Abby Payne: Reclaiming Calm In A Noisy World

Burnout doesn’t vanish with a long weekend. It lingers in your bones, in the shaky hands before a meeting, in the late-night scroll that steals your sleep. Today, we sit down with RN and board-certified nurse coach Abby Payne to chart a grounded path out of chronic stress, people pleasing, and screen compulsion—one nervous system-friendly step at a time.

Abby’s story runs from critical care through cannabis nursing to trauma-informed coaching, and her biggest unlock was scientific: the endocannabinoid system. Stress and nutrient-poor habits drain it, while breath, sunlight, movement, and mindful nutrition replenish it. That frame turns “self-care” from fluff into physiology. We also unpack people pleasing as the fawn response—a survival strategy that trades authenticity for external safety—and how somatic awareness, from shaking to tight shoulders, can guide us back to regulation and self-trust.

If your phone feels like a slot machine in your pocket, you’ll love Abby’s breakdown of the habit loop—trigger, craving, response, reward—and why willpower alone fails against dopamine economics. She offers practical digital boundaries: automated grayscale at night to mute visual hooks, foolproof blocking apps that put your best self in charge, and a gentle taper plan paired with skills that soothe the root triggers. We go deep on 4-7-8 breathing for vagal tone, targeted meditation as physical therapy for the brain, and science-based hypnosis to update the subconscious stories that keep you stuck.

By the end, you’ll have a clear, humane blueprint to reduce screen time, lower anxiety, and rebuild motivation without perfectionism. It’s not about rejecting tech; it’s about choosing presence over autopilot and worthiness over approval. If you’re ready to reclaim your time and your peace, press play, take a slow exhale, and join us.

Enjoyed this conversation? Follow, share with a friend who needs a digital reset, and leave a quick review—it helps more listeners find the show and choose calm on purpose.

My Website:

https://www.nurseabbyllc.com

Digital Detox Masterclass:

https://www.nurseabbyllc.com/masterclass

To Be Magnetic Intro Podcast + Discount Code:

Best podcast to start with: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/expanded-podcast-by-to-be-magnetic/id1419732648?i=1000588466679

15% Off Discount Code: ABBY9437

Women’s Empowerment Playlist:

https://nurseabbyllc.myflodesk.com/empowerment

Cannabis Unveiled Workshop:

https://youtu.be/3qffBJ2Z0NU

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Abby’s Origin Story
• 4:17 Pandemic Burnout And Cannabis Nursing
• 8:47 Endocannabinoid System And Science-Backed Self-Care
• 13:27 From Cannabis Consulting To Coaching Roots
• 17:52 People Pleasing As The Fawn Response
• 23:07 Shaking, Somatics, And Nervous System Cues
• 26:27 Screen Time Numbing And Business Pressure
• 30:07 Dopamine 101 And Habit Loops
• 34:22 Video Games, Presence, And Health Lines
• 37:17 Digital Boundaries And Blocking Apps
• 41:27 Tapering Off Screens With Nervous System Tools
• 45:37 Free Masterclass And Starter Steps
• 48:07 Who Abby Serves And Readiness To Change
• 51:07 Breathwork, Meditation, And Daily Prevention

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 1:09

Hello and welcome to Empowered Ease. I'm Jen Ohlinger, and today's guest is a healer, a teacher, and fierce advocate for reclaiming calm in a noisy world. Abby Payne. She's a registered nurse, a board-certified nurse coach, a screen time and nervous system coach, and a digital detox expert. After training and working in critical care during the pandemic, Abby faced burnout, panic attacks, and a crisis of purpose. She transformed that pain into a new column. She combined her nursing skills, mindfulness to the coaching, plant-based medicines, and nervous system tools to create a trauma-informed, heart-centered support for women who feel burnt out, who are people pleasers, and addicted to screens. Abby now coaches clients through nervous system regulation, inner child healing, and her signature digital detox program. She helps people step into a more authentic and self-compassionate place where they can find their purpose. She's also a wife, a cat mom, a nature lover, and a recovering people pleaser herself who says, I love my job every day. Abby, welcome to Empowered Ease. I am so glad that you are here.

SPEAKER_00: 2:41

Next thing you know, it's been an hour and you feel fat and old and ugly.

SPEAKER_01: 2:51

Welcome, Abby. I am so excited you are here. So tell us just like a little bit about what you do, who you are, and then we'll just go from there.

SPEAKER_00: 3:03

Okay, that sounds great. I'm so excited to be here, Jen. Thanks for having me on. A little bit of background. Yeah, like you mentioned in my intro, I've been a nurse for, I've been a nurse for 10 years now in different, you know, settings and got really burned out during the pandemic, like a lot of nurses, and had like a big, you know, come to Jesus moment, a big mental breakdown during the pandemic, and completely switched gears to being a holistic coach. And that was like three years ago that I became a coach, and it's had a lot of changes since that. And it's been an extremely healing journey in and of itself. I've had to go through a lot of my own stuff in order to have the confidence and the deservingness and the worthiness to even be here today and not have shaking hands. So, like, even I just always say that the whole experience of starting a business and leaving nursing has been so worth it for the healing I've gotten alone. Like, even if I never made a penny, which I have, even if I never made a penny, I'm like, it's worth it. It's worth it to go through all of this and heal my wounds.

