65. The Missing Piece Behind Anxiety, Fatigue & Weight Gain: Your Nervous System

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If you’re feeling anxious, exhausted, gaining weight, and like nothing is working anymore, this episode is for you. These symptoms aren’t just about hormones; they’re often signs of a dysregulated nervous system. In this episode, Functional Health & Integrative Nutrition Coach Claudia Petrilli, breaks down how your nervous system impacts hormones, metabolism, sleep, mood, and more during perimenopause.

You’ll learn why so many women over 40 feel stuck in survival mode and what you can start doing right now to calm your nervous system, reclaim your energy, and feel like yourself again.

In this episode, we cover:

Why your nervous system matters more than ever in midlife
How chronic stress affects cortisol, thyroid, estrogen, and progesterone
Why feeling “tired but wired” is a sign your body is stuck in fight-or-flight
How trauma wires your system for stress
What a healthy cortisol rhythm should look like (and how to support it)
5 simple ways to regulate your nervous system today

Why Your Nervous System Might Be the Missing Link in Hormone Health

Today, we’re digging into one of the most overlooked pieces of your health: your nervous system. We’ll talk about what it is, how it affects your hormones, how it’s linked to symptoms like fatigue, anxiety, mood swings, and weight gain, why nervous system dysregulation is so common (especially for busy, high-achieving women), and what you can start doing today to support it. Let’s dive in!

Understanding the Role of the Nervous System in Women’s Health

Your nervous system is your body’s communication network. It includes the brain, spinal cord, and a network of nerves. This system sends messages back and forth between your brain and your body, regulating your thoughts, memory, learning, feelings, and even movement. It determines if you’re in fight or flight (aka: the sympathetic state) or rest and repair or rest and digest (aka: the parasympathetic state).

Chronic Stress and Hormone Imbalance in Perimenopause

Most women I work with are operating in fight or flight OR they have had chronic stress that has caused them to be in an unhealthy parasympathetic state. We see this in an HTMA hair tissue mineral analysis.

But I’ve seen these patterns for the past 12 or so years that I’ve been coaching women. And I know it well – because it used to be me.

The Cultural Pressure to Do It All—and Its Hormonal Consequences

And it’s not our fault—it’s how our culture conditions women. We’re expected to do it all, told we can have it all, always give to others, always achieving, proving ourselves and never truly resting because that’s viewed as “lazy or unproductive”.

But here’s the kicker my friend: your body cannot heal, digest, repair tissues, optimize hormones, or support a healthy metabolism – if you’re stuck in fight-or-flight.

This chronic stress wrecks your hormones and I believe it’s one of the reasons we are seeing women younger and younger with hormone decline.

Why Nervous System Regulation Is the Foundation of Healing

So, why is everyone suddenly talking about the nervous system? Because women are finally realizing that healing isn’t just about your diet, workout or supplements. At least, I hope that’s the case because if you think an expensive test or supplement is going to fix you, I’m sorry to break the news but that is not the case.

Your body needs to feel safe to heal. And that starts with your nervous system.

When it’s dysregulated, your hormones follow.

Progesterone is the first to drop in perimenopause. It’s calming and supports sleep, but chronic stress depletes it faster.
Estrogen becomes erratic because your ovaries are slowing down production, but when you have chronic stress, your mood, sleep, and weight struggles will be compounded.
Your thyroid, which sets the pace for your metabolism, slows down under chronic stress. Your body thinks it’s unsafe to burn energy, lose weight or do anything for that matter – other than keep you alive.

This is why so many women feel anxious, tired but wired, unable to sleep deeply, gain weight even though they’re doing “everything right.” If your nervous system isn’t supported, your hormones can’t do their job and you will not feel your best.

Let’s Talk About Cortisol: Your Primary Stress Hormone

Let’s talk about cortisol for a minute — your primary stress hormone.
When your nervous system is dysregulated, your cortisol is dysregulated too. And here’s the thing: I don’t need a test to tell me that. I can usually tell just by hearing your story—your symptoms, your energy level, your sleep struggles, your anxiety. It’s all connected.

Cortisol is meant to rise slowly in the morning, helping you feel alert and ready for the day. Then it should gradually decline in the afternoon as the sun goes down, eventually dropping at night so your body can fall asleep and stay asleep.

Signs Your Cortisol Rhythm Is Out of Balance

But when you’re stuck in fight-or-flight all day—chronic stress, go-go-go mentality, people-pleasing, constantly checking email, texts or social media, never truly resting—your cortisol rhythm flattens out or becomes dysregulated. That’s when we see things like:

Waking up tired, even after 8 hours
Anxiety or panic throughout the day
Tired-but-wired at night and can’t fall asleep
Waking up between 2–4am
Belly fat that won’t budge

So if you’re wondering why your workouts aren’t working, or why you feel exhausted but can’t sleep—it may be that your nervous system is stuck in survival mode.

Regulate with your Morning Routine

One easy way to regulate cortisol is your morning routine. When you wake up, instead of reaching for your phone, get up and go outside. Get natural light in your eyes, take deep breaths, tune in to your body and ease into your day. Then minimize screen time, especially at night after the sun goes down. Our bodies are NOT meant to get all of this artificial light. So get outside as often as you can, preferably without sunglasses and minimize technology and bright lights at night. In a nutshell: follow the rhythm of the sun. It’s that simple.

How Trauma Impacts the Nervous System

Now I do want to acknowledge the role that trauma plays in our nervous system.

When we hear “trauma,” we often think of big, dramatic events—but trauma can be anything that overwhelms your ability to cope. And if you grew up in a home that felt unpredictable, chaotic, or emotionally unsafe, your nervous system learned early on to stay on high alert.

