history of calm down has anyone actually calmed down by being told to calm down. No, today we're going to explore the revolutionary idea that anxiety is not all in your head. Our guest is here to explain why retraining our nervous systems, not just controlling our thoughts, is key. She's going to teach us how to listen

to what our body is screaming for and then respond. We'll talk about the nine types of anxiety and how to identify yours, what your panic symptoms are actually trying to tell you, spoiler alert, it's not that you're broken, and how recalibrating your nervous system and gut health could finally bring you that elusive sense of calm that we are all craving. So we're flipping the script from what's wrong with me to what is my body telling me, because I don't know about you, but I'm ready to panic less and live more. So let's get started. Dr. Nicole Kane is our guest and 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, her approach to mental health is multidisciplinary. It includes medical, psychological, and holistic health. And her book, Panic Proof, The New Holistic Solution to End Your Anxiety Forever, is on shelves now. Nicole, I'm so grateful to have you here to talk about this very important topic. And I think maybe the best place to start is with these nine types of anxiety, because I may be alone in this, but I didn't know there were so many varieties anxiety. I thought it was just one big heart racing, stressful experience. So nine, seriously? Yeah, there are nine. Yeah. And it's so valuable to know the nine in their nuance because generally speaking, we've had a giant bucket of, well, you feel anxious and we just sort of eenie,

meenie, miney, moe how we're gonna treat that. Either antidepressants, which can make us feel like zombies, cause weight gain, crush our libidoes or sex drive. Maybe they'll prescribe an anti-anxiety medication like a benzo, a Xanax or a clonopin, but then we find that we just have no motivation. We can't go to work, We're passed out on the couch. Some doctors will suggest that we go to talk therapy, but just like you were saying is sometimes you can feel like you're hitting your head against the wall and doing all of

the things right, doing all of the mantras, doing what your therapist said, and yet every time that you have to public speak, you're going to poop your pants because you're so freaked out. And so we can do better. And the nine types of anxiety shows us how. So I'd love to start by digging in on how do we know that there are nine types of anxiety? And so if everybody listening just pauses for a moment and you put on your researcher hat and you look around, you go

to a big city center and you look around, almost every single person that you see will experience anxiety. Upwards of 85% of them will have anxiety significant enough that is getting in the way of them living their best lives or in some of them, it's getting in the way of them living their best lives, or in some of them, it's getting in the way of just general functioning. And we found in the research that if we were to ask all of the different people what anxiety feels like for them, you'll get lots of different answers.

And if we categorize and arrange those answers into systems, we come up with about nine. And so I'll share what those nine systems are, and then we can dig into each a little bit more detailed together. Does that sound okay? Yes, and I'm sure I'll have follow-up questions. Amazing.

Really quickly, just to kind of build the scaffold of where we're going, is we have thought anxiety, there's gut anxiety, there's chest anxiety, there's nervous system anxiety, anger anxiety, depression anxiety, immune system anxiety, we have trauma anxiety, and I believe I said endocrine system anxiety. So those are the nine types. And so now, of course, we can figure out, well, why do I want to know?

What good is it going to do? And how do I figure out what kind I have? Okay. So my first follow-up question is, is it possible to have multiple of the nine, or do you typically just default to one over all the others? So when was, I'm going to answer that with a question. And so for you, when was the last time you felt a little bit stressed? Like in the last 24 hours?

Yeah. I mean, yes, in the last 24 hours, I think, you know, the last couple months I said yes to a lot more than I should have and have been feeling above average stress and anxiousness So you've been noticing a little bit above average stress and anxiousness When you first noticed like ooh, I'm feeling a little stressed probably shouldn't have said yes to that What did it feel like in your body? What was that first thing you noticed? So I have a tendency, I have a feeling it's the anger version of anxiety

because I have a tendency to get resentful, annoyed, frustrated, judgmental of myself and others. There is sort of this anger element, frustration element that I feel and notice first. Like I'm snippier than I normally am. I'm frustrated. Like little things that wouldn't bother me yesterday all of a sudden make my head want to explode.

