Anxiety & Nervous System Naturopath & Nutritionist · Australia Wide
Root-Cause Support For Women's Anxiety & Nervous System Health.
Naturopathic Treatment For Anxiety, Panic, Sleep Issues & Nervous System Dysregulation
You've been told it's just stress, just your hormones, just a busy season of life, or your nervous system has been like this for so long it feels like your personality rather than something that can change.
Either way, your sleep, your mood, your gut, your nervous system, and your stress response are not where they should be.
They're not telling you everything.
Bachelor of Health Science ◆ Master of Advanced Naturopathic Medicine ◆ Grad Cert Culinary Nutrition Science ◆ A5M Certified Anti-Ageing
Member ANTA & NSA
8 years clinical experience · Australian Nutrition Ambassador MyFitnessPal · 1,000+ women helped
Something has shifted, and you can't put your finger on when it started.
Your mind won't switch off at night, your jaw is clenched before you've even opened your eyes in the morning, and your shoulders sit somewhere up around your ears all day.
Some weeks you're wired and reactive, snapping at people you love over things that don't warrant the reaction. Other weeks you're flat and numb, going through the motions and wondering when you last felt like yourself.
Your sleep is light, you're awake at 2:47am running through tomorrow, and you wake up feeling like you didn't sleep at all.
You've Googled it, you've tried the apps, you've bought the magnesium, and none of it has touched the thing underneath.
And every time you bring it up, the answer is some version of "it's just stress, try meditating, here's a referral if you want to talk to someone."
This page is for women who want to understand what is going on with their body & answers.
The Symptoms I Hear Every Week
Does This Sound Like You?
You're between 25 and 60, and something has shifted, slowly enough that you didn't catch it at first.
This is what I see in clinic every week.
Your mind starts running the moment your head hits the pillow, and it won't stop until well after midnight.
Your mind starts running the moment your head hits the pillow, and it won't stop until well after midnight.
Your jaw is clenched, your shoulders are pulled up around your ears, and your breathing is shallow without you noticing (until someone points it out, and then you realise you've been holding your breath for the last twenty minutes).
You snap at the people you love over small things and feel terrible ten seconds later, but in the moment you couldn't stop yourself.
Your heart races or your chest tightens in situations that don't warrant it: sitting at your desk, lying in bed, stuck in traffic, reading an email.
You've had a panic episode (or a few), and you've started avoiding the situations you think might bring one on.
Some weeks you're wired and on edge. Other weeks you're flat, numb, disconnected, and can't get off the couch.
You're functioning on the outside, hitting your deadlines, managing the kids, keeping it all together, and on the inside you've checked out and can't remember the last time you felt genuine joy about anything.
Your gut has gone sideways alongside the anxiety: bloating, reflux, churning before stressful events, or your bowel habits have changed without your diet changing.
Caffeine makes you jittery and anxious in a way it never used to, and a glass of wine in the evening has become the only thing that switches your brain off.
Your anxiety is significantly worse in the week before your period, and it eases the moment your period starts.
You feel exhausted but you can't fall asleep, and once you do fall asleep you wake up feeling like you didn't sleep at all.
You've been told your bloods are fine, your iron is fine, your thyroid is fine, and walked out of every appointment with no real explanation for what's happening.
You've always been "the anxious one" in your family, and it has felt like a personality trait rather than something physiological that can change.
If you're ticking five or more of those, you could be in nervous system dysregulation.
Your bloods probably look "normal" because standard testing doesn't catch most of what's happening.
The Science, Simplified
What Is Anxiety & Nervous System Dysregulation
Anxiety is not a personality flaw, a willpower issue, or something you should be able to think your way out of. It is a physiological state your nervous system is holding, and once you understand the mechanism, the symptoms make sense and the path back becomes clearer.
Your autonomic nervous system runs every involuntary function in your body: heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, digestion, immune responses, hormone release. It operates on three levels, and each level produces a different felt experience. The top level is the ventral vagal state, where you feel safe, present, clear-headed, socially connected, and able to handle daily stress without tipping over. Digestion works. Sleep works. You feel like yourself. The middle level is sympathetic activation, your fight or flight response, where heart rate and cortisol rise, breathing becomes shallow, blood is redirected to your muscles, and digestion suppresses. The bottom level is dorsal vagal shutdown, a freeze and conservation response that your body drops into when sympathetic activation has been running for too long. Heart rate drops, motivation disappears, you feel flat, numb, heavy, and disconnected from your body.
In a healthy system, you move between these states across a day depending on what is in front of you. A stressor activates the sympathetic branch, the stressor resolves, and you settle back into the ventral vagal state. The women I work with in clinic are not in that pattern. Their nervous system is stuck in sympathetic dominance as a baseline, dropping into dorsal shutdown when the resources run out, and spending very little time in the ventral vagal state where the body can repair, digest, sleep, and feel like itself.
