S3 Episode 17: The Hidden Truth About Modern Brain Health - Lucia Silver's Guest Appearance on The UNspecial Podcast with Zack Ponder

What if anxiety isn’t “just anxiety”?
 What if ADHD, burnout, rage, meltdowns, sensory overwhelm, sleep problems and school refusal are not random problems to manage… but signals from a nervous system under siege?

In this powerful and deeply personal conversation, Lucia joins Zack Ponder on the UNspecial podcast to explore the uncomfortable truth that so many families are living: our modern world is dysregulating children and adults at an alarming rate.

Lucia shares the raw story behind The Brain Health Movement and My Mighty Quinn — how her son Quinn went from a happy little boy to experiencing seizures, tics, anxiety, sensory overwhelm and school refusal, and how years of gaslighting, unanswered questions and “there’s nothing you can do” led her to uncover the deeper root causes behind his struggles.

Together, Lucia and Zack explore:

•  Why so many children are stuck in fight-or-flight 
•  How birth trauma, nervous system dysregulation and chronic stress can shape development 
•  The role of tech, ultra-processed food, sleep disruption and “the attention economy” 
•  Why symptoms are often “smoke, not fire” 
•  What PANS/PANDAS is and why so many families are missing it 
•  The overlooked importance of co-regulation and a parent’s nervous system 
•  Why families often feel stuck despite trying “everything” 
•  The healing sequence Lucia believes every parent deserves to understand 

This is a conversation about nervous systems, root causes, resilience, parenting, hope and the possibility of healing.

Because your child is not broken.
 And you are not powerless.

If you have ever felt like your child is slipping through the cracks, or that you are carrying the weight of everything alone, this episode will make you feel seen, understood and far less alone. 

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Transcript

Zack Ponder (00:01)
I were told anxiety is normal. ADHD is genetic. Burnout is just a part of modern life. And our kids, they just need more therapy and better meds. But what if that's the biggest lie of our generation? Today, I'm sitting down with Lucia Silver from the Brain Health Movement. And we're talking about the uncomfortable truth. Our nervous systems are under attack.

by our phones, by our food, by fear-based media, by a medical system that treats symptoms instead of asking what's actually harming the brain. And if you've ever felt anxious, exhausted, foggy, or like your kid is slipping through the cracks, this conversation might change everything. Lucia Silver is the founder and CEO of the Brain Health Movement and the host of My Mighty Quinn, bringing together world-leading doctors.

researchers and practitioners to explore the root causes of childhood struggles and what truly supports healing. What truly supports healing. There's the tagline. She supports families navigating ADHD, autism, anxiety, ticks, pans, pandas, sensory and learning challenges and chronic childhood illness through root cause education and world leading expertise. Lucia is the creator of the whole child's multidisciplinary roadmap to healing, a transformational journey.

designed to deliver.

causes real healing, lasting change. She also delivers free master classes and life support for burnt out parents and caregivers combining science, compassion, and lived understanding. World leading experts made simple by mother. Welcome.

Lucia Silver (01:49)
Thank you, Zach. What an intro.

Zack Ponder (01:52)
Yeah, how are you? How are you today? You're coming? It's the afternoon for you, correct?

Lucia Silver (01:59)
It's the afternoon, pouring with rain, which it has been here in the UK solidly for about seven days. So yeah, really happy to be borrowing some of your sunshine in the background there.

Zack Ponder (02:11)
Yup. Yeah, it's a 6.30. I was up at four. I already got in a workout because I know it's good for my nervous system. And here we are. I got some coffee and creatine.

Lucia Silver (02:25)
Amazing. Funnily enough, I've got collagen and creatine in mine too. So cheers to that.

Zack Ponder (02:30)
I have college written here also.

Alright, let's start with some rapid fire. Can you give me one word to answer these questions to get us going? What's one habit destroying nervous systems faster than anything else?

Lucia Silver (02:47)
⁓ react. I can't do one word. I can't do one word. That's too big a question. ⁓

Zack Ponder (02:53)
Okay, I'll give you 30 seconds to answer one, two, three, five questions. 30 seconds each. What habit destroying nervous systems faster than anything else?

Lucia Silver (03:03)
boy, the fastest nervous system destroyer without a doubt is treating dysregulation like a character flaw instead of a biological alarm.

Zack Ponder (03:13)
One industry you think is harming brain health the most.

Lucia Silver (03:18)
the attention economy and the business of addiction. And it's not just phones, it's the whole machine. Tech hijacks focus and sleep with dopamine loops and constant stimulation. Ultra-processed food hijacks biology with sugar spikes, addictive stuff and cravings. And then pharma often arrives downstream to manage the fallout, anxiety, attention issues, sleep behaviour without asking what's driving the dysregulation in the first place.

Zack Ponder (03:46)
This is going to be a great conversation. I wanted to ask like 12 questions in that response, but I'll wait. One daily practice everyone should do, but almost nobody does.

Lucia Silver (03:57)
or pause. Every day deliberately interrupt the stress loop, even for 30 seconds. Slow your breathing, lengthen the exhale, drop your shoulders and come back into your body. And I guess with specific referencing to parenting, because that's kind of what we're talking about here, regulate yourself first, because kids don't respond to our words, they respond to our state. And that's co-regulation, which we're going to come on to. And that's biology. That's a calm nervous system helps another nervous system calm down.

Zack Ponder (04:25)
That's so interesting. I got to say something here. I've been in and out of Mexico with my wife. And every time I get back, my nine year old, when he has a meltdown, he'll, I mean, they're not like, they're not crazy. You know, he's a kid, but the first thing he'll start to say is, just, I just want to be with you. I just want to be with you. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah. And I, I realized when I.

I'm like, you did this, you you need to take a break, blah, blah. Or if I'm just like, I'm here, you know, and sit with them. Like two polar opposite responses.

Lucia Silver (05:05)
Completely. And you didn't have to do it really other than be present. If you can be fully present, right? That's the pause. Just stop. You don't have to do, do, do that idea. What are you going to do? Try nothing.

Zack Ponder (05:19)
This kid. One belief you had to unlearn about mental health.