So that's usually my first tell. So that's your first. So that's in the whole realm of things. That's your moment of like, ooh, pay attention. My body is going into activation. We call this autonomic arousal. But then what if you don't heed those warnings and you keep pushing yourself and you keep stressing

and then people are being annoying and things keep getting added to your plate? What's it like for you as the stress mounts? What do you feel in your body from maybe between the top of your head and your feet as stress mounts? Yeah, I think it's like kind of a sick feeling in my stomach, like a pit in my stomach. I kind of either overthink or try to press on the gas and overperform, or I just want to give up.

I go to extremism, but it's that sick feeling in my stomach that it's either like I'm going to fight through this or I'm giving up altogether and I quit life. Yes. You know what I mean? Absolutely. So this is a brilliant depiction of the human experience of arousal and anxiety. And so we start in the green light zone. I'm going to use the stoplight as a metaphor for this. As you start in the green light zone, by the way some of us haven't been in the green light zone in years, but that's where we feel really calm, grounded, relaxed, clear, sharp, creative. You feel chill. You feel like yourself. Even if there's mayhem around you, even if like bullshit abounds, you feel good. You feel calm. And then we start to get a little more activated and we're shifting

into the yellow zone. And so that's that moment that you were describing of, Ooh, I'm feeling a little more irritated or I'm feeling a little bit more angry, a little bit more frustrated. So the body is whispering. It's giving you data. And for all of us, that could be a little bit different. For me, I start to overthink, and then it goes straight into my chest, and I feel like an elephant sitting on my chest, and then I get claustrophobic, and then I get violent and want to run and bite. And so for you, as you go into more arousal, more symptoms start to emerge, and so what you described. So we see this as we go from the green zone,

we go into the yellow zone, but if we continue forward in that trajectory, if the stress keeps mounting, or the source of anxiety isn't removed, then it can go into the red light zone where that's crisis, that's full on panic, full on rage. It's the worst symptoms ever. And so by nature of that, we see that if you can catch

that very first indicator of your nine types of anxiety and deal with it head on with that symptom or those couple of symptoms, then they won't have to start stacking and start screaming. And then you won't need all of them in order to be like, oh, I get it, I'm anxious right now. So what I'm hearing is the answer to the question is we'll access multiple types of anxiety

and the order in which we do or what we default to might vary across all of us. I do also know like with the red light, I get sick. My body is basically, I've given up on you figuring yourself out. So I'm going to figure it out for you and lay you in bed for a week type thing. So then I would say that immune system anxiety is where that comes in. I know you have a quiz on your website that can help people figure that out for themselves. What they're right. Yes.

Okay. So once we identify our anxiety types, I'm assuming then there's the next step of figuring out how to prevent ourselves from landing at a red light. Exactly. You just hit the nail on the head because most of the time people are like, okay, what do I take or what do I do? But what you wisely just pointed out

is that it gives us the power to be preventative and it gets us the power to create solutions before our body is screaming and shouting. So your first assignment, if you're listening to this conversation, is to draw a picture of a stoplight or print one out and then write down in each of the zones what it feels like for you.

What does it feel like for you when you're calm? As you get a little activated, what's your canary? And then what is it like in the yellow and what's it like in the red? So then once you really become familiarized with what's happening in your thoughts and your feelings and your behaviors then we can go to the next step and figure out what your strategies are gonna be and those could be really efficiently tailored to the nine types which can work better and

We're actually already doing this in modern medicine If I may I have an example that might help with those more analytical like I need you to prove it to me types, which I am. Yeah, please. I have that too. So yes, please. So if you have a good doctor who takes the time to understand your symptoms, and so I have a client, I worked with her a long time ago and she used to have horrible panic attacks flying and her main type of anxiety was chest anxiety So she went and saw a doctor and they're like well take a Xanax when you fly and then she's like now I can't do anything once I get there ruins my trip and my heart is just pounding

it's just the pounding is the worst part and So she went and got a second opinion and she went and saw another doctor and she knew that was chest anxiety was her main thing. So she brought that up to them and they gave her a beta blocker called propranolol, which one of the ways that it works is to stop the heart from pounding so violently. And that was so much more effective for her flying because that was the main symptom that was showing up

and she didn't have all the other side effects. So for her, even in a conventional approach, just having a little bit more nuance enabled her to get a little bit more specific of a result. Great example, because I think we often don't go deeper to explaining what's really happening or what it really feels like or how it shows up. And then, you know, we do run into situations