The vagus nerve is the structure that runs all of this. It is the longest cranial nerve in the body, connecting the brainstem to the heart, lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines, and it is the primary communication pathway of your parasympathetic nervous system. Vagal tone, which describes how well the nerve functions, is measured clinically through heart rate variability (HRV). High vagal tone means your nervous system can shift between states efficiently and recover from stress. Low vagal tone means it stays stuck.
Around 80 to 90 percent of the signals travelling through the vagus nerve go from the body to the brain, not the other way around. This is why anxiety, panic, and nervous system dysregulation cannot be addressed by the mind alone, and it is why gut health, hormonal health, blood sugar stability, and the foundational physiological inputs all sit underneath the anxiety presentation. The signals being sent up to your brain depend on the state of every system below.
You can read more about anxiety on the Beyond Blue anxiety information page.
I find in my clinic that most women have been told their anxiety is psychological, behavioural, or genetic, and have never had the physiological mechanism explained to them. Once they understand that anxiety is a nervous system state with measurable contributors (gut-brain signalling, neurotransmitter precursors, hormonal fluctuation, blood sugar, vagal tone, early-life calibration), the work shifts from trying to manage symptoms to addressing what is producing them.
From the Clinic
Anxiety & Nervous System Dysregulation Symptoms I See Most Often
These are the symptoms that come up in my clinic every week.
If you are ticking multiple, it is worth investigating rather than waiting to see if it gets worse.
Racing mind at bedtime that won't switch off (sympathetic dominance at sleep onset). The body is physically tired, the brain is producing thoughts at speed, and the transition from awake to asleep takes 45 to 60 minutes instead of 10 to 15.
Waking between 2am and 4am with the brain already running (cortisol awakening disruption layered with low GABA). Cortisol is spiking overnight to manage blood sugar and the calming neurotransmitters are not at the level they need to be to keep you under.
Panic episodes in situations that don't warrant them (acute sympathetic surge with autonomic dysregulation). Heart pounding, chest tightening, hands tingling, breath caught high in the chest, sometimes with no identifiable trigger.
Wired and tired at the same time (sympathetic activation alongside neurotransmitter depletion). You can't sit still, you can't relax, and you also can't function, which is the most exhausting combination there is.
Flat, numb, disconnected stretches (dorsal vagal shutdown). Cancelling plans, staring at the phone for 45 minutes without registering anything, going through the motions while feeling like you're watching your own life from behind glass.
Cycling between wired weeks and flat weeks (oscillation between sympathetic and dorsal states). Monday to Friday in overdrive, Saturday a complete shutdown that no amount of rest seems to resolve.
Jaw tension, shoulder tension, shallow breathing, and unexplained body bracing (chronic sympathetic muscular activation). Often noticed only when someone else points it out, or when you wake up with a sore jaw and headaches that started in your neck.
Digestive symptoms that flare with stress (gut-brain axis dysregulation via vagus nerve). Bloating, reflux, nausea, churning, or bowel changes that track exactly with stressful weeks and ease in calmer ones.
Caffeine intolerance that is new (lowered nervous system threshold and depleted adrenal cofactors). A coffee that used to be a normal part of your morning now sends your heart racing and tips you into anxiety for the next four hours.
Anxiety significantly worse in the luteal phase (low progesterone unmasking sympathetic dominance). Progesterone is your calming hormone, and when it drops in the second half of your cycle the nervous system has less to buffer it.
Light, fragmented, unrefreshing sleep (reduced time in deep slow-wave and REM sleep). Eight hours in bed, the equivalent of three hours of restoration, and you wake feeling like you didn't sleep.
Reliance on wine in the evening to switch off (alcohol mimics your calming neurotransmitters, so it works in the moment and worsens the underlying picture). The receptors your nervous system uses to wind down are the same ones alcohol binds to, which is why a glass of wine works fast and leaves you feeling worse the next day.
Chronic low-level dread or "something is wrong" feeling (default sympathetic threat detection). A baseline anxiety that has no specific source, present from the moment you wake up, easing slightly through the day and ramping again before bed.
Anxiety symptoms running in your family or present from childhood (early-life nervous system calibration). A baseline state that was set before age 7 and has been running ever since, often misinterpreted as personality.
If you are ready to get to the root cause of your anxiety and nervous system symptoms with a clinical plan built around your body and your life, this is where we start.
The Mechanisms Behind It
What's Going On With Your Anxiety & Nervous System Symptoms
Most anxiety advice stops at "manage your stress, do some breathwork, try a meditation app," which can help, sometimes, for some women, for a while. The useful question is what's going on underneath the symptoms, because anxiety is a nervous system state, not a character trait, and when symptoms compound across sleep, mood, gut, hormones, and panic at the same time, it is almost always because the nervous system itself has been running in a dysregulated pattern for a long time and every other system has shaped itself around that pattern.
This is what I look at in clinic.
The polyvagal lens (sympathetic, parasympathetic, and dorsal vagal states)
Most women have heard of fight or flight. Fewer have heard of dorsal vagal shutdown, and almost none have had the three-state polyvagal model explained as the framework that makes sense of their actual lived experience. This is the lens that runs through every other mechanism on this page.