Lucia Silver (05:25)
this is a biggie. I had to unlearn the belief, Sag, that there's nothing you can do, that an unexplained answer is actually unacceptable. Because what used to drive me mad is we'll say we can't explain what's happening and then we'll still prescribe a treatment to suppress it. I had to unlearn that the best we can do is medicate, manage or mask because 99 % of the time symptoms aren't the problem. They're communicating. They're the smoke alarm.

And if you don't ask what's driving the anxiety, the rage, the inattention, the hyperactivity, the depression, the shutdown, you're not healing, you're just turning the alarm off.

Zack Ponder (06:03)
In a society where there's quick fixes anything that takes a while is uncomfortable now now now So good. I one sentence every parent needs to hear right now

Lucia Silver (06:17)
You're not failing. Your child isn't broken. Healing is possible. And with a root cause whole child, total load lens, there is a roadmap to help your child reach their full health growth and developmental potential. And you, you as a parent are not powerless. You're the greatest authority in your child's healing. So get educated, get support and start taking action, but start small, start smart, but start today.

Zack Ponder (06:47)
That's so good. And if there's anything that this space, the UNspecial Podcast is for, it's exactly what you just said. You're not failing. You're doing the best and keep moving forward. All right. So I want to, if the listeners haven't figured it out by now, you're the nervous system expert and we're going to dive into all things nervous system. And it kind of centre our conversation around this question.

Is the modern world quietly frying our nervous systems on purpose?

Lucia Silver (07:20)
Zach, that's a naughty question. Well, listen, I don't know if it's a deliberate plot, but it is a predictable outcome. We built a world that profits from dysregulation, from attention addiction, from ultra processed food, chronic stress and symptom management. And there's little money to be made in sunlight, in movement, in real food, in

Simple nervous system regulation and above all else in connection and community. But there is a sweet fortune to be made in keeping people overstimulated, anxious and scrolling. whether it's intentional or incentivized, the result is the same. Total load is frying nervous systems, especially in kids. And it's not just one thing, right? It's a machine.

Tech is hijacking attention with dopamine loops, comparison, overstimulation, and for sure, sleep disruption. Pew reported nearly half of teens are online, quote, almost constantly. And I was reading the American, your American Academy of Paediatrics was citing teens are now averaging eight hours and 39 minutes of media use per day. mean, that's the day. Isn't that the day? Isn't that the day?

Zack Ponder (08:43)
8 hours?

Lucia Silver (08:45)
That's nuts. And then meanwhile, you've got the, call it the kind of the hellish triage, you know, you've got the tech, you've got the food and you've got the farmer, but ultra processed food then is hijacking biology, blood sugar, inflammation, the gut brain access. And meanwhile, your CDC is reporting that US kids are getting 62 % of their calories from ultra processed foods and nearly one in five kids is living with obesity. And then guess what steps in.

to kind of address all of that, the pharma. The pharmaceuticals then arrive downstream to manage the fallout, be that anxiety, be that sleep, attention, inattention, mood, depression, without asking, as I mentioned earlier, without asking what's driving the overload in the first place, right? So no, I don't think it's necessarily a secret plot. I just think it's a system where profit is gonna follow dysregulation and our nervous systems are the collateral damage.

So it's not necessarily a conspiracy, it sure as hell is an incentive.

Zack Ponder (09:49)
Yeah. And when you get to the root cause of it all, it is that nervous system that is under attack, but it's masked, like you said, with other things. And I think it's interesting. I've always said this, that healthy food costs a lot more money. If they wanted you healthy, it be a little cheaper.

Lucia Silver (10:07)
Yeah, yeah, it can do. mean, where it's such pain, Zach, to kind of educate on where it can be simple. But yes, I mean, for you in the States, when everything is sprayed with glyphosates, everything, the crop, you know, your food is no longer food, then yes, it costs to buy organic, it costs to buy what's free of it. And that is absolutely tragic, because otherwise, we'd be saying to everybody, just stay in the fruit and veg aisle.

just stay out of pocketed food, but we can't even say that anymore. And then we've depleted our soils and then we've depleted our soil. So we're kind of thinking by eating apples and oranges. And one of our nutritionists, naturopaths on the brain health movement said to me the other day, do you know you have to eat 10 times as many oranges nowadays to get the same amount of nutrition out of it that you did 10 years ago. So even if you are eating healthily, you're still not necessarily getting the nutrition that you need. So it's, it's hard right now.

Zack Ponder (11:04)
It really is. Take me back to the horse and buggy days. All right, so how did you get to where you are? Tell me, go back to beginning with Quinn and the whole journey.

Lucia Silver (11:07)
Yeah.

Wow, well, feels like a long one, but it's ultimately been a very happy one, Zach. Quinn is my 12 year old boy, after whom My Mighty Quinn, our podcast and Mother's Conversations with world leading experts is named. And he is absolutely at the heartbeat of everything that I do and have ended up doing for the last nearly two years, because I didn't set out actually to build a movement at all. I set out to save my child.

Zack Ponder (11:42)
Yeah.

Lucia Silver (11:43)
I was a single mom watching my son Quinn change in front of me. And when I say change, I don't mean a phase. I mean the kind of shift that just shatters you because you're looking at your child and you can feel in your bones, this isn't him. Something is deeply, deeply wrong. And it escalated to the point where at the end of the kind of the worst of it, Quinn's school couldn't support him. And Quinn in turn refused school and he was nine. And I remember thinking, this is just not the Quinn I know, but nobody could explain it.

Not school, not doctors. And I was just getting, don't worry about it, it'll pass, he'll grow out of it. He had this extraordinary kind of stim tick that he was doing where he was fully inverting his head to his feet and kind of flapping his arms behind him, if you can imagine. And I couldn't believe anybody at this point, I knew very little about what I know now, but I couldn't believe that anyone was saying to me, that's normal, he'll grow out of it. Why wasn't anyone asking why?