SPEAKER_01: 4:17

I love that you hit on so many, so many, I think, relevant things just in that alone. Number one, like your specialty I'm is so like I'm so interested in. I think it's like I myself, I'm like kind of find myself doom scrolling even when I don't intend to. So I love what what like your perspective and really to learn a little bit more about what the damage is. But I also love our stories are kind of similar, like you know, critical care nursing, the pandemic, burnout, and also that like nurse the nurse coaching program I went through is what helped me to like really reprioritize, find my purpose, and create like a healthy level of what's the word I always detachment where where I can go to work. And I also like the other thing that I wanted to mention that you just said is people pleasing because so many nurses are people pleasers. So much to talk about here. I don't even know where to start. But first, I guess maybe let's talk a little bit about how you got into this, like a little more specifically, like your story.

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

Yeah, okay, I'll just dive in. Yeah, so how I got into this. I well, the nurse coaching program was paid for by my hospital. Oh, I love that. And actually before that, I always forget about this, but before that, I actually took a cannabis nurse certification.

SPEAKER_01: 5:42

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00: 5:43

And it was called the Canny Nurse Program. It's through Inca, the International Nurse Coach Association, and work paid for that too. So I had no reason not to. I was just to take it back even further. I was really struggling with my mental health during the pandemic, and I was drinking a lot. I was watching tons of TV, scrolling on my phone, because they don't teach nurses how to take care of themselves. They just throw you in at 19, 20 years old into the critical care and they say good luck. And so a lot of us become addicts in something: alcohol, TV, food. Some kind we try to cope somehow. And I was kind of trying all differ all those things. And like you were saying before we started recording, I was taking care of alcoholics in withdrawal and learning that it doesn't take much to become an alcoholic. Like it's just a slippery slope. And then during the pandemic, I'm drinking more every night after a shift, two, three a night, and on weekends. So I started switching to cannabis because I had heard from a friend who's also a nurse that it's just more gentle on your system. And the risk- You don't have a hangover when you go to work. You don't have a hangover, it doesn't impact your liver. Like, yeah, if you need something, it's a little easier. So I was like, okay. And I started why using just CBD, right? And the immediate relief I felt, it felt like the entire weight of the pandemic and all of my patience was lifted off my shoulders. I started with inhalable CBD. So that hits your bloodstream within like 10 seconds. So it was a very immediate relief. And I was like, whoa, but my mind still felt very clear. I could drive, like, I wasn't intoxicated. I'm like, what is this? How does this work? And then, you know, nerd Abby starts researching it and learning that we have an entire endocannabinoid system.

SPEAKER_01: 7:48

And we're still learning a lot about all the different cannabinoids, right? There's like a ton because I know there's start like just in the past couple of years, they're starting to like separate them and use them individually, which I think is so cool. I'm so excited to learn.

SPEAKER_00: 8:01

It is so cool. And that all of the different receptors, like we have receptors on every cell in our body for cannabis. And it's because we make our own. We make our own cannabis-like molecules called endocannabinoids. We make several of them. They're essential for immunity, hunger. They've done very interesting studies where they've bred rats and mice without them, and they die of like skin sores, lots of infections. They don't have any desire to get up and eat. Like, that's why you get the munchies.

SPEAKER_01: 8:34

Yeah, well, and also why we use it like that was the first medical use, wasn't it? I I believe. One oh, I know seizures was another one. I don't know which one came first, but they use it with in oncology a lot to help people get their appetites.

SPEAKER_00: 8:45

Yeah, stimulates your appetite.

SPEAKER_01: 8:47

So the healthcare was very resistant to introducing cannabis for a long time.

SPEAKER_00: 8:52

I think it's so unfortunate because it became illegal because of politics and racism.

SPEAKER_02: 8:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:59

And it was actually used by US physicians for decades as a tonic. They made it into a liquid tincture, and it was one of the number one prescribed for many ailments was cannabis extract.

SPEAKER_01: 9:11

Along with cocaine. I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 9:13

Right. I'm like, this is plant medicine. It's literally a flower.

SPEAKER_01: 9:18

Yes, I know that's so true. Well, that's where a lot of our medications come from. They, well, not just plants, but a lot of plants. Like it's a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 9:26

Yeah, a lot of plants. So I started learning about that, and then I took the cannabis nurse certification, which was three months of deep, like cellular, molecular level. How does cannabis work? Which strains, which cannabinoids for which disease? And I loved it. I learned so much about self-care too, because you can become deficient in your own cannabinoids. They're made on demand and you need omega-3s and sixes to synthesize them. So if you're deficient in your diet, you're gonna be deficient in your own endocannabinoids, and stress depletes them, literally uses it up. It's an anti-stress mechanism. So if you're really stressed and you're eating like shit, like I was, like you're gonna feel really awful.

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

Like a lot of nurses are.

