Announcing... Nervous System Quotient (NSQ) Self-Assessment v2
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Hello Curious Humans — greetings from a snowy Boulder! ☃️ Today, I'm excited to visit a neurofeedback lab in town to run some experiments with vagus nerve stimulation devices and explore how practicing non-sleep-deep-rest might shift my brainwaves... I'll report back what I discover in a few weeks time! 🧠 ~~ 1/ ✔️ A Self-Assessment to Track Your Nervous System RegulationFor the past few months, I've been working on creating a robust and practical self-assessment that strives to give insight into four core areas of nervous system regulation:
The concept is to combine the results from these areas into a single metric that I'm calling NSQ or Nervous System Quotient — to create a baseline indication of how regulated you are (in less than five minutes). I've also built a system that will recommend personalized protocols based on your least-strong area. Below is a screenshot of what the NSQ results page looks like: If you'd like to be one of the first to take the v2 of this self-assessment for a spin you can do so here for free: assessment.nsmastery.com ~~ I'm thrilled about the four NSM guest masterclass sessions coming up in April (I always learn a ton from these myself), including: Interoceptive Dojo with Sofia-Jeanne ~ April 3rd 🔥 Hot Seat Coaching with Joe Hudson ~ April 10th 😨 Conquering Chronic Anxiety with Nick Wignall, PhD ~ April 17th 🧠 Practical Tools for Adult ADHD with Jesse J Anderson ~ April 24th ~~ We've had more applications for this upcoming cohort of Nervous System Mastery than any other to date — so if you've been on the fence about joining this Spring cohort I recommend submitting an application ASAP. 2/ 🎙️ WTF is a Nervous System? In conversation with Joe Hudson (Spotify/Youtube)I immensely enjoyed this conversation with executive coach and Art of Accomplishment founder Joe Hudson, we compared our maps of how we understand and practically work with the nervous system with our clients. We dug into our mutual experiences with breathwork journeys, integrating emotional releases and the difference between working on the level of the intellect, the emotional level, and the nervous system level. Listen here on Spotify or click below to watch on Youtube 3/ 👨🎨 My Podcast Gets a RebrandThanks to the help of Nate Kadlac, the youtube thumbnails have been redesigned and popping. As with any master of a craft, watching Nate work in real-time in Figma is fascinating, and I felt like I learn a ton about how good designers are able to tease out the essential elements of good branding. Nate has a rad newsletter called 'Approachable Design' that shares practical tips for non-designers (like me) to incorporate some principles into their work. You can check it out and subscribe here. 4/ 🔗 Et. Cetera🧘 Highway to Bliss — Neurotech startup Jhourney are running retreats that make meditative joy easier to experience. They've achieved ~70% success rates in creating meditative experiences known as jhanas — I personally hope to attend one of their retreats myself in the coming months. Learn more. ⏰ AI Poetry Clock — Internet visionary Matt Webb made a clock that tells the time with a brand new poem every minute, composed by ChatGPT. As a lover of Kickstarter, poetry, and innovative AI projects, I backed it instantly. Check it Out. 🏜️ Welcome Your Fear — Friend of Curious Humans Brett Kistler is putting on a 'Welcoming Fear' retreat in Moab, Utah. Imagine sleeping under the stars, dancing on a high line above an abyss, and cultivating an intimacy with fear as a source of aliveness. If I weren't traveling in early May, I would absolutely be attending myself. Learn More. 🃏 The Case for Being Less Serious — my surfing friend and prolific writer Calvin Rosser wrote a thoughtful essay on how a loose orientation toward the world is compatible with the real and serious business of adulthood Read. 🎙️ Become a Dharma Artist — I've been deeply enjoying the seven-part audio 'Horizon Series' by the interior scientist Erick Godsey, exploring the role of myth in our time and some thought-provoking ideas for how we might seed a renaissance in our culture. Listen here |
Jonny Miller
Curious Humans & Nervous System Mastery
Championing adventures in radical inquiry & self-experimentation.
When experiencing nervous system dysregulation, most people try to solve the problem 'from within.' But there’s something a lot of us forget: The stimuli in our surroundings also have a tremendous influence in our nervous system. In fact, it is accurate to say that we are constantly ‘co-regulating’ with our environment, taking external cues from all the sounds, the visuals, even the smells — and then tuning our internal state accordingly. The issue? Most of us don’t put enough thought into...
There’s a pervasive myth—particularly in the tech industry—that listening to our rational, logic-oriented left brain is superior to acting in response to fluctuating emotions. Life might be simpler if this were the case. Emotions are messy, and in some circumstances they can cloud our judgment. Even the neuroscientists studying them have struggled to understand how they work. Which is why, to this day, there is still no scientific consensus on a precise definition of what an emotion actually...
Hey! Jonny here with some more practical thoughts on how to become an active operator of your nervous system. Today I’d like to share with you a very powerful, zero-cost protocol for self-regulating your inner state during stressful or intense situations. But first, I’d like to give you a little bit of context to make sure you understand why self-regulation is such an important skill to master (so you can overcome the nervous system regulation challenges you’ve been experiencing). Why...