And then the biggest red flag or the reddest flag, as I call it, the reddest flag of all was, there's nothing you can do. And that was like a flag to a bull to me. was like, what do mean there's nothing you can do? Of course it's something that's a very unhappy system. I wouldn't have called it a nervous system then, but I would have just, that's not a happy expression. What's this behaviour telling me? And then came the gaslighting, the kind of subtle insinuations and raised eyebrows and the shift from, we don't know to have you tried stricter boundaries from

Maybe he's anxious, maybe he's defiant. And by this point, I was ready to go to war because my son wasn't choosing any of this and I could see that his brain was on fire. And I'm sorry, you know, when your child develops these intense invasive ticks, fully inverting his body, how is that meant to be normal? How does a nervous system do that? And nobody thinks we should investigate why.

And then came the moment that kind of forced everyone to look up because he had his first seizure and a couple of other symptoms alongside it, you know, like sudden dark anxiety, sensory overwhelm, sleepless nights, rages. He then started with motor and vocal ticks running away and school, just total nervous system dysregulation. And that was the moment I went into full warrior mode. became, well, I just spent day and night studying.

And it took about eight months. I obviously rushed him to neurology to look at the brain itself. Could this be a tumour? this, you when you have fits, you start to really worry, right? But they all came back clear. They all came back clear. And neurology was just like, there's nothing wrong, all clear. And I remember thinking again, what? I'm looking at my child and I'm living the reality and you're telling me there's nothing wrong. But by that point I've been, you know,

to so many different departments at every single health institution, psychiatric, I'd done the lot and nobody was giving anything close to an explanation. And I was alone, exhausted, terrified, functioning on adrenaline.

And I realized if the system couldn't explain my child, I was going to have to. So yeah, I just, I just studied and I discovered something that still makes me angry that our medical system studies illness. It doesn't study health. So a lot of neurology, for example, is brilliant at telling you what to do once the brain and nervous system has gone wrong. It knows how to operate. It knows how to Medicaid. It knows how to kind of crisis manage.

But it doesn't explore why, you when I was asking neurologists, they well, we don't really study brain health. I was like, well, something's gone wrong in the development here. You know, so what are the root causes? What are the upstream drivers, the things that have pushed a child's system into collapse in the first place? And that's when things started to kind of shift and I started to find the information I needed. And I found this whole world of partly chiropractic healthcare that we both share a passion for with

neurologically focused chiropractic, especially functional neurology, looking at the nervous system, looking at birth trauma. And I started to understand that Quinn's birth had played a huge piece in the story. He arrived catastrophically. mean, everything that you don't want to happen happened. ⁓ And that's when I learned about all these fancy things, subluxation and dysautonomia and all this stuff that is important, not important, but at the end of the day, it's a nervous system that is stuck in fight or flight.

Zack Ponder (15:57)
Yeah.

I

Lucia Silver (16:10)
Yes,

Dr. Tony terms exactly. And suddenly his symptoms weren't random at all. I started to understand these were signals. And I went from there, as I was learning about primitive reflexes and neurodevelopmental immaturity, how it creates a perfect storm. Again, Tony's wonderful phrase that one thing then cascades into another, and that foundations that were meant to be solid were fragile, the things that were supposed to integrate hadn't. ⁓

I learned about gut health because it has a knock-on effect. know, the nervous system is the mothership and when it's offline, everything's offline. So I learned about gut health and inflammation and immune dysfunction and autoimmune responses and how the body can literally under chronic stress start to attack itself. And then it was like, bingo, fantastic doctor who's one of the many brilliant doctors, including Dr. Tony Evil on our courses and in all our educational material.

Dr. Joshua Madsen said to me, Lucia, I think it's PAND. PAND is as I work. No idea. Didn't know anything about the condition. Searched around the UK. Couldn't find anyone at all that really knew about it. But it explained what was going on. And I owe so much to Dr. Josh Madsen for that. Because once I saw it, I could none see it. And I couldn't believe how few people knew about it.

And after Quinn's first major flare, which is what it's called when you have this condition, this sort of abrupt onset of these extraordinary symptoms, I think I had what I can only describe as a nervous breakdown myself. was a kind of traumatic response to, as you can imagine, seeing your child kind of change in front of you and just by, and with no support and at the worst feeling slightly gaslit by the medical institutions who just like, ⁓ just be quiet and let it go or medicated or, you know, whatever.

So then I had to learn.

Zack Ponder (17:57)
Real quick, how, so in that moment when everything was on your shoulders, all the pressure, all the weight of, know, Quinn healing, but then on the other side of it, which I know a lot of our listeners and parents can relate to this, that weight that you felt yourself with no support, how did you get through that?

Lucia Silver (18:20)
I think the same strength that knew I had to get Quinn through was the same strength I learned that Quinn couldn't heal unless I did too. So I actually had to heal my trauma and get my nervous system back on track because I started to understand about co-regulation. So I knew I couldn't sink for him. Not just in the...

Zack Ponder (18:28)
Hmm.

Lucia Silver (18:46)
the kind of the way we say as moms, I've to keep going for my kids. was really, I actually understood biologically that I needed my nervous system to be available to his, especially with pans. Any child needs it. Any child needs a parent's presence, but especially a child that is struggling with that level of brain on fire and dysregulation and everything is signalling the world is unsafe. He's only got me. So I don't really, you know,

Zack Ponder (19:12)
Yeah.

Lucia Silver (19:15)
there was no question of taking any other direction and my child needed needed to borrow my system. So I need to recover. I need to get strong. And that's really the kind of genesis of the brain health movement that I've created because I didn't just want for answers for Quinn. wanted a roadmap. So no other parent was told, don't worry about it while their child's falling apart in front of them. You know, I, and I felt morally Zach, like I couldn't walk away when you know what you know.

And there are people who have just got no clue. And of course I had a story to tell which saw my son's gradual transformation, his healing, his getting better. So even more reason to share what I had found out.

Zack Ponder (20:01)
What were some of those? I mean, this speaks to speaking to me right now. What were some of those things you did to get your system back at centre, know, balance in your nervous system? For me, you know, I have two businesses, four kids, my wife's in Mexico. I tried my, you know, do my best to keep.

keep myself cantered, but curious on your healing path and getting to where you were able to co-regulate for Quinn.