SPEAKER_00: 10:17

Like a lot of Americans are. Like really stressed. We don't sleep well, we eat brown tan foods with no real nutrients, and we deplete our endocannabinoids. Makes us get really sick a lot, impacts immunity, and it's a really downstream effect. So I learned a lot about cannabis, but then I learned like actual science-backed self-care. Because as a nurse, as a human, we're all scientists. We all like to understand why things work. And something about me learning that there's an actual science behind self-care really unlocked something for me. It was like it's not just woo-woo, take a deep breath. It's like when I do these things, I'm increasing my endocannabinoids. I'm, you know, I'm basically dosing myself with THC, but homemade. Like this is great. I'm gonna go, you know, float down the lazy river by my house and and get the sun on me and like do these things because there's science behind it. I really needed that. So that's kind of where it started. And I tried to do cannabis nurse consulting, where I was working with, you know, people with MS or cancer or IBS migraines. Those are some of the top reasons to use cannabis. And my imposter syndrome came on really hard, and I gave up on it.

SPEAKER_01: 11:41

I understand that though. It's so hard to step in light, new lights, and be seen in like different ways. Like that's so hard.

SPEAKER_00: 11:48

I got to the point where I made my LLC and I made a website and I printed out brochures and I went to dispensaries because I was in Colorado and I handed them out to people. And then Stripe shut down my credit card processing because I said cannabis on my website. Oh I am. And then my bank was like sent me a letter because they looked on my website and and there was a lot of red tape. And I got scared. It was like, I don't want to lose my nursing license. I don't, this is a little too much. I'm not sure that I'm ready to be, you know, bushwhacking this specialty. I got really scared. So I just completely abandoned it. But then a couple months later, I get fuzzy on the timeline. I learned about nurse coaching. And I started that program and got that paid for as well by the hospital. So I was like, how about I try this? Like maybe I just am nervous because I don't know how to talk to people as you know, in a holistic way. A lot of the clients I would work with, they were smoking because they were anxious and because they were stressed. And I wanted to learn more of the lifestyle medicine because I knew that that would be the counter. So I'm like, oh, I'll do nurse coaching. And then I fell in love with nurse coaching and realized that even cannabis can be a band-aid. A lot of things. Like you can root.

SPEAKER_01: 13:09

You can numb with anything healthy, really numb with working out. You can overeat too healthy and just, you know, you can obsess. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 13:17

Yeah. I was like, oh, we can get really to the root of this. Why do we feel anxious? Why do we feel insecure? Why do we feel socially awkward? Like what it's a deep self-love deficit, is what I call it in my nursing lingo. And I can't get to the root of it without only using like cannabis. It felt almost like the West had turned cannabis into another pharmaceutical. Like here, just slap this on. And there's other ways that you know they don't use it that way, but a lot of people just wanted the quick fix. I was like, I need to take this other coaching program to really get to the roots. So that's what I did. And yeah, so then since then I've changed my niche a lot. At first, I was just a mindfulness, wellness coach, and then I started to really narrow in on the people pleasing. And it was because I was seeing it in myself. I'm like, I am so worried about my clients liking me, everybody liking me, doing a good job, not pissing anybody off, terrified to be on social media and post my thoughts. What if I ruffle feathers? And I just was really struggling to be my authentic self and speak the truth even to my clients. And I knew that it was holding me back. So I started digging into that because I'm a nerd. And then created a digital, a people-pleasing group. And I ran that a couple times called Break the People Pleasing Pattern. So I specialized in that for a little bit until my next niche. But I'll pause there. We can talk about people pleasing maybe a little bit before I get into it. Well, no, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01: 14:57

Yeah, I love that. Well, what about what what do you think? What do you think is relevant for people to know about people pleasing? Because I think it's a very common, it's kind of ingrained, it's well programmed into little girls. So most women and a lot of men are people pleasers. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:12

From what I learned about people pleasing, it is a lack of internal safety. So we externally source our safety and our security. It is a conditioned trauma response. It's the fawn response. If anyone's familiar with fight, flight, freeze, there's also fawn, which is I'll do whatever you say, just love me and keep me safe. And that was my childhood trauma was being very afraid of a very authoritarian mother who was scary and had her own trauma, like a ton of trauma. And they didn't go to therapy, they didn't do that back then. So it was just passed on. But then certain industries like nursing, teaching, ingrained and even more to abandon it.

SPEAKER_01: 15:59

They take advantage of it if we're being real honest.

SPEAKER_00: 16:03

They do, they groom you. Can become a people pleaser, you know, in nursing. You can go into it not a people pleaser and come out of it having a big people pleasing problem. And it's a trauma response from nursing, because you know, nursing is traumatizing and teaching a lot of those serving professions, but at the root, it's a lack of internal self-worth, self-esteem, and internal safety. Even if this person doesn't like me, even if I piss everybody off by saying this, deep down I love me and I know that I'm okay, and I can regulate my nervous system in the midst of that. And that's courage. Courage isn't that you're not afraid, it's that you're willing to be afraid. Stand up for what you believe in. And it takes a lot of resourcing, knowing how to calm down your nervous system and feeling hands reference, which I love because I was like, oh my God, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_01: 16:59

I spoke in a meeting of people that were I it's actually about burnout. I'm working on like every board I can about supporting nurses in burnout at the at the facility I'm at. And I was the so much low totem pole person, like three levels below, probably the next person there. It was like my boss's boss's boss and all their bosses. And I was like, oh my god, my hands were shaking so hard. But I just love that you said that because it's not just that. That's actually where I feel my my trauma physically. Sometimes it comes down my arms, but I loved that you said that because I immediately were like, How many people can relate with that feeling? You know, because that's where it hits you.

