Managing Stress in Foster Families

Matt (00:00)

Hello and welcome to All Things Foster, a place for coffee, connection, and community. This is season one, episode four. We've got Dr. Robin Ure here with us today. We had a little technical difficulty this morning, but we're going to work through it. ⁓ So, thanks for coming today and let's talk about the nervous system, stress, what that really does to our body. And so, let's kind of start out talking about

your experience, why chiropractic and how we get to where we're at today.

Dr. Robin (00:37)

Sure, okay. So, ⁓ my family just went to the chiropractor. That was our first line of defense when anything came up, I played a lot of sports growing up. I was injured a lot. I don't know if you've ever watched girls play basketball, but we're not very nice to each other. It caused a lot of physical trauma, right? So was in the chiropractor a lot. And...

Matt (00:57)

Yeah, right.

Dr. Robin (01:04)

So actually when I started college, I was going to go to med school. ⁓ And one day we had a, we're goofing around in the dorms and I had a knee injury that came from that. I went to the student health clinic that day and he looked at it he was like, yeah, that's pretty bruised and swollen. Here's your pain meds and anti-inflammatories. So, you know, which is great. I needed those things, but

Matt (01:08)

Okay.

Dr. Robin (01:33)

But I had a chiropractor appointment the same day, you know, just my routine maintenance appointment that I had that day. And I didn't even say anything to him about it, but he noticed it was a problem. You know, he asked me about it, he addressed it, he treated it, and that knee injury cleared up quickly. And so, from that day forward, I just kind of shifted my focus and I was like, I wanted to take a more proactive approach on helping people, on treating people.

Matt (01:53)

All

Dr. Robin (02:02)

And so I switched my focus and within a year I started in chiropractic school.

Matt (02:05)

.

Wow, that's a big change from medical to chiropractic ⁓

Dr. Robin (02:11)

It's a big change. It's a big change.

I had no idea what I was going to learn in chiropractic school other than I'm going to adjust people and make them feel better. I graduated over 20 years ago now. ⁓

Matt (02:21)

Right.

well.

Dr. Robin (02:28)

I've seen a lot of different things. I'm seeing a lot of different things now than I did when I first started in practice. I'm doing things that I didn't think that I would ever do. But that's just kind of the evolution of things. I would say at this point in practice, I've never done the actual math and the statistics of it, but I think I've delivered over 300,000 adjustments.

Matt (02:49)

Goodness, wow, that's a lot. So let's talk stress, that's really, foster families, they just, they do, they deal with a ton of stress. They're working with kids that have come out of a really difficult situation, and so there's doctor's appointments, there's counselors, there's this...

this attorney and this doctor know all these things and it is a tremendous amount of stress ⁓ working with these kids from these difficult spots. So ⁓ let's kind of talk about what happens to the body under just constant stress. What does that look like? You talked about the three T's. ⁓ Let's talk about that.

Dr. Robin (03:40)

Okay. First of all, I just want to say that raising kids is stressful. Raising my own children was stressful. You know, it takes a very special person to do what you guys do and I appreciate that. I don't know that I could do it myself. So it's something that ⁓ you should be applauded for. ⁓

So, one of the things that we learned very, very early on in chiropractic education is that there's three things that can cause stress in a body that can lead to unbalance and misalignment. And those three T's are thoughts, traumas, and toxins. Everybody knows, understands the traumas part of it, right? You you wreck your bike, you...

you do the crazy things that you do when you're a kid. just birth itself is a trauma, right? Learning how to walk is a trauma. You fall on your butt a hundred times until you get it, right? So that part of it is obvious, okay? Those kind of things can cause abnormal motion in the joints and the muscles, and that stuff needs to be realigned in order for proper function to happen.

The other two things that we don't generally think about being a stress to the body is the toxins part of that. That's the stuff that's in our environment. The things that we eat, increased lot of sugar causes inflammation. That's an imbalance. ⁓ The stuff that's floating around in the air. An Amarillo we get a lot of stuff floating around in the air. I've never seen anything like it before.