where our physicians may not take the time to truly understand or ask those follow-up questions. And by the way, I love the idea of printing out a stoplight and writing these things down. It even had the thought of, would you encourage us to share this with maybe some of the people we're closest to, our partners or, you know, closest friends,

so they can help identify, and at the very least, know what's going on when it's happening. Yeah, absolutely. This is such a valuable asset because when we get activated, I don't know about you, but my logical abilities to like reason through things, it's like gone, which is why, by the way, it's so unhelpful when we tell people like, don't worry, everything's fine, just calm down. This isn't logical. That is so unhelpful because when we are in a state of

activation, your body is like, we don't care about rational thinking. We're going to run from fight or flop. We're going to deal with the tiger. And so if you were to look at the neuroscience, you would see that the logical parts of the brain, I'm pointing here on this audio, I'm pointing at my forehead, that's your logical part of the brain, your prefrontal cortex that helps you think rationally and that would help you connect the dots between, oh, I have butterflies in my stomach. I'm probably becoming activated. And I remember I wrote the solution down, nope, out the window. Having that plan with your trusted partner is amazing because you could just pull it

out. Maybe you have it on a little note card, you put it in your bag, and then your partner knows to look out for that or you're able to refer to it and be like, oh, butterflies, yep, I'm in the yellow zone. This is what I decided ahead of time to do. Yeah, because in the moment without something like that, we just, I think, think we're crazy or there's something wrong with us or we're broken in some way. And so I guess that leads to my next question, which is, whatever our nine types are and however it shows up for us,

what are our symptoms trying to tell us? Like, what is it giving us insight to? What should we be listening to? What should we be thinking besides, there's something wrong with me? Yeah, this question brings up so much gratitude and love for my past self, who was in the wreckage of just sheer terror and horrible autonomic arousal and being at war with my body.

And I don't know if anyone listening really resonates with that. My body isn't rebelling. Maybe paramenopause has been a nightmare for you and you're getting hot flashes and you're angry and everything feels like it's going wrong and it feels like I'm at war against my body and my body's trying to punish me. And what I want you to consider is that the body is wisely designed to tell us what's out of balance. It's wisely designed to tell us what needs healing. And then our job is to learn how to uncover and decode those messages so that we can allow healing. For example, if you eat moldy cheese and you get diarrhea, your body tells you that cheese was very, very bad,

don't eat it again. And then you can say, oh, thank you body for giving me that information. Similarly, when you start to get a rash every time that you're in the presence of this particular person and you just break out into hives and you just feel like you're trapped in your own skin, your body's giving you data. Our job is to figure out what that data means.

Breaking it into nine types can make it a whole heck of a lot more easy to figure out. I am not a medical or health and wellness expert, so this question may not be the most intelligent one, but do the types of anxiety we're experiencing have a direct correlation or clue us into what might need attention or healing. So for example, you talked about your chest. I talked about, I feel it like a pit in my stomach. Does that mean that we're maybe looking at two different things that need to be healed?

Is it giving us insight into what to focus on is basically my question. I have found that to be incredibly helpful with my clients, absolutely. And everybody's body is a little bit different. And so somebody can have an imbalance. Let's start with the gut microbiome. Everyone's talking about the gut microbiome right now

and how the gut, the bacteria, the genetic material in your gut, we know that that communicates with the vagus nerve, which then sends signals to your brain to affect your thoughts and your cravings and your emotions and your behaviors. We know that that's a very strong bidirectional axis. We also know from the literature that certain bacteria, if we take them in the supplement form, we call this a psychobiotic, that that can help to improve our mood. So we have now this opportunity for research to try to figure out what are the linear connections,

because we used to think we know in the 1960s, 1970s, we had the birth of the chemical imbalance theory, which said, oh, we give drugs fluoxetine at the time Prozac and increase serotonin and some people feel better. That therefore must mean that low serotonin makes you feel bad, more serotonin makes you feel better. But then in 2022, that whole theory was debunked and we know that isn't the case. There's more to the story.

And so in the unknowing, we have an opportunity to really try to figure out what that is. And one thing I can tell you for sure, as sure as we can get, is that your symptoms are your body and your body's nervous systems and your mind and your behaviors, adaptations or coping mechanisms to something that either happened to you, happened to your ancestors or didn't happen to you to try to help you survive better. And so when we look at it from that lens of, OK, I have these symptoms.