Lucia Silver (20:39)
I think I had to acknowledge that I couldn't do it alone. I've done most things in my life alone, my own businesses, raising my kid, taking care of my mom. I'm the only, literally it's me, my mom, my little boy. His dad's very much in the picture and very wonderful, but in terms of my family unit, I had to recognize that I needed to reach out and communicate that I wasn't coping. I think that was very big for me. Not even in a

proud way, just in a completely unfamiliar way. I've just never, I've always been a caretaker. Didn't really understand how to ask for help and didn't understand until it was fractionally too late actually that I wasn't okay. So I've certainly learned on the other side of that now to recognize when I get anywhere close to feeling that way again, I'm much more embodied with recognizing the stress signals.

And I'm also less chasing for the stress to stop because the stress of life just kind of keeps going. You know, I have a business in Morocco and it got knocked down by an earthquake and then COVID knocked out two of my businesses. And while Quinn was going through his pans flare, my mother had two rounds of cancer. I mean, it's been nonstop. So for me, it's not about which it had been.

When everything settles, I'll be okay because nothing friggin ever does, it seems in my life anyway, there's always a fire to put out. So I had to change my fundamental understanding that what I could change is how I'm responding to everything. What I can change is to expand my own window of tolerance. And that's a little bit of kind of practice really and self-compassion and self-care.

Definitely it's improving diet. Definitely it's creating exercise. Definitely it's like sacred time with my bath in the evening. Definitely it's, but more than anything, it's just voicing that I need help. Voicing that I'm struggling, creating a tribe around me and saying to my friends, could you have my dog for the night so I can, you know, could you, could we go out tonight? I could really do with some company or could you come over for a cup of tea? Cause I'm at home with Quinn and I can't really get out. You know, I'm single mumming.

but I could do could could we have a chat just and co regulating with other very carefully chosen adults to help me bring my nervous system back down. I mean, you know, don't use that the people that kind of wind you up and the people that relax you the people that you feel safe with seeking out that company. So yeah, a combination of all of the above and I'm still screwing up daily.

Zack Ponder (23:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah

Lucia Silver (23:27)
I'm still working it out. I'm just getting a little clearer each day and a little bit more in touch with my needs.

Zack Ponder (23:35)
Right? Well, it's interesting too when you're going through a hard season or a hard journey. You start to really pick up who drains you and who fills you. I mean, we've been going at this cancer journey for two years and I've definitely lost some friends in it because they just were those ones that drained you. I like, don't, I'm not, it's not offensive. It's not, I just can't do it.

Lucia Silver (24:04)
Yeah, you're not resourced enough. just can't. Your barrel's empty, right?

Zack Ponder (24:09)
Right. And I think that's fine. You know, that's just the way it is. And you just keep moving. Will you go into pans and pandas a little bit and explain that?

Lucia Silver (24:21)
Yes. So PANS-PANDAS is a paediatric acute onset neuropsychiatric syndrome, which in kind of complicated speak is a misdirected autoimmune response that comes about through ongoing chronic stress from any number of the things that we educate on and certainly in our course.

really deep dive on the stresses, whole toxic load from how we arrive at birth, right the way through to gut inflammation through to antibiotics, poor diet, malnutrition, certain genetic factors that are not immovable genetic factors, but they are certain gene variants that can mean that methylation and vacation can be a little bit harder for some people than others as it happens with the empty HFR.

variant, is 40, 50 % of the population, so it's not even rare. Many things compound many things and children with pans, it tends to present in a very abrupt fashion. They seem to, it hasn't come from nowhere, but it sort of brews under the surface and then it presents with any one of OCD and motor and vocal ticks.

⁓ eating disorders and didn't have that side of it but the OCD and the ticks for sure and then there are many many other symptoms but typically it presents kind of psychiatrically which is why it's called a neuropsychiatric syndrome so many parents who will say to you my kid was just really unlike themselves they suddenly became anxious night terrors absconding running away

and obsessive repetitive thoughts which translate into these OCDs and certain food restrictive disorders. And it is triggered typically by, with PANDAS that is associated, the AS is associated with strep. So some of these conditions present the triggered by an autoimmune response to a strep infection. In Quinn's case, I believe it was mould. There tends to be a thing.

that is the kind of straw that broke the camel's back. But by the same token, it is very rarely one thing, you don't sort of remove the mould and then the situations over there are compounding factors. And it's the journey, the longer journey with PANS. PANS is in training the immune system to respond, come into safety, come into safety and respond differently. So instead of what it does, which is produces a battalion of

response which creates inflammation and then the brain instead of attacking the stressor or the bacteria or the fungus or the virus it attacks itself which causes further inflammation further dysregulation and presents with many of these psychiatric behaviours so yeah that's the condition

Zack Ponder (27:24)
And so Quinn was had all that. How did you get past that? And where is he at now? He's 12, 13.

Lucia Silver (27:33)
He's 12 now. Yeah, he's 12 now and he is doing fantastically. He is pretty much asymptomatic. There is some stimming that is present. You know, we're not at the end of the journey yet. I really see it as a marathon. It's not a, you know, as we've talked about, it's not a pill popping thing. We're not going to find a solution necessarily quickly. When you can start, because every kid is very, very, very different, whether that's, you know, the symptoms of ADHD, symptoms of autism, much, it's all

pretty similar in many ways that the kind of the root causes you can find in the same places. It's just each child is bio individual and is responding differently. The symptoms are different in response to much of the same stuff. Most of those conditions will come back to inflammation, immunity, nutrition, and it's all interlinked. And of course the whole thing wrapped in the nervous system because

As mentioned earlier, you know, the nervous system is the mothership and when it is off from the onset, if that started through a rocky delivery, then nothing else follows suit. then see that kids have got, you know, chronic ear infections. didn't latch on to breastfeed. They've got constant tummy problems and they don't sleep.

then, you know, and then they're on the roller coaster with the antibiotics, which further disrupts the gut and the gut microbiome. And then you get inflammation and leaky gut, and then that's leaky brain, you know, then you've got brain inflammation as well as gut inflammation, and then, you know, on it goes. So the behaviours we see, the behaviours of ADHD, the behaviours of autism, the behaviours of pants are really just the biology speaking.