Matt (05:22)

Yeah, for sure.

We

got a ton, we got a whole bunch of cows right down the road.

Dr. Robin (05:29)

Right?

I experienced what I realized was ⁓ an environmental illness a few weeks ago when all that dirt was floating around. It caused a sinus infection. You know, threw my system completely out of balance, I ended up with a sinus infection. I needed some antibiotics to work on. You know, the stuff that we eat and drink, stuff that's in the water, right? There's a lot of stuff that's in our water.

Matt (05:48)

Yeah.

Dr. Robin (05:59)

⁓ We can talk about that stuff later, but the part that we're starting to realize more and that I'm starting to focus on more is the thoughts part of that. And that's going to be the emotional part. That's going to be ⁓ the things that we watch, that we listen to.

Matt (06:14)

Mm.

Dr. Robin (06:21)

⁓ the things that happens to us in school, at home, whatever, everything elicits emotions, right? ⁓ And what we've overlooked for a long time is how those emotions affect our bodies, and especially when those are strong, heavy, negative emotions.

Matt (06:41)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. know I've done a lot of reading, book studies, and things like that that talk about the what happens. You know, there's a book that Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry wrote called What Happened to You, and there are these external traumas that they have not only psychological effects, but they have

physiological effects in your brain, in your body, and things like that.

Dr. Robin (07:18)

Yeah,

it's a huge effect. There's so much.

input that comes into our bodies every single second, right? And our brains can't process all of that. You know, our brains pick out a very, very narrow and very small piece of every single thing that goes on throughout the day and that processes that, And when it's too much, when there's too much information for the brain to process, it has to send that information somewhere else and it sends it to the tissues.

We store things in our tissues that we can't mentally process.

Matt (07:56)

Yeah,

yeah, there's a book that was recommended when I did the book study on what happened to you called your body keeps score Have you have you heard of that? you've read it. It's good. Yeah. Yeah, okay It's on my list. I have a long list, but it's on my list So I definitely need to need to read that because it does

Dr. Robin (08:05)

I've read that.

Yeah, if you've ever heard that term, have issues in our tissues, that's a literal thing.

Matt (08:21)

Right. Yeah. Okay. So, we have all this stressful stuff going on. What's the connection between emotional stress and physical symptoms?

Dr. Robin (08:37)

So. ⁓

There's a place in our brain called the hypothalamus. And we're learning a lot about the brain and how, you know, we thought that we were smart before, there, you know, we just continue to learn more and more about how the brain and the body works and in relationship to the environment, especially. ⁓ And I'm going to really simplify it. There's a whole lot more that goes on than this, but this is the big picture. So there's an area in our brain called the hypothalamus.

And that particular part of the brain, its job is to link the nervous system, which is an electrical system, to the hormonal system, which is chemical. So it's like this exchange center. We take in information in energy, which is electrical.

our brain and our body talks to itself through the nerves, that's electrical impulses, okay? And so that information that we take in goes to the hypothalamus in the brain and that converts it to a chemical reaction which is hormonal. The hormones that we're talking about, like if you have a big negative emotional event that happens...

we're going to take in all that information, it's going to go to the brain, the brain is going to process as much as it can, and then that hypothalamus area is going to convert that to a hormone release. ⁓ When it's a negative or a stressful situation, what we're going to release is cortisol, adrenaline, stress hormones, and those stress hormones then flood the body. It's going to disrupt...

our thought patterns, okay? It's going to cause inflammation. It's gonna cause ⁓ just disruption of the organ systems. Okay, when we get into a fight or flight state, the purpose of that, you know, our dinosaur brains, you know, what we call the amygdala, all animals...

have that part of their brain. As humans, we have a more developed brain and we're able to govern that. Animals aren't able to do that. But ⁓ when we get in that fight or flight state, bodies redirect all of the energy away from the internal organs. We have to direct that to the muscles and the joints and get the body prepared to either fight or run away.