I know a little bit about the biochemistry and physiology, or I know a great book that will teach me about it. And I can look back at my history and figure out what that might be in response to. Suddenly, we have so many more answers versus just try to talk yourself out of it and suppress it and make it go away. Yeah, because I think that's a lot of what we've been consciously or unconsciously taught, right? Stuff it down, ignore it, set it aside, move forward and forget about it, I put an air

quote. Yeah, yeah. And that seems to not ever work, right? So given that we probably all have some anxious feelings, if not anxiety in these different types, how do we begin to recalibrate and heal our nervous systems? Can we actually create calm given however many years we've experienced anxiousness up to this point? Right, and we can absolutely recalibrate the brain

and the nervous system. We can recalibrate your gut microbiome. We can change the functioning of the immune system. We can change the chemicals in the brain. There are steps in the book that I have outlined to do that process in a lot of detail. But if we're looking for TLDR, you're listening to this right now, too long, didn't read, just give me something I can do today, is I want you to start reprogramming your brain and your nervous system for personal power

instead of a program of disempowerment, overwhelm, fear, and all of those subsequent symptoms that you get. And so here's how. Step number one is you need to practice getting back into your body because when you get activated and you go into that yellow zone, your logical brain is offline. So you have to get back into your body. So make a panic pack, bring things on the go with you with your little note card of your green light, yellow light, red light, and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna bring a cold pack, you're gonna bring fidgets, you're gonna bring sour candies, you're

gonna go outside, anything to get you back in your body. You're gonna practice that every day. Number two is you're gonna use your logical resources. There are so many great resources online about what is my blood work indicating? Is my thyroid out of balance? Are my sex hormones out of balance? Step two is getting in touch with logically what could be happening

because now that part of your brain's onboarded. Step three is bringing the bridge between the bind and the body, because a lot of us were so dissociated from feeling at war with our bodies that we don't hear the whispers until they turn to shouts. So you're going to practice every day noticing your body. Something practical is brushing your teeth. While you brush your teeth, hopefully you do that every morning, is just breathe and notice what it feels like in your mouth

to brush your teeth. Notice any sensations from head to toe, spend two minutes. And then the fourth is then you're gonna reprogram how to go into arousal and how to come out. So do one thing every single day that challenges you, that puts you out of your comfort zone just a little bit, and then enjoy the success of calming the body, either with the breath or going back to step one

with the fidgets. And so that's something you can spend five to 10 minutes every single day to start the reprogramming. Okay, I'm sure many people are gonna pause and relisten to those and implement, I know I am. So I'm going to move on to another question, which is around gut health, microbiome. You mentioned that it is kind of all the rage today.

And while we're learning a lot, I still get the sense that there's still a lot unknown, a lot for us to still figure out. Are there any things from a dietary perspective, nutrition? You mentioned hormones earlier. Anything specifically related to gut health that would be helpful as we make ourselves panic-proof? Yeah. If you could only change one thing and you're like getting your piece of paper out

and you're like, all right, Dr. Nicole, I'm gonna change one thing, what you got. You better make this a good one. My number one thing for you would to be increasing your fiber intake. One is because most of us are eating so many processed foods, we're not getting enough fiber. And fiber will create a domino of really

beneficial effects for you. It's going to feed butyrate producing bacteria. Butyrate heals your gut. It's going to feed the bacteria that are known for regulating and calming your autonomic nervous system. It's going to crowd out problematic bacteria like clostridia. We know clostridia is associated with anxiety. It's also, by the way, associated with perimenopause symptoms because it can reactivate estrogen. And so eating fiber can help crowd out bad bacteria. It can also help crowd out yeast. And we know that yeast makes us feel puffy. It makes us feel sticky. It makes us feel anxious. It gives us brain fog.

So if you could change one thing to heal your gut is to increase fiber. Do it slowly and eat things like leafy greens and whole grains. Amazing. Okay, now let's say we are implementing these things and doing all of the things that are within our control and life throws a curve ball or something happens that shoots us from green to red instantaneously. There is no any advice or things that we might do when we find ourselves further down this anxiety road

trip than we would like? You know, sometimes we can become traumatized by our anxiety, where we get fear of the fear. It could be so debilitating. Or maybe we have a rage attack that's so bad, we're like punching holes in the wall. Or maybe we have self-injurious thoughts. And crisis should be managed as a crisis.