SPEAKER_00: 17:39

And it's so real. And I would have like full body shaking sometimes, which I've either learned is like trauma trying to get out. Like at some point, like if you're doing a public speaking and you're shaking and trembling, at some point, maybe you were humiliated on the stage or something happened, and now you're back in that situation and your body's like, no, no, no. Remember when we were kids and this happened, this is bad. And you're shaking to try and like clear that energy. So I've learned to just like let the shakes happen.

SPEAKER_01: 18:12

Yeah, move through it. Like that's what animals do, right? They shake it off.

SPEAKER_00: 18:16

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's great.

SPEAKER_01: 18:20

Is there anything you would like? Well, I guess this is just so great. I think honestly, a lot of the things you said about people pleasing are I think a lot of people will connect with. Cause for me, I didn't think I was a people pleaser because I my anxiety is not typical. Like, I'm not socially awkward. I'm not, well, I might be awkward, but I'm not socially anxious. You know, like I'm not afraid to talk to anybody. I never have been. But my anxiety shows up in different ways, and my people pleasing shows up in different ways. Like I didn't think I had this complex, but I find myself when I am around authority figures, I'm like, why am I doing this? I literally know I don't care. But the authority like gets me. It's like I'm back in. And I had I grew up with childhood time. I had a pretty abusive father, like a narcissistic, self-centered, and definitely, you know, emotionally abusive. And so yeah, I think that's where a lot of mine comes from. But oh, it's so crazy when it hits you because you think you're in the I don't know. I thought I was like doing so good, and then I'm like, oh God, no, it's still here. I have more to go.

SPEAKER_00: 19:18

Oh, there's more to go. And the more you start putting yourself out there and stepping into leadership, stepping into your power, the more that that conditioning from childhood is gonna scream and say, no, no, no. So it's meant to keep you safe. A people-pleasing pattern formed to keep you safe from punishment or abuse. But then as you get older and you get out of that, like it's an old operating system that needs upgraded and it can be upgraded. Like I feel not like a people pleaser at all. Maybe every once in a while, like if I'm around my family or something, like it'll come up. But the amount of things that I've been able to do and not care what people think, it astounds me. So I just for anyone out there who is struggling with people pleasing or feeling that fawn response, it is possible to recover.

SPEAKER_01: 20:10

I love that. That's great advice. So let's talk some more about this digital, the screen time and how how it affects us. Like, teach me. Because I think everyone is almost almost everyone is struggling with this right now in our world.

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

Yes, definitely. So I was doing the people pleasing niche for a little while, and I started to notice in myself and in others that we were numbing with screens. And I noticed it a lot for myself, kind of post-pandemic. I had gotten off of social media during the pandemic because I was like calling my uncle a racist and I was in the comments of everything. Like, people are saying COVID isn't real. And I was like, I'm a nice you nurse. It's real, and I was really stressing me out. So I was like, I need to just get off of this. So I logged out of all my accounts, deleted them off my phone, and I felt so much better. And then I started a business, and everybody says, Well, you need to be on social media. So I got back on, and at this point, TikTok was now on the scene. So I got on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, and I got sucked in really badly. I think just having social media tied to my career felt like I have to be on here. I have to check it a lot. And I was spending like four hours a day, plus sometimes up to like six hours, eight hours a day on some kind of platform, just getting lost. I get on there to post a little something, and next thing you know, it's been an hour. Do that times a day, and you're in five hours. I'm like, this is bad, but I can't just delete it because I use it for work, and how will people know that I exist? And so I felt this tug to be on it. It felt like I'm either on social media and it completely takes over my life, or I'm not on it at all and I have no business platform. So I really struggled with that. And a lot of the women in my circle were struggling with it. I was part of a women's business group in my old town, and we would all talk about the same thing. Like, I'm on it all so much, but I have to be for my business. Like, I know. So I started looking for, you know, is there someone out there that could help me? Like, is there a coach? Is there a program? Is there a course? Nothing. The most I could find was an article with like 10 ways to reduce your screen time. And it was just like plug your phone in somewhere else. I can't do that. And I realized like, I think that this is a public health gap and a mental health gap. There aren't enough people covering this, and I think that it's me. I think I have to become the expert for myself. I love that. Just for myself. I'm like, I need to figure this out for me. So then I started reading books about dopamine and nerd Abby again at it, just like digging into it. And I found a really great blocking app that is super customizable and free, and started learning how to use that and had some real success and started learning how to create my own dopamine in my own brain to balance out the dopamine withdrawal of not being on my screen as much and learning about addiction. So then I uh started really reducing my screen time and found something that really worked for me, just like a whole kind of process. And then all the women around me were like, Will you show me how to do that? So I started the digital detox program and I ran it live a couple times. Now I have a self-guided program that people can do on their own. I still do live groups. I partner with like therapists and wellness centers to do groups like partnerships. So that's kind of how it all started. It's always been me first. It's always been me figuring out a process for myself for something I've struggled with, and then bringing it to others because they struggle with it too. And screen time is a huge topic right now because it's new on the scene. We're like 10 years into this. 1015 very new thing that we're trying to figure out.