Zack Ponder (29:16)
Hmm. And that's a massive statement, which is I'm glad you said it because it's the biology speaking and there's so much emphasis on therapies and all this and this and this just to cope with it and deal with it. But parents still aren't given any answers. They're just given more things to try and handle. Would you go into it? So what's the most common pattern you see with families who are doing everything right?

but still not getting any results. And I'm guessing you're gonna go into the order of things.

Lucia Silver (29:52)
Yes, I am because I think sometimes we can do too much. You know, we can do too much because the system isn't ready, right? The readiness is all said a very clever English guy called Shakespeare. You know, he said the readiness is all and when the system is dysregulated and unhappy and it thinks, you know, a lion is in the room, it's not really too interested in development. It's just interested in survival.

And so really, what do I think is important? think safety first and that safety often begins with the parent, right? So first of all, where are you at? Where are you at in this? Sorry, I'm gonna just pull up.

I hope you can edit Zach because I've got some really important notes that I took that I wanted to share just about exactly the sequence because I don't want to screw up the sequence. There's a lot of information in it. Which question is it? It's one of your questions. Why do people seem to try all the stuff and then it doesn't work? I can't see which question it is.

Zack Ponder (30:55)
Yeah, what's the

What's the most common pattern you see in people who doing everything right but still feel broken? One, two, three, Yeah.

Lucia Silver (31:09)
Got it. it. Got it. Got it. it.

Got Got Got Got Got Got it.

Zack Ponder (31:16)
Yeah. All right. So you work in brain health. What's the most common pattern you see in people who are doing it all right, as they tell you with therapies and ABA and which, is sure do it all, but they're not getting any results.

Lucia Silver (31:34)
Yeah, it's a very good question and I think it's where quite a lot of parents are for sure. The most common pattern I see is parents trying to fix symptoms at the surface while the nervous system that's theirs and their child's by the way has never been stabilized. So most families come in exhausted, they've changed diet, they've added supplements, they've tried therapies, they've done everything they've been told to but what's missing is foundation. Because this journey doesn't start with the behaviour, it starts at conception and then...

pregnancy, intervention, then early neurological development. So we need to go back to that. It's like kind of putting the lights on and expecting electricity when there's no wiring, right? So if a child's nervous system is stressed early, through prenatal stress, through birth interventions, or any type of early trauma, that system gets wired into fight or flight from the very, very beginning.

And unless someone knows to look there, everything that comes after is built on shaky ground. So if we kind of hold that picture in our mind, that's why understanding birth stress in neurological organization is so critical and why neurologically focused chiropractic can be just the best starting point and not an afterthought, because it restores the communication between the brain and body, calms the nervous system and creates the condition for healing. And then we can look deeper.

I mean, then, Zach, we can start to look at cell health and mitochondrial function. That's the kind of the energy centre of the cells. Is the body now able to produce energy and come out of survival mode? You know, what does it need? And then we look, only then when we see that it's capable of producing energy, has it got enough oxygen? Are we breathing properly? Are we actually producing what we need to?

then we can look at the total load. Then we can look at things like the infections and inflammation and toxins and mould and diet and what else in the environment, EMFs, know, WIFI and where are all the stresses? Cause all the drops are filling the barrel, right? And then, those, yeah, those environmental triggers just keep the nervous system brace.

Zack Ponder (33:42)
Right.

Lucia Silver (33:50)
So we've got it ready, but we now need to create a safe environment that the nervous system can then respond differently to. And for me, the piece that really mattered is the one I alluded to earlier when I said I really think I had a nervous breakdown. That's that the parents nervous system matters just as much as the child's. Because we look at environmental stress, we look at toxic stress, we look at dietary stress. But what about emotional stress? know, so many parents trying to heal their kids while their own nervous system is completely hijacked.

And they're living in panic, fear, hypervigilance. And children simply cannot heal in isolation. They heal in relationship. And that's why co-regulation, you know, it isn't a technique. It's kind of biology, you know, and a calm, supported, resourced parent creates the safety that a child's nervous system needs. When families feel broken,

It's not because I haven't tried hard enough. It's not because no one showed them where to start. It's because no one showed them rather where to start. It's because no one showed them what order to follow and how deep to go. Right. So, you know, I took myself to neurologically focused chiropractic and got some hands on support for me.

and then decided, you we've got to build the whole child roadmap, take families back to foundations, sequence the work properly, stop them burning out and chasing symptoms. Because it's not that parents are doing the wrong things, they're just starting in the wrong place and doing things maybe in not quite the right sequence.

Zack Ponder (35:26)
Hmm. And I think it's one of the most overlooked and under-talked foundational pieces of health, the nervous system. There's so much emphasis on eating and exercise and all these things, but it's like, that's the core of everything. And that's when I came around to the Experience Miracles podcast and Dr. Tony. All the dots started to get connected.

And then quick win with PX docs for my one year old. He had a super adventurous life. Born nine weeks early, three pounds, spent nine weeks in the NICU. He took in two rounds of chemo in the womb. Numerous opioids, like pain medication. And you know, he, he got out of the NICU, came home for a week, went back to the NICU. And for like his first eight, nine months of life, mean, high stress, like

birth trauma to the max. And he was just like, I mean, like developing, but you know, behind a little bit and really just stoic. Like he was there, but just like he would look at you and smile. But like I could tell because of my background that like he wasn't there. And we started going to Dr. Stan, VX doc and within days, like facial expressions back.

He's starting to interact with his siblings. And for a parent, mean, like, to see that in days is just crazy.

Lucia Silver (37:04)
I mean there's no words right?

Zack Ponder (37:07)
Eddie, I mean, he's, he's one too. So it's like all these little things. And I mean, he's developing pretty much on par. Maybe his, his speech is a little behind, but you know, he was nine weeks early. He's getting there. Yeah.