And so if you have red light zones, and if your natural resources and your strategies aren't working because your body is just straight up in crisis mode, then use your crisis resources. That would be the time that if you have a medication from your doctor that they've told you to take for crisis, take that medication as you're directed to, but then put a semicolon at the end of that sentence and say, right now I'm choosing from my adult self to take my crisis resource.

I'm going to take that Xanax. I'm not telling you to take Xanax,. I'm not telling you to take Xanax, but if your doctor told you to take Xanax, take it, right? And then next time you can start doing more work to figure out, okay, what was that? Where did that come from? Where can I take power before we end up in crisis? But absolutely, if you're in the red light zone,

don't torment yourself by trying to do breathing and trying to calm down. Use your crisis resources. Okay, good advice. My last question, and I'm trying to think how to frame this. I think we have a tendency to take feelings like panic, anxiety, and I fear, doubt, failure, messiness, and we put it like in the bad zone.

We want to avoid feeling those things at all costs. And yet one of the things that I'm gathering from what you're saying is not that these feelings feel good, but the information might be good to have. And so any tips for reframing panic and anxiety in our own minds so that it's not something we automatically try to avoid at all costs or say, this is bad, therefore I'm bad, so that we can open up maybe some more opportunities for ourselves when we start to feel them? Yeah. Just remember that your symptoms are data, and your body loves to give you data.

And so as an example, I don't really like to fly. I used to have a fear of flying, and just like my client did. Bed of blockers didn't work for me, sadly. But what has been the most helpful is that when my body produces yucky feelings and for me it's like electricity in my teeth and my heart is pounding and I'm sweaty and a little dizzy is if I can be I describe this as the upper bird if I can just disassociate myself from the symptoms

just enough to be like oh oh, that's interesting. That electricity is real extreme. And instead of labeling it as good or bad is try to be the upper bird. And so here's the metaphor of the upper bird is I learned this from my Ayurveda teacher. And so he talked about how mayhem chaos, terrible, awful things, dumpster fires, they're on the street below. You have a lower wire and a bird is sitting on the wire and she's close enough where she's getting whiplash from everything.

She's getting all of the emotions. And that's when we're in it, when we're in the anxiety. And I feel terror, I am terror, like really identify with it. But if you can dissociate yourself and rise above it just a little bit, and Vegas nerve work can help calming the body work can help and just allow yourself to be the upper bird, you're a little bit more distanced, you can look down and be like, Oh, that's yucky. Oh, that's interesting. This is data. I'm going to write it all down because later,

I'm going to use this data so that I can be even more empowered to heal. Thank you, body, for that information. Great answer, great analogy. The word curiosity popped in my head several times. Maybe that's that upper wire. That's the difference of getting up there is allowing yourself that period of curiosity and understanding what's happening, why it's happening

and what you might wanna do about it. I think sometimes when we hear the word disassociate, we think of like, again, not feeling our feelings, but that's not at all what I heard that you said, it was more about being curious about them. So thank you. Incredible information. I know our listeners are going to take so much away from this,

but I also know they're going to want to learn more. So Nicole's website is drnicholkane.com. As I mentioned earlier, she has a free quiz. It's called the Anxiety Quiz, which goes through the nine types of anxiety, and you can figure out which ones are yours. And then maybe take that information and print out your stoplight and go from there. And also be sure to get your hands on the book Panic Proof on Amazon or your local bookstore,

wherever it is that you get books. Nicole, thank you. This is such a good conversation. It was great to be here. I loved it. Thanks for having me. My absolute pleasure. Okay, if you've been feeling like your anxiety is trying to run the show, I hope you leave this conversation feeling encouraged that it's you who gets the final word.

Your body isn't betraying you. It's talking to you. And now thanks to Dr. Cain, we know it's not about fixing what's quote unquote wrong with us. It's about tuning in, listening, and giving our bodies exactly what they need. Anxiety and panic don't get to define us, and they sure as hell aren't prerequisites for doing woman's work in the world today. The real power lies in learning to honor all the signals, the messy ones included, because when we listen, we create space for calm, for healing, and for joy. So here's to living lighter, loving harder, and reminding anxiety that we're the ones in charge, because that is woman's work.