SPEAKER_01: 24:25

Yeah, I love that so much. So I know you you I love the dopamine talk, and it is like a buzzword, right? Dopamine's a buzzword right now, which is great, but explain a little bit about because there's different ways like dopamine's good and dopamine's bad, and there's quick dopamine, and there's you know, well, obviously you know more than I do. So explain to us a little bit about like the role of dopamine and how that plays in well if you want into screen time and all that.

SPEAKER_00: 24:52

Yeah, I'd love to. So dopamine, you're right, it is a buzzword, it's thrown around a lot, but what does it actually do in our bodies? It's responsible for motivation and reward. It gives you that desire to get up and go for it in the day. For example, they have bred mice and rats again to not have dopamine receptors. And these rats will lay and not eat. You can put food in their mouth and they'll eat it and swallow it and seem to enjoy it. But even if the food is one body length away, they won't get up. So that's them without dopamine receptors. And that's what dopamine does. It gives you that desire to go for something. And then when you get the food, it's that sense of reward. Like I did a good job, I hunted for my meal and I got it. And now I feel really good about myself. And that's the whole motivation reward. So when it comes to screens, there's kind of this habit loop that we create. There's four steps to it: there's trigger, craving, response, and reward. So the trigger can be anything like pulling into your driveway after work. You just want to scroll. Maybe you've created a habit that there. So trigger could be an emotional trigger. It could be, I'm really stressed, I'm really overwhelmed. And that trigger creates a craving to escape those feelings. And then the response is to pull out your phone because it's been engineered to be really addictive and release a lot of dopamine. Dopamine is also released with alcohol, pornography, sex, and food. So all of the addictive things are secreting a bunch of dopamine because it feels really good. So we create, we get these triggers and then a little craving. I want to scroll on my phone. And then we pull it out and we get flooded with dopamine, the short form content, the emotional hooks that people use, and the bright colors and the novelty. You never know what you're gonna find, you're gonna find what is out there, what cat video awaits me, and like that novelty is also big with dopamine. And then the last step after our response is oh, I lost my train of thought. It's where you satisfied the initial trigger and you've solved it. So if you were overwhelmed and you pulled out your phone, you're not overwhelmed anymore. You've disappeared from your life, you've disassociated from it. And the more that we repeat this cycle, the stronger it gets in our brains and the harder it is to overcome. And over time, your brain actually becomes dependent on the external dopamine. And you stop releasing and creating your own innate self-made dopamine. You become dependent on external triggers, external sources. And then your initial trigger is like withdrawal. It's dopamine withdrawal because you've created this response in your brain, just like any other addiction, just like alcohol, food. We have to learn how to rewire our brains. And when it comes to addiction of any kind, willpower is not a strategy because it's dopamine dependence with anything, behavior or substance, willpower doesn't work. But we're telling everybody with screen time overuse to just try harder. Just try scrolling less, try plugging your phone in somewhere else. And we're setting people up for failure and shame because it doesn't work. And then you go get your phone and you scroll and you think what's wrong with me? Yeah, I'm just so weak, I'm so lazy, I'm broken. Am I the only one who's struggling with this? We're setting people up for failure.

SPEAKER_01: 28:37

I love that perspective because I think my first way that I tried to battle it was like, Well, I'll just unfollow anything that isn't like the kind of content I like because I'm really into like neuroscience and mental health. And so I'm like, I'll just follow scientists and like, but it's the same thing. You still you still get lost in it, and then the algorithms are things that you so that doesn't help either. But I tried like, you know, I was trying to like find other ways to like make my social media better for me, but it you still find yourself like I pick up my phone to well, because we use our phones for everything nowadays. Like I have work on here, this is how I order my groceries, this is how I check my medical charts, so you get on every actual work and you're like sucked in. And so I've got done a ton of things where they're like put your apps off your main screen in a little folder, which helped a itty bitty bit, you know. And the and but the thing is those little like alert, like the little message thing, like the whatever it is saying, like you have something new. I turned all that off. Notifications, thank you. Sorry, I turned all that off because that I would like find why did I click on that? Like I would have already clicked on it and be like, I didn't even want to click on that. Why didn't you click that?

SPEAKER_00: 29:45

It's all engineered to get you to click.

SPEAKER_01: 29:47

It's so crazy. This is I okay. So, what is your opinion on video games then? Because I feel like that's another thing I hear. I mean, I hear a lot of things in both ways, all around about video games. But I wonder what your thoughts are about video games.

SPEAKER_00: 30:01

I mean, my thoughts are my core value is presence, peace and presence. And I do feel like TV, video games, social media does take us out of presence, ability to be with ourselves in the present moment and causes social isolation. Now, video games are a little interesting for people who have a lot of friends who play. Like my brother's a big gamer.