My Personal Story: Living in Fight-or-Flight

I lived in fight-or-flight for most of my life – without even realizing it. I grew up with an alcoholic father who made me feel unsafe. There was a lot of arguing between him and my mom, a lot of unpredictability, financial struggles, and we almost lost our home. I became the “strong” one—the one who kept it together, didn’t ask for help, didn’t cry, just kept going.

And for a long time, that worked—until it didn’t.

Eventually, that constant state of stress caught up with me. My body started screaming at me with anxiety, sleep issues, hormone chaos, and total burnout. Coupled with perimenopause, and it was quite a recipe for disaster.

It wasn’t until I began nervous system work—reconnecting with my body, learning to slow down, giving myself permission to rest and feel safe, being open to receiving, especially from Mike, my partner, my best friend in this life, who is everything my father wasn’t and who I love so damn much—that things finally started to shift.

So if you feel like you’re always “on,” like you can’t rest, like you have to hold everything together—it might not just be your hormones or stress. It might be your nervous system still living in survival mode.

The good news? You can change that. You can heal. You can rewire your brain. Your body wants to come back into balance—it just needs the right support.

Why Healing the Nervous System Comes First

When we work with clients, nervous system support isn’t an afterthought—it’s one of the first things we focus on.

Because if we dive into diet, gut protocols, or even hormones like HRT, before addressing your stress response, it’s like trying to build a house on quicksand. We teach you how to slow down, how to eat + move your body to nourish it, not punish it, how to reduce overwhelm, support minerals which play a huge role in the nervous system, and how to incorporate self-care without guilt.

This doesn’t mean meditating for an hour every day or quitting your job. It’s about simple shifts that help your body feel safe again—so your hormones can do their job, your energy can return, and you can actually feel like you again.

You Can’t Supplement Your Way Out of a Stressful Life

That said, if your job is causing a lot of stress – it’s time to assess if it’s the right path for you. Or maybe your relationship is struggling – that needs to be addressed. I know it’s scary to look at these areas of our life and acknowledge how they may be negatively impacting our health.

But you cannot keep ignoring these major stressors in your life and think you’ll heal by adjusting your macros, taking supplements, or getting on HRT. While those things help and we utilize them with clients, ignoring the elephant in the room, the pain you may be feeling, any resentments you have – will just delay your healing and if anything, create more disease in the body.

Easy, Daily Practices to Regulate Your Nervous System

So I want to give you some tangible steps to start to regulate your nervous system:

Breathe with purpose.

Most of us have shallow breathing or you may catch yourself holding your breath. I want you to spend some time each day practicing deep breathing. One hand on your chest, one on your belly. Inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4. Do this as many times as you need when you’re feeling stressed or anxious. It tells your body, “You’re safe.”

Create moments of stillness.

Sit in silence for 5 minutes with your eyes closed. Let your mind wander. You’re not doing nothing—you’re rewiring your nervous system.

Ask for help.

Whether it’s from your partner, kids, co-workers, friends, or a coach like myself —stop carrying everything alone. That hyper-independence is a trauma response, not a badge of honor. We are not meant to do this life alone. Especially in midlife.

Set a boundary.

Say no to something that drains you – whether it’s scrolling Instagram, going into a Facebook group filled with women complaining about their health, or saying no to a demand of your time. Your health depends on it.

Come up with a mantra that you repeat daily.

There’s something called “neuroplasticity” – it’s the brain’s ability to change and adapt in response to new experiences. A simple mantra can help improve neuroplasticity by promoting the formation of new neural connections in the brain. This can lead to improved cognitive function, increased creativity, and better emotional regulation. One that I say to myself is “I am safe, I am provided for, I am loved”. That’s personal to me and maybe that will help you, but if not, create one that’s personal to you.

Rest Is Not Lazy—It’s Medicine for Midlife

Rest is a strategy. It’s what allows your hormones to do their job, your gut to repair, your thyroid to function properly.

When you keep pushing, your body pushes back—with anxiety, sleep issues, mood swings, weight gain, and more life-altering symptoms.

Ready for More Support? Work with Me 1:1

If you’d like more support with this, I’ve opened a few spots for Perimenopause Intensive, my 8-week private coaching experience for women ready to cut through the noise and take bold action.

This is ideal if you’re short on time, but committed to change. Perimenopause Intensive offers personalized coaching, comprehensive blood work review, and guidance tailored to your needs.

Whether you’re navigating fatigue, mood changes, brain fog, or HRT questions — we’ll uncover what’s keeping you stuck and map out a plan that works for you.

Limited spots available. Learn more HERE.

If this episode resonated with you, send it to a friend who needs to hear it. Please leave a rating and review, and remember—you’re not broken and healing is possible, when you prioritize it.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time.

Claudia Petrilli is a Functional Health Coach, Integrative Nutrition Coach, Women’s Health Educator, and creator of The Perimenopause Method. Having experienced debilitating periods, digestive issues, a sluggish thyroid, a pituitary tumor, and perimenopause symptoms in her late 30s, she knows exactly what it’s like to get dismissed by doctors and spend years searching for answers.

After making the decision to advocate for her health years ago and investing in her education, she changed her life. Now, she’s changing the lives of countless women by teaching them to advocate for themselves and improve their hormone health, so they can feel and look their best — in their 40s and beyond!

When she’s not digging into client cases and learning about women’s health, you’ll find Claudia with her life partner of 15 years, Mike, and their rescue pup, Dawson, the love of their life.