Lucia Silver (37:22)
And it's understanding those little bodies, right? The system is so brilliant. We're so arrogant to think we know better. You know, we get out of the way and the system will heal because that's what neurologically focused chiropractic is doing. It's kind of facilitating and getting things back online and brain talking to body and connecting the dots where it's been. You know, I said to Dr. Tony at no other time when I think of how Quinn was yanked and yanked and yanked and yanked during our birthing process.

But no other time would you would it be legal to handle a child that way? A baby. I you think how delicately people generally pass babies around once they're born. Oh, watch the head. Watch the head. Right. the head. Hold the head. But you know, but it's all right to go yank, yank, yank. I mean, there's some other kind of rules and legislation in the birth room. I mean, C-section, get pulled out, you know, here.

Quinn was just pulled with bond twos and forceps and the whole thing. And this is the Vagus nerve. This is where the centre of, you know, the most important journey begins, the brainstem and the upper cervical. This is where the brain at that very delicate time is just starting on its journey to development. you crash bang wallop, pull, dislodge. And then you wonder why they're not online. And the brain's just going, ⁓ shut down, shut down.

because right now there's a massive lion in the room. Right now I'm not interested in developing because it ain't safe out there. I'm not interested in making eye contact and having a chat. I'm interested in surviving because the way you introduce me into this world, I'd prefer to go back. Thanks. Back up the womb and I'll just stay there. Thank you very much. So when you start to understand it from that point of view, excuse my language, but no shit Sherlock.

Your kid's not making eye contact. Poof! You know.

Zack Ponder (39:21)
So when did birth, I don't even know, when did birth interventions come into play?

Lucia Silver (39:27)
Modern birth interventions, well, I mean, think it's been a progressive kind of escalation of more and more things to the extent now we book in for a caesarean. It's no longer an emergency procedure. I ask them... It's convenient as well, yeah. And I think it works in some cases for the modern medical situation because they can kind of time it in and time it out.

natural birthing takes longer and the necessary natural processes are much more involved and multidisciplinary. And you know, it's much quicker to just whack in some pharmaceuticals to resolve problems, then again, prevent them in the first place by taking your time and taking things gently. I think it's been an aggregating situation where it's just got worse and worse, but to the extent that when parents come

Zack Ponder (40:01)
Mm-hmm.

Lucia Silver (40:21)
into my one-to-one parent coaching sessions and I'll say, so how was your birth? it was normal. And I'm like, great, what happened? I had a C-section. No, no, that's not normal. That's not a natural delivery. completely, listen, don't get me wrong. C-sections have saved millions of lives. But I'm talking about the kind of, the assumption that there isn't going to be any fallout from that procedure, that that's absolutely normal.

And still parents will even say it about forceps and bond twos and all the rest of it. You know, that was normal. Oh yeah, we took, yeah, we were both on antibiotics, but you know, we came out fine and he's fine. And you're thinking, well, he isn't going to be fine after that. did just, you know, as, as Dr. Tony said over 80 % of children with autism symptoms of, you know, pans and all the rest of it had a very dramatic modern birth intervention.

Let me put that differently. Had a modern birth intervention, not necessarily traumatic. But the point is it is traumatic. You know, we just don't perceive it to be anymore. It's become the norm. Yeah.

Zack Ponder (41:23)
It's just modern.

Mm-hmm

Wow, so Why does the system? Just treat symptoms instead of asking what's actually?

happening here.

Lucia Silver (41:43)
because it's expensive, because it's complex, because it is multidisciplinary. It's not, you know, it's not a siloed approach. You have to involve many, many different departments. And I think a lot of the time it's, it's a lot easier to just throw some medication at it than really look at root cause.

Zack Ponder (42:03)
Mm-hmm.

Lucia Silver (42:06)
It's a lot more investment in time, a lot more investment in money to look behind it. also modern medicine is no longer as it used to be. It's not the physician anymore. The modern doctor, modern healthcare studies illness. It's allopathic. It treats illness. It doesn't study health. So what it understands is to operate or to medicate, to manage symptoms, but not to look at root cause.

So fundamentally we need a paradigm shift in our healthcare.

Zack Ponder (42:41)
Yeah, and then where does fear come into play? mean, media fear, health fear, parenting fear. Fear, mean, fear is to me one of the biggest enemies. And I think society and the modern system absolutely plays off of this emotion to kinda, I mean, even in the hospital with Big Jack, he's three days old, nine weeks early, and they're trying to give him happy.

And they're trying to fear me into it, telling me all the risks, everything that's going to happen to them. And I just, you know, cut them off. I'm like, I am very educated in this area. Nothing you say to me is going to change my mind. You need to leave now. And they're like, you know, but they were like trying and then RSV they were trying to give them. And they're like, Oh, he's going to get RSV and he's going to die and blah, blah, blah.

Lucia Silver (43:38)
Please look. But you have a confidence that many parents sadly don't have. And we've kind of put our doctors on a kind of pedestal, haven't we? Especially when there's sickness, especially when we fear someone dying, we're kind of whatever, whatever, because we're so desperate and that fear drives us to shrink our capacity to think, shrink our capacity to connect and heal. You know, when people are afraid, they don't get curious.

They don't challenge, they don't question, they don't listen to their bodies, they comply. know, and fear is, as you say, it's everywhere right now. Fear about health, about parenting, about getting it wrong, about what happens if you don't follow the script. You know, for parents especially, fear is paralyzing. You're told, don't worry, but don't miss the window. Trust your instincts, but don't question the experts. Your child will be fine, but also here's a long list of things that could go wrong. And with that list of...

kind of mixed messaging, it keeps again, the nervous system permanently braced and a body in fear most fundamentally doesn't heal. It can't digest properly. It can't detox efficiently. And you know, this is the biological fallout of fear. It can't learn, regulate, recover. know, fear also fragments families, right? Because instead of empowering parents, it makes them doubt themselves. And once parents feel, you know,

powerless, they outsource decisions instead of engaging with curiosity and discernment. And that's why education, like what we're doing with the brain health movement and the course and so on is so threatening to fear based systems because informed people are far harder to control, right? One of the most radical things we can do for health right now isn't another protocol, it's actually getting people thinking clearly again. ⁓ And that understanding sets them free.

Zack Ponder (45:23)
Right.