SPEAKER_01: 30:28

Yeah, I have my brother and my husband are big gamers, so I wonder about it, like, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 30:33

Yeah, like I I do get that it's a gray area for people who really enjoy it because they play with their friends and they all log on at, you know, 6 p.m. and play whatever and and they're talking and it can be a source of connection and it's live. So you're engaging in it together in the same moment can make you more present. But I've also seen in myself and my brother that it can really take over to where you're playing games all day on your days off, on weekends, late into the night, not getting good sleep, and with any addiction, any potentially addiction. addictive substance or behavior, there's always that line. Like, when am I drinking too much? When am I, you know, eating too much? When am I using it to numb? And typically, like if you're staying up really late, not getting your eight hours of sleep because you're gaming or you're scrolling, it's now impacting your health. Yeah. That's a good telltale sign. Like, is this impacting my health, my sleep, my activity levels, my sense of connection? Am I choosing this over those things? If the answer is yes, then it's probably time to take a step back and create some strong digital boundaries.

SPEAKER_01: 31:47

I love that. So what are some examples of things people can do digitally like some like set digital boundaries for themselves?

SPEAKER_00: 31:55

Yeah. Great question. So going back to that habit loop of trigger, craving, response reward, that was the word I was looking for. You need to create friction in that loop. So the best place to create friction is between that trigger and the response where you have the craving. So things like that would be blocking apps. So for example, and you you need the right blocking app, it needs to be pretty foolproof. It can't be like the little screen time alerts built in on your phone where it says hey you know you've hit your 30 millimets but you can just hit snooze and you can just disregard it. That's not going to work. If you're really serious about you know reducing your screen time and breaking this, it needs to be foolproof. So a blocking app that for example mine is set to I get three 10 minute opens of Instagram a day. After I use those three 10 minutes up I'm completely blocked out. If I wanted to change those settings I would have to go into my blocking app and sit there for five minutes keeping the screen alive can't leave the app in order for my settings to unlock for me to change it. And you'd be amazed at how much five minutes is like I'm not going to do that. I rarely do that. I've had people have to set it up to like 15 minutes, 20 minutes even oh wow even up to an hour.

SPEAKER_01: 33:16

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 33:18

Yeah she was serious she went cold turkey talk about her in a minute but just taking the willpower out of it really making things automated smart automated digital boundaries that don't have any reliance on willpower your highest best version of yourself sets these settings and then you hit save and then the weak you know I just want to scroll version of you it's late at night isn't going to be able to so it's like you put your highest self back in the driver's seat by using a blocking app. And then another thing which is where I start people is an automated grayscale schedule. So maybe you've heard of being able to put your phone in black and white have you heard that setting so that's great but having it on 247 usually doesn't work for people because you end up turning it back on. Maybe you want to use your maps to navigate and you don't like the black and white whatever reason but you can create a shortcut on your phone to where at 9 p.m your phone goes black and white and at 8 a.m it goes back to color completely automated. You don't have to remember to turn it on it just does it on its own every day. And that's a great baby step to reduce the dopamine response because there's no flashing colors and it's a great reminder for your brain that it's time to go to bed. Like when you're scrolling and it suddenly goes black and white you're like oh it's already eight o'clock and you know you end up putting your phone down. That's a great baby step. And I'm all about a taper. I'm not a fan of cold turkey because any cold turkey again with any addictive type of thing it's very shocking to the system.

SPEAKER_01: 35:01

So I think people rebound too don't they like my experience you rebound.

SPEAKER_00: 35:05

Oh absolutely and then you kind of go on a binger you just watch tons of stuff. I experienced that like the process for me to get off my phone was lots of trial and error lots of failure lots of relapse of yeah just trying to figure it out for myself and then going on bingers and and so I I help people by using strong digital boundaries and we tighten up that blocking app every week. I do an eight-week program. Every week we get tighter and tighter on the blocking app and at the same time I'm teaching holistic coping skills because that's gonna focus on the initial triggers which is overwhelm, dissatisfaction, sadness, loneliness, and really big feelings that we don't know how to feel because no one ever taught us how to do that. Usually our parents aren't emotionally intelligent and never taught us they taught us how to numb and how to hide from our feelings. So we have to rewire that we have to learn how to holistically cope with stress and bring our nervous system out of fight or flight and into calm. So while we're tapering screen time down we're building up holistic awareness of your body and nervous system techniques and there's podcast homework every week to deepen people's understanding of dopamine or addiction or nervous system regulation. By the end of it you're not only scrolling less your stress is way lower and you feel completely in control of your stress levels because if you're willing to feel anything you can do anything. It's our feelings that we don't know how to feel or process that get in the way so when you learn how to be with yourself and regulate through those big feelings it really unlocks a lot and people can reduce their screen time.

SPEAKER_01: 36:55

That's only the beginning I love that that sounds amazing. Man I don't even know what to ask I was just so sucked into that.

SPEAKER_00: 37:03

I was like yes totally that's great advice so where would you if people are listening at home and they're where would you tell them to start I would tell them to start I actually have a free masterclass that walks you through all of this with great visuals of that habit loop, how to reprogram your brain and I do a step-by-step demo of setting up the grayscale automation. So I plug in my iPhone and in the workshop I take you through step by step on how to do it on an iPhone and then also some nervous system regulation techniques and it gives you all the information on the full digital detox program. So that is at nurseaby llc dot com slash masterclass that's a really great place to start to get a full well rounded view on what's really going on with your brain and how to start taking back control.