You get in this heightened state of protection. ⁓ And then when the threat is over, then we're supposed to move into rest and recovery. We're not designed to stay in that fight or flight all the time. But when we have continuous stressors that keep happening to us, then we can get stuck in that fight or flight. And that's going to turn into a whole new set of problems.

Matt (11:43)

Sure,

yeah. So, you know, you can have anxiety and sleep issues, immune suppress... You can have all these physical ailments because of the stress, the... What do you call it? The thoughts. That's the thoughts part, right? That's the T, whether it's...

you know, somebody saying something, doing something, causes us to have this response. you know, caring for kids that come from trauma, from personal experience.

It's not—I wouldn't say that it's unique only to foster families because families with bio kids that have difficulties as well. But foster families, when they're, you know, they get woken up in the middle of the night and there's this three-month-old baby and they've got, you know, this and this and this and this, and, you know, and so they're jumping in and they're trying to get this kid. And it takes, you know, it takes months just to get them onto a consistent sleep pattern, right?

You know, everybody says, you know, they're just three months old. They're just...it's just like caring for another three month old, except that it's not, because absolutely nothing is familiar to this little one. You know, there's...mom's voice isn't there, the sights, the smells, the tastes, everything's different. And so, it takes time to get that kiddo just into that new rhythm of life. ⁓ And so, you know, foster families, a lot of times they're...I mean...

kiddo's stressed, that puts stress on the foster family. then it kind of does this cycle. And then what happens a lot of times, honestly, is they get that kiddo into a stable routine, and then they go home. And the bio family is not really prepared a lot of times. There are plenty of times where the family gets their stuff together and everything's stabilized.

But the reality is that half, 47 % of kids that have been in care, that go back to biofamilies, within five years, they're back into care. And ⁓ foster families see this, right? They see that this kiddo that we've had for a year or 18 months is stable, they're solid and everything, and then they go home, they go back to the biofamilies, and then...

you know, six months, a year later, they're back in care and they're back in…so, foster families kind of have this constant set of stresses, right? You know, visitation a lot of times with the bio family is a weekly thing and it's a weekly stressor, right? Because the kids go and they get dysregulated because the two-year-old does not understand why I can see mom for a

for an hour and then I don't get to see her again for another week, right? And so the kids are constantly having this stress cycle which puts the parents constantly in stress cycles. So there's just so much stress that's involved and so what do they do with that, right? I mean we talked about how it has this physical response, this physical

reaction to the stresses that are involved. What are some things that you can do to kind of help with that constant stress cycle?

Dr. Robin (15:33)

⁓ So our bodies, ⁓ our brain, mean, and this even happens outside of our bodies and our brain. Nothing can grow and improve if there's disorganization. There has to be some organization in order for

a system to kind of fall into place. If you're talking about an inanimate object or a business or, you know, something like that, it's easier to control that because there's no emotions involved in a business system, let's say. ⁓ But when you're talking about the growth and improvement of a human...

It's not that cut and dry. Because just for the reasons that you said, even in a quote unquote normal family, you've got a lot of factors that are going to cause some disorganization. You've got people learning things. You've got people trying things. It's not always pretty. But you add the trauma of the fostering situation, ⁓ it's going to throw that disorganization

Matt (16:30)

Sir.

for sure.

Dr. Robin (16:58)

I mean, it's going to explode that disorganization. And so one of, in my opinion, one of the most critical things that can happen before you ever even consider fostering is to get your own systems in order. Having your own

Matt (17:21)

Yep.

Dr. Robin (17:26)

mental stability in order, right? Understanding the stresses that go on in just a normal life and being able to regulate emotions and thoughts and actions before you ever think about entering the foster world. So, like I said before, we do well with organization, okay? And when our brains form a habit,

then we can stop thinking about how to perform that task over and over and over again. It becomes a habit. ⁓ There's a fantastic book, in fact, called Atomic Habits by James Clear. I recommend looking into that. ⁓ And the way that we do that, not forever, I'm not talking like becoming OCD, like everything has to have its...

you know, specific time and place, but to repeat an action over and over and over until it becomes a habit then allows your body and your brain to become comfortable with that so that you don't have to think about every step along the way, right? That opens your body and your brain up to becoming more creative, learning new things. And so the organization of having routines.

