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Hey friends — welcome back to Optimization Toolbox.

I want to talk about something I’ve been circling for a while: we’re so good at treating life like a technical problem.

If something hurts, we want the fix.

If something feels hard, we want the hack.

If our brain feels messy, we want the system.

But a lot of what we’re dealing with isn’t “technical.” It’s nervous system.

It’s stress that didn’t finish its cycle.

It’s emotion we didn’t have space to feel.

It’s our bodies doing their job: protecting us, bracing for impact, storing what we couldn’t process in the moment.

And that’s why today’s episode felt worth sharing — because it’s a reminder that sometimes the most helpful “tool” isn’t another strategy.

Sometimes it’s learning how to listen to what your body has been carrying.

Here’s what you’ll get in this issue:

* why I brought Kevin Miles on the podcast

* what his work is

* the biggest takeaways to listen for when you hit play

* how this connects to my ADHD → health → genetics rabbit hole (and why it changed my life)

Why this conversation belongs on Optimization Toolbox

Optimization Toolbox has always been about tools — not just apps and templates, but tools that make neurodivergent life feel more navigable.

And one of the “tools” I don’t see talked about enough in neurodivergent spaces is body work.

Not in a spa-day way.

In a nervous system support way.

In a “my body is carrying stress I can’t talk myself out of” way.

So when I say I want better systems, what I really mean is: I want supports that help me live inside a sensitive system without constantly white-knuckling it.

That’s why I wanted this episode to exist publicly — because if you haven’t already fallen down the somatic / nervous system rabbit holes, you might not even know this kind of work exists.

How I met Kevin (and why I brought them on the show)

This week’s podcast episode is with Kevin Miles — someone I met at a networking event and immediately started nerding out with about health.

And I know you’ve seen me on a health journey the last couple of years, so you know I’m always collecting new frameworks and asking a million “wait, but what about this?” questions.

Kevin became one of those people I kept coming back to — not just as a practitioner, but as someone I wanted to talkto about health.

At some point I booked a session with them… and it completely blew my mind.

I kept coming back. And back. And back.

And now I just feel like I have to share them with you — because Kevin is genuinely wise and valuable, not only here in the Twin Cities (they’re in Edina) but also for the broader internet community.

What Kevin actually does (in real-life terms)

I think the best way I can describe Kevin’s work is this:

It’s not chiropractic.

It’s not Reiki.

It’s not therapy — but it can be emotional.

It’s somatic work in the sense that your body participates. Your nervous system participates. Your emotions (even the ones you’ve outgrown intellectually) participate.

One of the core ideas in the episode is that your muscles can be used as information—a way of checking what your nervous system is doing under the surface.

Kevin describes it as a kind of interpretation work:

* your body is already running protection programs (tightness, shutdown, pain, fatigue, inflammation)

* sometimes the “problem” isn’t where the pain is

* and sometimes what looks physical has a big emotional component (because the nervous system doesn’t separate them neatly)

I used to jokingly call Kevin “my healer,” but honestly a more accurate description is:

someone who helps you interpret what your body is doing.

Because the vibe isn’t “Kevin fixes you.”

The vibe is: “Let’s pay attention to the signals and see what your system is responding to.”

And honestly? That framing alone has changed how I treat my own symptoms. Not as enemies. Not as inconveniences. As communication.

What I’m taking from Kevin (and what to listen for in the episode)

If you listen to the episode, here are a few of the biggest lessons Kevin shared that I keep coming back to:

* You’re not broken — you’re getting signals. A symptom is often the body trying to protect you, not punish you.

* Pain is pain. Your brain doesn’t neatly separate emotional pain from physical pain — it responds to “threat” either way.

* The body keeps the receipt. Things can be buried/subconscious and still show up as tension, inflammation, tightness, fatigue, shutdown.

* Healing needs permission. If your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, it won’t accept change — even if your brain “wants” it.

* Root cause > band-aids. Quick fixes can mute the signal, but they don’t always resolve why the system is flaring in the first place.

* The goal isn’t intensity — it’s regulation. Sometimes the most powerful shift is a small downshift (a sigh, a swallow, a softening).

As you listen, notice how often Kevin is basically doing one thing: helping people learn the language their body is already speaking.

The thing somatic work keeps reminding me: your body is holding the story

One of the simplest things Kevin said is the thing that keeps echoing in my head:

Your brain doesn’t really differentiate between emotional pain and physical pain — it just registers pain.

And I keep thinking about how much of our culture is trained to chase the technical explanation first.

What’s the diagnosis. What’s the protocol. What’s the supplement. What’s the productivity system.

But so many of the things that run our lives aren’t “technical problems” — they’re unseen emotional experiences that never got felt all the way through.

And when they don’t get felt, they don’t disappear. They just get stored.

Tension. Tightness. Inflammation. Shutdown. Fatigue. “Random” symptoms that keep showing up no matter how many to-do lists we perfect.

Because if you’ve ever been told “it’s all in your head,” the rebuttal isn’t “no it isn’t.”

The truth is more annoying and more hopeful:

Your head is in your body.

Somatic work is one of the first things that helped me take that sentence seriously — not as a metaphor, but as a map.

In the same way a chiropractor can adjust what’s out of alignment in your spine, sometimes what’s out of alignment is emotional.

Sometimes you don’t need another explanation — you need an emotional release. An adjustment. A nervous system “exhale.”

That’s what I mean when I say this kind of work is less about “fixing you” and more about helping your system finally process what it’s been carrying.

This is also why the “permission” part matters so much.

Not forcing change.

Not muscling your way into healing (pun intended).

Permission.

Because if your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, it won’t accept the update.

And then — from that place — you can actually get to root cause instead of just adding another band-aid on top of a signal.

Neurodivergence, stress, and nervous system dysregulation

This is where I want to speak directly to the neurodivergent folks reading.

A lot of us are walking around with nervous systems that are:

* more sensitive to stimulation

* more reactive to stress

* more likely to get stuck in overwhelm

* better at noticing pattern… and also better at noticing threat

Which means a “small” stressor can become a full-body event.

Not because you’re dramatic.

Because your system is tuned differently.

And when you’ve spent years coping (masking, pushing through, over-functioning, under-resting), your body can slip into dysregulation faster — and stay there longer.

So you don’t just get anxious — you get tense. You don’t just feel stressed — you get inflamed. You don’t just feel overwhelmed — you get shut down.

We are electric beings. Chemical beings. Pattern-recognition beings.

And when the system is overloaded, it doesn’t only show up as thoughts. It shows up as sensations.

My genetics rabbit hole (and why it actually made me feel kinder to myself)

If I had to timestamp this era of my life, it starts in 2020.

That’s when I went down the ADHD / neurodivergent rabbit hole — trying to understand my brain, my patterns, my coping strategies, and why certain things felt so much harder for me than they seemed to be for other people.

Then in 2022, my body basically raised its hand like: “Hey. We need to talk.”

Health issues started showing up, ...