SPEAKER_01: 37:59

I love that also your website has a free women's empowerment playlist I noticed so I was like I'm totally going to sign up for this one I can't wait to hear her playlist so I'm excited to listen to playlist I love powerful music.

SPEAKER_00: 38:13

Me too me too it's like reprogramming your subconscious mind.

SPEAKER_01: 38:18

Yeah I keep trying to get people to send me them from the show like send me your most favorite like powerful song I want to make up like a public playlist of like the most powerful songs people send me that was the good idea like a public playlist. Yeah it'd be awesome that would be so cool yeah anybody can download that too it's uh available on my website it's a Spotify playlist I love that so is there a typical demographic that you work with within clients it's a good question.

SPEAKER_00: 38:48

I tend to work with attract high performing soulful women who their mothers they're you know teachers nurses passionate about their careers they're on the path of wanting to be their best selves. So those would seem to be the women that come to me they're business owners like they are on a mission to be their highest self and they've realized that their screen time is starting to keep them stuck in a version of themselves that they don't want to be but they don't know how to get out of it. So that seems to be who I really work with a lot. I've only ever done digital detox with one man.

SPEAKER_01: 39:28

And we get a lot of men that want to work with burnout either.

SPEAKER_00: 39:32

Exactly and I haven't worked with teenagers I keep getting asked to work with yeah just because they're on their phones a lot but I typically say that like with any addiction you have to be ready. You have to have self-identified that this is a problem and be ready to make the change and a lot of the teenagers that I've talked to or parents of teenagers they would be dragging their kids to this program. I'm like that's not gonna work they might have to get to be 24 25 they're working and they're realizing I don't want to live this way and then they might come to me. So it's typically like post-college women who want to live a soul-led heart-led life that's beautiful I love that so I ask all my guests this question so when things in your own personal life get like out of control and stressful what is your like so self go-to self-nurture practices that you use my go-to for acute stress like in the moment is four seven eight breathing I love breath work it's so powerful and the science behind it again is really powerful for me to understand that when you take a full deep breath completely filling your lungs and you hold it you're stimulating your vagal nerve and that is actually toning and training your nervous system to be in the parasympathetic the rest and digest state and then a slow exhale twice as long as the inhale so four seven eight is also releasing stress and bringing your body out of fight or flight. So I use that a lot I try to use it throughout the day whenever I notice my shoulders are tight or my belly is tight and I'm gripping the steering wheel or whatever, I do some four, seven, eight breathing as much as I can to really reprogram my nervous system. That's great in the moment, but the best is always prevention, right? Not treatment. So daily meditation practice, I call it physical therapy for the brain and I cover this in my digital detox program, but there's different types of meditation to strengthen different brain regions. So loving kindness meditation is great if you're feeling burned out or lack of empathy it's going to strengthen the empathy centers of your brain if you're feeling scattered like you can't focus you want to do focused attention meditation which is going to strengthen your ability to concentrate there's different techniques it really is physical therapy for your brain. And when you do it three times a week even 10 minutes each you rewire your brain to be focused, present, calm and loving. And that is going to reduce all any incidents of high stress, burnout it's always prevention first. So that's something that I practice is at least three times a week some kind of meditation. And I just find guided meditations. I have some recorded that are in my program but I like guided ones YouTube, you know you can find them on even podcasts.

SPEAKER_01: 42:40

I love Insight Timer because it's free and it has like so I mean actually the downside of Insight Timer is the overwhelming amount of content that's free and picking what you want to do.

SPEAKER_00: 42:50

But the one that I I like really well is Tik Not Han's app. He's a Buddhist teacher it's called the Plum Village app. Ooh and these are more traditional Buddhist meditations they have no music they are very much about connecting with the breath and the present moment. And again if you train yourself with that then you live in the present moment the more you do that. You don't live in the future worrying and you don't live in the past regretting. You train your body and your brain to be in the present and I love his app he also has a mindfulness bell in the app so you can have like a a Buddhist bell go off three times a day and it reminds you to take three mindful deep breaths. So I have that turned on as well. And then my final resource for people I don't know if you've heard of them is to be magnetic. No oh they are so good. Tell me how transformational for me so to be magnetic is a manifestation program but it's it's called neural manifestation. So it's all about rewiring your in your self-worth towards worthiness that sounds amazing. And they use self-hypnosis recordings. So you go into a hypnotic state and you rewire fear anxiety lack of self-worth through hypnosis and they have a great podcast too it's really informative but it's a very science based way to reprogram your mind and it's been super helpful for me. So if I'm ever really feeling overwhelmed stressed I will go into to be magnetic and pull up a hypnosis to work through that and that really helps. And I can put in the show notes a link to get a discount if anyone's looking for that.

SPEAKER_01: 44:46

Yeah that would be awesome I've used hypnosis once for emotional eating and it was really helpful. And I I might stumble across some practice like meditations that you I can tell are using a bit of hypnosis sometimes. But um I I find it like so fascinating. So I love that you mentioned that because that's so cool.