Right. So then what happens to, let's play out two scenarios. What happens to a society where the nervous system of people are dysregulated? Kind of like if we continue to go the path we're going. Yeah. And then what happens to society when people are regulated?

Lucia Silver (45:53)
Yeah.

Well, that's a good question.

Zack Ponder (46:02)
How far down this path we're headed?

Lucia Silver (46:06)
I I look at your president, that's how far it goes. When you're so far into what we call sympathetic dominance, where you've kind of disengaged, disconnected. When a society is chronically dysregulated, you don't just see it in health stats. You see it in how people think, how they relate, how they parent, how they lead. You see less creativity and more rigidity. You see more reactivity.

unless what I was alluding to earlier with pausing and less nuance, you see short-term fixes instead of long-term thinking.

Zack Ponder (46:46)
Mm-hmm.

Lucia Silver (46:48)
I think fear replaces curiosity as we touched on and compliance replaces courage.

Zack Ponder (46:54)
Mmm.

Lucia Silver (46:56)
because that dysregulated system is focused on survival. It's not focused on possibility. And it's important to say clearly dysregulation doesn't always look fragile or anxious. It very often looks as with present leadership, aggressive, dominant, reactive, controlling, unnegotiable, intransigent. And that is what we call sympathetic dominance. It's the nervous system saying there's a threat in the room and I need to overpower defend, stay on the front foot. And that will show up as,

Polarization, hostility, shouting instead of listening, punishment instead of protection, and power struggles instead of connection.

Zack Ponder (47:35)
Yeah.

Lucia Silver (47:38)
people become so much easier to divide and easier to scare and easier to control in that space.

Zack Ponder (47:46)
Right, so then what gives you, what gives you hope we can reverse this? Not just survive, informed people.

Lucia Silver (47:56)
Well, I think.

Healing is already happening, Zach, think, you know, quietly and consistently and often outside the spotlight. I've seen children who are nonverbal begin to speak. I've sat in clinics with the doctors that are on my course. You know, I've seen it happen in front of my eyes, arriving in one state and leaving in another, you know, children written off as too complex, re-engaging, regulating, learning, families moving from constant crisis into connection, not because someone

fixed the child, but because the conditions for healing were finally put in place. And I've seen it in my own god darn son, right? I mean, the title of my podcast, you the very first podcast I ever put out of my mighty Quinn, the title was, and let me remember, was from ticks, turbulence, distraction and disconnection to calm, confident and connected.

Zack Ponder (48:32)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Lucia Silver (48:54)
Yeah, not overnight, not magically, but step by step in the right order as his body and brain were finally supported to do what they're designed to do. And that tells us something profound, right? The body knows how to heal. Nature is supremely, I use the word deliberately, supremely intelligent. And in many ways, the human system isn't fragile. It's adaptive, it's responsive, and it's constantly moving towards balance when we stop getting in the way.

Zack Ponder (49:23)
Mmm.

Lucia Silver (49:24)
What's been missing isn't capacity, it's been education, sequence and support. And we now understand that more than ever.

Zack Ponder (49:31)
Right, right. And you created the brain health movement for this reason to walk parents through and families through the correct sequence in order to get back to calm, regulated, connected. Will you go into your course a little bit and, and how that's just a game changer for everybody and everybody should buy it and go through it. there's only a positive.

Lucia Silver (49:58)
There's

only a positive. is only a positive. mean, education and support is so empowering and so transformative. know, parents come to us at so many different stages, in the journey. Some know absolutely nothing. Some have done everything. But either way, they are anxious to understand what it is they need to ⁓ to implement this healing. ⁓ And really finding these truly outstanding doctors and clinicians. We've got over

15, well there's nearly 20 on the Brain Board of Excellence that I've created. It's an extraordinary collective of the world's leading doctors and authorities in the space, bestselling authors, paediatric specialists, neurodevelopmental pioneers. They're leading the research and they're most importantly seeing the outcomes in clinic, but they're bringing the cutting edge latest science to the course. And I think the important part is, know, the names, some you'll know, Dr. Josh Madsen, Robert Melillo.

Tony Ebel we've touched on, Dr. Lauren Lee Stone, Dr. Nancy O'Hara. And I've kind of cherry picked them and curated them from all over the world, but they are leading in their respective fields. know, they're trailblazers. And most importantly, I think they are speaking to an end to the contradictory advice because the information is now there in the right sequence. So you can kind of...

enter into at the beginning understanding the fundamentals of how a brain is supposed to develop correctly, because I don't think we even know. I don't think we know what is required at the very beginning of the journey. So they're bringing the science and I hope that, you know, I'm bringing the simplicity because every child is so, different, Zach. There isn't one solution that fits everybody, but there is definitely a whole list of stuff from which for sure you will have been affected, whether that is, you you personally with your nervous system, whether that is the birth.

experience that you had, whether that is the antibiotics that you had in the early stages, whether that is the mould in your environment, whether that is the impact that all of that had on neurodevelopment and therefore primitive reflexes need to be looked at, whether it's all there. And each of those doctors and each of those experts is teaching that specific area in order in the right way, as opposed to, you know, going to see 15 different specialists. I spoke to a mom only yesterday, actually, on my one to one who said to me,

you know, I'm working my way through, but I cannot believe already how just the, we were looking at my functional, you know, the, the breathing is one of the things we look at in the course. And she said, I didn't even know that mouth breathing was, an issue. didn't know my son and my husband, she said, as it happens, both are mouth breathers. And that was one of the first things that really the penny dropped.

very early on in the course and she went to see one of the specialists that we recommended just to understand what she actually needed to do in the specific case of her son, where they'd already, by the way, whipped out his tonsils and whipped out his adenoids without even explaining to her why they were doing it. But anyway, she kind of taped up the mouth, which is one of the ways you can kind of discipline everything back into nose breathing. And her son had been just so anxious, refusing school.

husband also very, very dysregulated. And she said that just that one thing, that one thing she said, and I've got another 15 things on your course, I'm going to move on to next, that one thing and a kid's anxiety has just he's back at school, and he's functioning brilliantly. So what I'm saying is, not everything is going to be on that, you know, there's over 22 hours of learning on that course, not everything necessarily is going to speak to you. But boy, do you feel empowered at the end of it when you go.