Matt (18:52)

Yeah.

Dr. Robin (18:53)

routines. Especially little kids. mean, you know, having a routine so that that little child, what baby or five years old or 15 years old, whatever, just having a routine so they know what to expect in certain situations allows them, so if there's a little bit of deviation from that, it allows them to be able to adapt to that easier.

Matt (18:56)

Yeah, when we

Yeah.

I know my oldest son, when he came the first time, you know, it was two and three o'clock in the morning, we could not get him to go to sleep. And it took us about six months of consistent dinner, play, bath, bed. Dinner, play, bath, bed every night, same time.

get up around the same time, and it did. It took about six months to get him on that consistent routine. And once we did, then we could move on to some other things that we could build routines into. But yeah, getting that routine was a challenge, right? ⁓ The second time when my daughter came, ⁓ she couldn't sleep.

And so we would get her to sleep and then she'd wake up in the middle of the night, scream and cry. And she's not even two years old yet. She doesn't really understand. can't have a conversation with her and say, okay, this is who we are, this is what's happening. You can't rationalize that with her. And so she would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and crying, and go in there. And she wanted me. She only wanted me.

I ended up sleeping on the couch for months so that I could hear her in the middle of the night. And it got to the point where my wife was like, babe, okay, you gotta let me, you gotta let me do this because what if you're not here, right? But so yeah, so building that routine helps to manage just the chaos, right? So let's talk about this...

inside neuro spinal scanner thing. Because in my brain when I had it done, it helps me to like see, okay, this is where I'm at. You know what I'm saying? As opposed to, yeah, I'm stressed. Okay, we know that, everybody's stressed. But getting this scan thing, what does it do? How does it...

help us figure things out, stuff like that. What is it, first of all?

Dr. Robin (21:30)

Yeah, so I use, it's called an Insight Neuro Spinal Scanner. There's three parts to it. And each part is important in its own right. Each part of it gives you a lot of information. It graphs it out in color, which our brains can easily interpret, right? It gives you something to look at and be like,

Oh, just like you said. And especially if you're a visual learner, having that information there to just give you a starting point. So the three parts of the Insight scanner, the first part that I do is measure temperature along your spine. Temperature is a good indicator of imbalance.

Matt (22:20)

Okay.

Dr. Robin (22:28)

where as far as inflammation goes in the... Okay. We want to have symmetry on each side of the spine. This is going to show you where's the symmetry as far as inflammation specifically. Okay. It gives us an idea of what areas of the spine and the nerves in that area are inflamed, overly inflamed. And in every part of the spine, the nerves that come out

Matt (22:31)

Okay. Yeah.

sure.

Dr. Robin (22:58)

you know, go to different areas. They're going to go to muscles and tissues, but they're also going to go to different organs. ⁓ So it can point us to where you might have a different... It may not just be spinal related, it may not be pain related, it might be organ related, okay? If you're having digestion issues or something. Let's look at the inflammation in that area of those nerves that go to those end

Matt (23:04)

Okay.

Right.

Dr. Robin (23:27)

So that's the first part of it. The second part that we look into then is ⁓ how much muscle tension you have in different areas. Again, we want symmetry. We want equal parts, equal tension on both sides of the spine. We also want, so there's a certain pattern throughout our spine. want more tension, like intentionally and purposely, we want more muscle tension because that's what keeps us upright.

So that's a benefit that we have of being humans is that we're upright. ⁓ And so there's certain areas that have to fire more than others in order to keep us there. So we want to see ⁓ where there's imbalance as far as just how the muscle's firing. If there's a weakness or if there's too much tension.

Matt (24:05)

Okay.