SPEAKER_00: 45:03

It's really powerful. It's really powerful to get you into your subconscious mind because there's just limits to the conscious mind. And she talks about in there you can't manifest from your conscious mind. It's like trying to get a promotion but the whole time deep down in your subconscious mind you're like I'm not worthy. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:23

I mean all the like our subconscious is like it is the programming that's running in the background and for our parents like there's so much that we know now and we don't know at all. We're like you know we're just breaching the water of the iceberg but like our parents had no clue like I think like mental health I mean people just I mean we're all just doing the best we can but they were really just doing the best they can could with what they had and like their parents like could you imagine that trauma you know what I mean like seriously so we're all just trying to heal. If you were lucky enough to have like well adjusted parents that saw you as an individual and gave you unconditional love that is the outlier and that's lovely.

SPEAKER_00: 46:04

Like wonderful like the best gift you can give the world right anybody out there who has children like the best gift you can give the world is to love them and just really learn as much as you can about supporting their developing mind and their sense of self-worth. And my husband's also a nurse he works in the OR and him and I worked in the same place for a little while I was Pacquiao he was OR so we knew the same surgeons and so we would joke about which ones were loved as babies it's so true.

SPEAKER_01: 46:35

I mean you can see that in pee well you could I mean if you look at abusers honestly like anybody out there causing harm look at the abusers in your life look at the people in your life that are difficult. What are they reacting to it's usually like an internal self I want to say hatred but it's a it's a self like sabotaging I mean it's no it's no way it's no reason to allow that behavior which is I know some of us people pleasers and empaths can get lost in like because you can understand why a person does that feel empathetic towards them but most of that is all coming from subconscious programming about the beliefs they have about themselves which we all have those beliefs about ourselves that something whether it's that we're unlovable or not not enough or unworthy or you know and we have that's so hard because unless you address it it will come back in the best cases from beneath and just pull you right back down. You have to address it.

SPEAKER_00: 47:32

You have to get to those roots and and reprogram them and the TB Magnetic is I I found the best tool that's so to program. And yeah we would have some surgeons who were just so mean and about you know let's speed up that turnover time. What took you so long and like one thing goes wrong and they just explode and then a different surgeon who's like no problem I'll go get a coffee you know I'll go call my buddy if they're just chill and like I either they've done their work or they were just really supported as kids and told you're the apple of my eye you can do anything. I love you. They've never had to fight for worthiness yeah which is so sad that we do.

SPEAKER_01: 48:13

I know so sad. It's funny because I have I have actually had this conversation at work last night a nurse pulled me aside to tell me some horrible interaction she had with the surgeon who said he hates nurses and I was like oh my god he hates himself so do not worry about it. And she was like I think that he is just defensive of his own skills and that's why he acts that way and I was like I think you hit the nail right on that.

SPEAKER_00: 48:37

Absolutely it's all from insecurity. Even in myself when I lash out or I get triggered I know it's because I'm insecure about something you know and I need to work through that and that's my job to do. But not taking on what's not ours. Like that surgeon it's so hard when it actually happens it's so hard but that's not your work that's his work.

SPEAKER_01: 49:00

Yes I love that that's that beautiful detachment and the growing popularity of the let them that everyone keeps saying here that I love. Yeah exactly this has been such a lovely conversation you have such a beautiful energy and you're so like grounded and calm talking to you makes me calm and I love that I can only imagine how your clients feel so thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 49:21

I love that a lot I'm a double cancer I'm a cancer sun and a cancer moon so I'm X I'm double water.

SPEAKER_01: 49:29

Wow I love that I'm a I have I I have like two Sagittariuses in mine and like a strong Leo.

SPEAKER_00: 49:36

So there you go fire fire and water work well together. Yes yes yes I love grounded people I'm like come here I need you and I need people who have some fire be like come on you can do it I'm like I can just meditate all day I'm like but someone needs to come light a little fire under me something right get out of your inner world and come act in the outer world exactly long enough Abby it's time to get out of the pool and go dry off and do some stuff right you can get back in later don't worry exactly I love that well is there anything that you would like to leave us with before we gab I would just say to follow your intuition I know that's something we've probably thrown around a lot these days but especially as women your intuition like you have a sixth sense and it's knowing when something's not a right fit when the job isn't a right fit or the relationship listen to that and follow that and do the work that it's asking you to do. And I think that's going to take you where you want to go. So just permission for women to trust themselves in a world that has told us not to trust ourselves as women we are the most powerful intuitive we're literally the gateway between the unseen and the seen we are the gateways of life and our power is unlimited we've just been told that we're worthless for so long. So follow your intuition even if other people the men in your life the people in your life are saying you're reading into things or you're just overreacting I found with my clients and myself usually we're right.

SPEAKER_01: 51:25

Yep I agree. So just find women who can build you up I love that finding your community beautiful beautiful advice well we will put the links in the show notes do you want to say your website one more time for people that may just be like listening yes it's nurse Abby and it's A B B Y L C dot com slash masterclass if you want the master class.

SPEAKER_00: 51:52

Yes thank you so much thanks for coming on today yes thank you jen it was so great to have this conversation thanks for having me on