Now I can see the whole thing now. Now I understand the breathing piece, the food piece, the environmental piece, the stress piece, the immune piece. Now I understand why my kid does that when that happens. And we've even got parenting coaching on there. We've got the head of the Institute of Child Psychology about communicating because, you know, when you're implementing change.

you got to kind of communicate about it properly. And we're going to do it as a whole family. And that's another thing that we really work hard on, Zach, that I've looked at. It's not everyone's looking at the child in question and going, okay, you're the problem. We're all going to kind of focus on you changing your diet, and you're going to do some special exercises and you're going to, know, uh-uh, we kind of advocate as much as possible. Let's do it all together because

who's not who's not going to benefit from healthier eating and a bit of exercise and some natural circadian that's the sunlight, sunset rhythms, who's not going to benefit from getting out in nature, you know, we're all going to benefit from cutting out the sugars, cutting out the processed foods, which we haven't even touched on today. But you know, all of those things, all of those things are covered. And it's hopefully explained in a way, you know, it's made simple by me, by the lived in experience of a mom.

Zack Ponder (54:52)
Okay

Lucia Silver (54:52)
has been through it. So rather than it being, you know, one doctor after another, just kind of explaining theory, you see it through the eyes of a mom. And how did I do it? What did that mean for dinner time? And what did that mean for school and getting dressed in the morning? What did that mean? You know, but you've got the access, you know, parents are learning directly from doctors and experts who typically have year long waiting lists and very high fees. It's just simply not possible.

for some geographically to travel the world to see that expert, for some financially. It's not affordable. You know, this is designed for real life.

Zack Ponder (55:28)
Yeah

It's your one-stop-ho of all the world's leading experts in their discipline in one course. How powerful is that? And just that one thing for listeners, that one thing you need is probably in that course. How did you get all the experts? How did you rally them all?

Lucia Silver (55:49)
I get asked that question all the time. I get asked the question from the experts, like Josh will say to me, how did you get Sally Goddard-Blyde? And Melilla will go, how did you get Dr. Lauren Stone? You I can't even get a call with them. you know, Quinn and I have this little phrase, I'm gonna see if I can find his, where's his little pencil case? I've got, leaning on his, he made me a little pencil case because he was so inspired by this phrase that I use. I don't know if you can see here, he made this little pencil case for me. And it says,

You know, once you definitively commit yourself, Providence moves too. And it's that kind of idea. ⁓ there's a book right now by Dr. Tara Schwartz called The Source. And it's a lot to do with, for me, for sure, faith, but it's a lot to do with unequivocally like laser focusing on an intention. And when your passion, especially in your purpose align, you know, for me, Quinn being the most important.

thing in the world and me being fortunate enough to be a pretty good communicator, you know, I love language and I've always been able to articulate things and express them in a way that is, I hope clear and taking those things and aligning them. I guess there must've been something a little bit irresistible about the way I was kind of, and Dr. Josh very sweetly has said in many of his kind of videos and stuff, he's never come across a mum who's kind of.

got a handle on the science. You know, I'm a lay person, I'm not a doctor. But honestly, it was just born of that deep desire to heal my son and everything else came second. But with that came the opportunity to be invited out to meet some of these incredible doctors for them to see Quinn and his transformation and healing is of course the greatest gift that I now am returning to the universe. That's what it feels like. Give it back.

Give it back, get out there and tell everyone else what they are capable of doing because I didn't do anything special. just absolutely stuck to my guns and I'm still am, I'm still living it, Zach. It's not over, we're in it and we're continuing now.

Zack Ponder (57:59)
Right. ⁓ that's so powerful. Where can people find the course? I'm gonna have everything in the show notes in so far, but.

Lucia Silver (58:08)
sure.

Zack Ponder (58:09)
Yeah, where is it at?

Lucia Silver (58:10)
Well, firstly, I just wanted to say that for all the UNspecial listeners and for Gorgeous You, I just wanted to create a little special add-on. So if anybody does decide to enroll, and I hope you do in the Whole Child Healing course, anyone who enrolls through Zach will receive a complimentary one-on-one parent support session with me, and that's worth $200. So if you want to move ahead, then that's there for you. Josh will share the link so that you can connect to the course when you want to.

In terms of where you can find us, the website is thebrainhealthmovement.com. We've obviously got Instagram at the Brain Health Movement, but we do have a huge amount of free educational resources from My Mighty Quinn, the podcast through to free guides and the Back to School Resource Hub. We've got ⁓ an amazing Facebook community to support parents as well, which is therefore you also under the same name at the Brain Health Movement. But I would say that the very best place for parents to begin right now.

is with another gift that we have for you, which is a free masterclass. And it's called From Burnout to Breakthrough, which really speaks to parents feeling burnt out. then we'll give you a link to that, Zach, for your show notes. It's designed to help overwhelmed parents understand what's really going on and what to do next. And I do offer one-to-one parent support as well. So there's different ways and means depending on what feels good to you.

Zack Ponder (59:16)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so much good. So much good. As easy as that. I mean, I, we've covered so much, the medical system, all the great healing journey of Quinn and yourself. And I think the parent is obvious. It's always the forgotten piece in this whole picture and co-regulation, which I think is huge. And that's the sole reason I started this platform is for parents because I saw them in IEP meetings, just struggling.

I was always like, why isn't there anything to help these parents? Because a parent that is able to show up the full self at full speed is able to support a kid, but you can't really give if you don't have anything to give. And so that's the mission you're on. That's the mission I'm on. And I think just to put it simply, a big takeaway that every parent can do today is just

Take a pause. is simple as that. If it even is a five minutes outside, barefoot in the grass, sitting in the sun. That's it. Take a pause. That was so much fun. I know we'll be in touch and thank you so much for being on UNspecial Podcast.

Lucia Silver (1:00:55)
Thank you so much for having me, honestly, the work is brilliant that you're doing. Keep going, keep sharing.

Zack Ponder (1:01:01)
Yeah, will do. You as well.