Dr. Robin (24:15)

weakness is just as important to know about as too much tension. And then the third part of that, which is the most fascinating part to me, is we do a heart rate variability scan.

Matt (24:27)

heart rate variability scan.

Dr. Robin (24:30)

Yes, HRV.

Some people probably out there probably have heard of HRV. lot of watches nowadays will keep track of HRV. You may have no idea what that's doing and the purpose of it. Yeah. ⁓

Matt (24:42)

Yeah, I I know they'll tell

me beats per minute or something like that. There you go.

Dr. Robin (24:49)

Some of them

will tell you, you slept really bad last night. We need to get that under control. Here's maybe why you feel like you do today is because your sleep last night was terrible. ⁓ But the fascinating part of that, so it's measuring heart rate, It's measuring your skin temperature and then what we could call skin conductance. And what that's showing us is how our body is actually relating to the environment around us.

Matt (24:52)

night.

Dr. Robin (25:16)

like in real time.

Matt (25:19)

What does that mean?

So does that mean it's measuring how much stress I'm under? that what it's?

Dr. Robin (25:30)

What it's measuring is how your body is reacting to the stimulus that are coming at it. Like I said earlier, we have millions of pieces of input, sensory input coming in all day long, all night long. How does our nervous system react to all of that?

Matt (25:34)

Okay.

Dr. Robin (25:50)

So what this gives is an idea of how well is your nervous system reacting to and interpreting that information that's coming in. It shows there's two parts of our autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is a part that we don't control.

Matt (26:01)

Okay.

Right, that's the automatic stuff.

Dr. Robin (26:13)

Yes,

like our heart rate, our digestion, remembering to breathe. We don't control that stuff. There's two parts of that, the fight or flight side and then the rest in recovery side. And so what that heart rate variability is showing us is how

Matt (26:21)

Okay.

Okay.

Dr. Robin (26:34)

Well, your nervous system is interpreting all those signals that are coming into it. Does your body... If there's a kitten coming at you, is your body and your brain interpreting that as a tiger and getting ready to react to that? Or is it understanding that that's a kitten, there's no threat? Some nervous systems that are unbalanced...

it doesn't understand that there's no threat there. Based on past experiences and past traumas, it can't distinguish that. And so it'll go into a fight or flight state very easily.

Matt (27:12)

That's, yeah, for sure, yeah. Okay, so the scanner can look at that and tell us kind of are we in fight or flight all the time, are we in rest and recovery or whatnot, right? So what does that tell you? If you see that there's...

constantly stressed. What does that tell us? What do we do about it?

Dr. Robin (27:43)

So from my standpoint, as the chiropractor, from the practitioner, from the person that's going to try to get you from point A to point B, how the heck are we going to get there? If this is where we're starting and this is the ultimate goal that we want to get to, and for some people, that goal is to be able to physically perform better.

For some people, that goal is to sleep better. Some people, their goal is to not overreact to situations that don't need to be overreacted to. Who would have thought you want to go to a chiropractor in order to just react appropriately to statements that are said to you?

But ultimately, that's what it's coming down to. ⁓ And so for me, I use that information not only to show you where you're starting from, but also, it's an objectionable measure. You get to see the improvement. It's not just me telling you, hey, look, you're better.

Matt (28:49)

So you do this scan more than once.

Dr. Robin (28:54)

Yes, we start out with it the first day. I like to do it after a certain number of visits. We repeat it so that you can see, so yeah, my symptoms might be better. Maybe I don't have as many headaches. Maybe I'm sleeping better. you know, maybe the function of that muscle is better. So you get to match that up. But then it also gives us both an idea of how quickly is it happening.

or how much more work is there to be done. Symptoms are the last thing that show up. There's a lot of stuff that's going on in our system for a long time before we ever have a symptom show up. Those symptoms are also the first thing to start going away when you're under care. It doesn't mean the problem is fixed. It means that the symptom is better. So if you're thinking, oh, that muscle feels better. I'm good. Well, let's redo that scan.

