The Real Work with Maggie Sterling

14 day challenge (started 10/12/26): https://softregulationsystem.com/challenge Get my nervous system sensitization course Take the nervous system sensitization quiz Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz. If you've read all the self-help books and listened to all the podcasts and still feel stuck, this video is for you. Self-improvement burnout is real, and constantly consuming self-help content can turn into a compulsion that keeps you from actually living your life. In this video, I share my own story with self-help, the signs that it's become compulsive for you, and the part of healing most people neglect.  

Get my nervous system sensitization course Take the nervous system sensitization quiz Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.  If you've tried everything to heal your nervous system and nothing has worked, this video is for you. I dealt with chronic anxiety for 20 years, along with insomnia and a whole range of chronic physical symptoms, and I tried everything to make it go away. In this video I explain why nothing has worked for you yet and what I did instead once I figured it out.

Get my nervous system sensitization course Take the nervous system sensitization quiz Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.  If you have chronic insomnia, or you wake up at 3am and can't fall back asleep, there's a good chance your nervous system is sensitized and stuck on high alert. In my experience this is rarely a sleep problem. In this video I cover how your nervous system gets in the way of something your body already knows how to do on its own, what not to do when you're lying awake in the middle of the night, why I part ways with a lot of what CBT-I teaches, and how medication and medication withdrawal can factor into all of it. I also answer the four questions I get asked most about insomnia: How do I stop fearing not sleeping when the consequences are so real? Is this fear, or is it something physical? What if the thing keeping me up isn't fear? What if I recovered and I'm suddenly back to all nighters, am I at square one?

Get my nervous system sensitization course Take the nervous system sensitization quiz Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz. If you've had anxiety for a while, there's a good chance you've been making it worse without knowing it. It happens automatically the second a symptom shows up, and it's the reason your nervous system keeps sounding the alarm no matter what you try. In this video I break down the most common way people respond to anxiety, what that response has actually been doing to your nervous system this whole time, and what to do instead. This applies whether your anxiety shows up as racing thoughts and rumination or as a racing heart and shortness of breath.

Get my nervous system sensitization course Take the nervous system sensitization quiz Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz. Anxious thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and rumination are symptoms of a sensitized nervous system, the same way physical symptoms are. In this video I explain why your thoughts get so loud, so dark, and so convincing when your system has been stuck in threat, and why you can't think your way out of them. I go into why your brain zooms in on one problem at a time, why quieting one thought just makes room for the next one, and what actually keeps the whole loop running.