Matt (29:29)

Yeah.

Okay.

Dr. Robin (29:51)

and let's see how is your system functioning. Are you going to slip right back to where you're at if we discontinue care? Or is it going to say, ⁓ let's continue for longer, so until we get to the point where that nervous system is balanced, not just the muscles or headaches are better?

Matt (30:12)

Yeah,

okay. Okay, so yeah, so you do you do the scan more than once kind of tracking it. Is there other folks in Amarillo that do this? you know? Is this a pretty unique? I've been to many chiropractors over the years and I've never seen anybody else heard of anybody else do this. Do you know?

Dr. Robin (30:41)

far as I know, ⁓ there's not, but I haven't interviewed every chiropractor in town. It is a very, very unique thing, yes. And the technology is not new. I had this technology ⁓ when I started kind of fresh out of school 20-some years ago. The technology has improved.

Matt (30:46)

⁓ But it's a pretty unique thing.

Dr. Robin (31:03)

so much, I can't even begin to tell you. And I've had different models of it throughout the years. And the way that the technology works and the way that it can show you has improved so much. But as far as I know, I don't know of anybody else that's doing it.

Matt (31:23)

Okay, so how does balancing the nervous system...

develop into better regulation, healing, better stress management and stuff like that. How does that progress? How does that work?

Dr. Robin (31:43)

So, there's so much that's going on here, right? The body is so complex. It's such an intelligent design ⁓ that there's no way that we can discuss the whole thing in the time that we have. But big picture is this. 90 % of the stimulation and the nutrition of your brain comes from movement of the spine. Okay?

And that's how our brain continues to develop and it continues to form new connections. ⁓ Is because it needs that movement. So if the spine itself is not moving properly, you're not gonna get optimal movement from the spine which then feeds the brain. ⁓

Matt (32:36)

Yeah,

Dr. Robin (32:39)

That's part of the reason why as we age and we don't move as much, we mentally start declining, okay, because you're not getting that feed of nutrition and movement to the brain. So, the simple answer to that is if you want the best movement out of your spine, we need to get it adjusted and make sure that every single segment is moving like it should be so it doesn't cause restriction.

Matt (33:06)

Okay. So, let's talk about some strategies because going to you is not going to fix it. It's not a magic bullet, right? It's one piece. It's a piece. Right. So, what are some things that they can do aside from coming to you? Coming to you, get adjusted.

Dr. Robin (33:22)

one piece of a very large puzzle.

Matt (33:36)

What are some other strategies for helping manage stress?

Dr. Robin (33:48)

So again, I'm just going to touch on a very small piece of all of this, because there's so much, so much that we could be doing, that you as foster parents could be doing for yourself, for your own children, if you've got your own bio children, you know, for the foster children that are in your care. And a big one of those is breathing. Simply breathing.

Matt (34:11)

breathing.

Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Robin (34:15)

Seems simple, doesn't it?

Here's one of the things that we do though. When our brains or our bodies feel like we've lost control of a situation, we have to feel like we're controlling something. So what's the first thing that we can control? Our breath. Okay? And in a stressful situation, if you stop and kind of pay attention, you'll realize that a lot of times you're holding your breath.

Matt (34:34)

Huh.

Dr. Robin (34:44)

you're holding your breath, then your tissues don't get oxygen, which then makes the problem worse. Okay? If you don't have oxygen going to your brain, it's not going to know how to react. So one of the first things if you start feeling like this heavy emotion is to stop and pay attention to your breathing. Am I holding my breath? Okay?

Matt (34:57)

Yeah.

Dr. Robin (35:13)

Probably you are, unless you've been, you know, are aware of this and you've been, you know, gotten some training in it. ⁓ But the quickest way to change the physiology of your muscles and your tissues is to breathe. Okay? So what happens when you start suffocating? You get tense, you know, your shoulders end up in your ears. Okay? You're not expanding your lungs. And so, and that's going to cause...

panic. Okay. So one, the first thing to do is just stop, take note of your breath, and then take big, deep, intentional breaths. Simple, simple as breathing in for five seconds, holding it and breathing out for five seconds. It's very intentional. It changes the quickest way to change the physiology of your whole body. Breathing. ⁓

Matt (35:48)

Okay.

Really, just breathing? Okay.

All right. So, what do you think we can control our stress level? How do we then reflect that ⁓ to a kiddo that's in heightened state?

Dr. Robin (36:25)

number one, by controlling your own state, you help them control theirs. Okay? If you're in a state of stress, there's no way you're going to get a child out of their state of stress.

Matt (36:41)

Right, yeah.

Dr. Robin (36:42)

So

just you having that awareness and that intention in yourself is gonna is gonna change the energy in the room. Okay, okay and just by changing the energy in of yourself then You've walked into a room where you can tell there's tension. Yeah, right And you know babies little kids they feel that more than we do because they don't have filters like we've learned, right, you know, yeah So just changing your physiology and just changing your

energy around them first of all okay it doesn't ever have you ever told your wife to calm down

Matt (37:18)

Yeah,

that works really well. ⁓

Dr. Robin (37:22)

So the

same thing, you're not going to be like yelling at a kid, calm down. It's not going to happen. It's going to perpetuate. It's going to... Yes, so just changing your own physiology. And then ⁓ the intention, right? There's so much that we can change in our environment by having the right intention.

Matt (37:30)

make it

Okay, dig into that. do you mean? Thinking I'm not stressed? Is that what you mean?

Dr. Robin (37:53)

If you...

Not necessarily, but kind of taking stock of your heart, okay? Stopping and remembering, there's a reason why I'm fostering.

Right? And it's because God put it on your heart to do so. Right? And when you stop and you take stock in that, you and you kind of ask for a little Holy Spirit intervention maybe, and remember why you're doing what you're doing. Okay? And when you can shut off that fight or flight and that stress, then it allows you, like I said, change your energy about you.

And babies, small children, the people that are in your care, they just know it. And when you've healed or you've worked on yourself, then people are attracted to you because you have that energy around you. Does that make sense? Yeah. Dogs feel it. know? Dogs feel it. Kids feel it.

Matt (39:00)

Okay. Yeah, that is.

Yeah, my service animal Max is not here with me at the moment, but when I get stressed, he knows.

Dr. Robin (39:14)

Yep,

he's trained to do that. Not that he would do it, you know, anyways, because that's kind of animal he is. ⁓

Matt (39:25)

Okay,

so breathing, being kind of intentional about how you're handling things. ⁓ What else? What are other things, consistent things that we could be doing better to help us manage and mitigate stress?

Dr. Robin (39:41)

I think another big one is movement. ⁓ Like I said earlier, most of the stimulation and the nutrition to your brain comes from movement of the spine. purposely moving. And the kids that are in your care, who knows if they've ever had intentional physical activity to develop their systems. ⁓

And so not only do you have to, in order to teach them to intentionally move, you have to do it yourself. You can't be sitting on the couch on your phone and be like, go run around the block. That movement, it changes the way that our body is taking in information. And when we move, we release what's called the feel-good chemicals, the oxytocin, the dopamine, the... ⁓

I'm losing the... I can't remember what the other ones are, but ⁓ those feel-good hormones rather than the adrenaline and the cortisol. ⁓ Let's see. Setting aside time every single day, maybe multiple times a day, purposely to ⁓ be in a restful, protected state. Okay? ⁓

Matt (40:47)

Okay

Dr. Robin (41:08)

You know, in our house that's prayer time. It's quiet time, you know, depending on, you know, whatever it is that, however you do that. But teach these littles how to do it, too. You know, teach them how to quiet things down. Teach them that even if they may not necessarily have a physical place to be,

Matt (41:12)

turn.

Dr. Robin (41:33)

And I know this, you know, for a little, little child, you can't talk to them about this, but the older they get, the more they'll start understanding it. If you need to go find a space that's quiet and safe, that has no sensory overload coming in, then teach them that's okay. I mean, I need to do that.

Matt (41:56)

Yeah, I know

for me ⁓ it's going somewhere and it could be in the backyard with my dogs back there and some headphones on and listening to some worship music or something like that, some music that I really enjoy and just being, right? trying not to... And I think this gets back to kind of our culture of convenience and just...

You know, we want to go and veg out on the TV or we're just constantly going, the kids got to do this and they got to do that and I want to do and do and do and do. And so we stay so busy that we don't have time. And I'm sitting here thinking about that thinking, I have got to be doing a better job myself of

slowing down and taking some time. So you're not talking about going and spending 30 minutes. I mean, it could be just two or three, four five minutes. could be a minutes. Just go... Just be...

Dr. Robin (43:05)

Pay to your breath. Pay attention to what you're taking in. Being very intentional about the information that comes in. Like you said, scrolling on your phone. Over half of the stuff that you see on your phone is negative. Don't listen to the news. Don't listen. Pay attention to what music you're listening to. Pay attention to...

⁓ you know, what you're seeing on TikTok or whatever. know, ⁓ make sure that you're paying attention to what you're taking in. It's going to change the entire outlook, your perceptions, it's going to change your physiology. You know, if you have, you know, like you said, you listen to worship music, same, you know, just the change in the tone and the words and the intention of worship music versus...

I don't mean to offend anybody, but versus grungerock is different. So it's a different energy. So the things that you take in will affect you and everybody around you.

Matt (44:05)

Who is it

Yeah, awesome. Let's see, what else we got? We talked about mindful practices and things like that. Okay, so we kind of wrap up. So, where do they find you? How do they get in touch with you to come get their nervous systems balanced and get the ⁓ test thing? I still can't remember the name of it. What's it called?

Dr. Robin (44:37)

It's a neuro spinal scan. Nobody will ever remember that except me.

Matt (44:40)

That thing.

The

stress test. So how do they find you and all that?

Dr. Robin (44:49)

⁓ So just the quickest ways, ⁓ know, everybody likes to be able to get online and check people out before you ever make a connection. That's what we do anymore. Because nothing's a secret. ⁓ You know, and I do the same thing, you know, before I ever make contact with somebody, actual physical and in-person contact, I want to see what other people are saying about you. So, you know, obviously, you know, my business is on Google. ⁓

it's on Facebook. It's, ⁓ I got to make sure I say this right. So on Facebook, it's under Power Within Chiropractic dash Amarillo. So there's other power within chiropractic throughout the country. Mine specifically says Amarillo. My website is power within Amarillo.com. From there, you can read more about me more about what we do and the

Matt (45:26)

Okay.

that.

And I'll put

links to everything in the description below, too.

Dr. Robin (45:46)

And from there, I mean there's an act there's a button on there that allows you to schedule an appointment Okay, you can see all my availability. You can see what works with your schedule ⁓ And then also my phone number 806-640-8401 Most of the time you're gonna hear the message on there that says go to the website You know, I'm a one-woman show So if I'm if I'm working with somebody then I won't be answering the phone But it'll guide you to every place that you need to go to to be able to connect

Matt (46:11)

Sure.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much. Is there any other things we haven't talked about that we should hit on?

Dr. Robin (46:22)

⁓ Real quick, environmental, home space stuff, reduce clutter. Lots of clutter causes stress. So reduce clutter or at least let the kiddos have their space where they get to control what's in it. Healthy food, cut down on the...

cut down on the sugar which causes inflammation, cut down on the inflammatory foods that's in a lot of processed foods. We could talk for an hour about that. And work on those routines. Not only yours, but theirs.

Matt (46:59)

All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. ⁓ Next week, we're going to have Bob Talley come on and talk about his experience as a foster and adoptive parent. Thank you again so much for coming. Thank you to our episode sponsor. And we'll see you next time.

Dr. Robin (47:16)

Thank you.