Your autonomic nervous system operates on three levels, and each level produces a distinct felt experience. The top level is the ventral vagal state, which is your optimal state. You feel safe, present, clear-headed, socially connected, able to handle a normal day without tipping over. Digestion works. Sleep works. Emotions are manageable. You feel like yourself. This state is governed by the ventral branch of the vagus nerve and it requires good vagal tone (measured clinically through heart rate variability, or HRV) to maintain.
The middle level is sympathetic activation, your fight or flight response. Heart rate up, blood pressure up, breathing shallow and rapid, cortisol and adrenaline flooding the bloodstream, blood redirected to the muscles, digestion suppressed, immune regulation altered, reproductive function deprioritised. In an acute stressor this is normal and useful. In chronic activation, it becomes a baseline state that the nervous system stops returning from. The presentation is the racing mind at bedtime, the clenched jaw, the snapping at family, the heart racing in situations that don't warrant it, the wired-but-cannot-relax pattern that women in this state describe as feeling like their personality.
The bottom level is the dorsal vagal state, a freeze and shutdown response governed by the older, more primitive branch of the vagus nerve. Heart rate drops, blood pressure drops, motivation disappears, you feel flat, numb, heavy, disconnected from your own body and the people around you. This is not laziness. It is your nervous system's last-resort protection mechanism, the response your body produces when sympathetic activation has been running for so long that the resources are spent, or when the perceived threat is overwhelming and fighting or fleeing has not been an option.
The cycling between sympathetic and dorsal that I see constantly in clinic (Monday to Friday in overdrive, Saturday a complete shutdown that no amount of rest seems to resolve) is one of the clearest signs that the nervous system is no longer regulating itself, and the path back to ventral vagal goes through the body, not through the mind.
I see this in clinic in women who have spent years trying to think their way out of anxiety with cognitive tools alone, and who have never had the physiological mechanism explained to them.
Chronic sympathetic dominance (and why your body can't switch off)
When the sympathetic branch is activated for short periods (minutes to hours) and then resolves, your body recovers and returns to baseline. When it stays activated for weeks, months, and years (which is the reality for most women managing work, family, finances, health, and the load that does not lift), your nervous system recalibrates. Sympathetic dominance becomes the default operating state, and the body loses the ability to shift back into rest, digest, and repair mode even when there is no active threat in front of you.
The reason this happens is that your nervous system does not distinguish between a physical threat and a psychological one. A difficult email, a financial worry, a sick child, a deadline, an argument, scrolling distressing news at 10pm: your body produces the same physiological response to all of these as it would if you were being chased. Heart rate up, breathing shallow, muscles tensed, glucose released from the liver, cortisol and adrenaline circulating. Hundreds of these activations a day, with no resolution between them, recalibrates the baseline.
The downstream effects spread across the entire body.
Digestion is suppressed, which is why you can be eating cleanly and still bloated, refluxy, and constipated.
Sleep is disrupted, which is why you can be exhausted and still unable to fall asleep or stay asleep.
Hormone clearance through the liver slows, which is why your PMS is heavier than it used to be and your cycle is less predictable.
Immune function shifts, which is why you catch every cold going around and take twice as long to get over it.
Weight loss becomes resistant because cortisol promotes fat storage around the midsection regardless of what you eat. And anxiety, panic, and the racing-mind-at-bedtime presentation are the felt symptoms of a nervous system stuck in a state it was never designed to hold long-term.
The piece that most women have not had explained to them is that your nervous system also does not distinguish between psychological stress and physiological stress. Blood sugar crashes, gut inflammation, poor sleep, overexercise, nutritional deficiencies, and unprocessed emotional load all add to the total stress signal reaching your nervous system.
You can be doing everything right on the mindset side and still be in chronic sympathetic activation because the physiological inputs underneath are sending threat signals your nervous system is responding to.
I see this in clinic in women who have done years of therapy, mindfulness, and stress management work and are still anxious, because the nervous system is responding to physiological signals their mind cannot reach.
The gut-brain axis (and how gut health shapes anxiety)
Around 80 to 90 percent of the signals travelling through the vagus nerve go from the body to the brain, not the other way around. A significant portion of those signals come from your gut. Your gut is in constant two-way conversation with your brain through the vagus nerve, and the quality of that conversation is one of the most underrecognised contributors to anxiety, panic, and nervous system dysregulation.
When your gut is healthy (a balanced microbiome, an intact gut wall, low-grade inflammation absent, adequate stomach acid and bile, regular bowel function), the signals travelling up to your brain are calm, regulated, and consistent with safety. When your gut is inflamed, the microbiome is out of balance, the gut wall is compromised (intestinal permeability, sometimes called leaky gut), or stomach acid and digestion are suppressed from chronic sympathetic dominance, the signals travelling up to your brain are inflammatory, irregular, and consistent with threat. Your brain receives those signals and responds the way it is designed to respond to threat: cortisol up, sympathetic activation up, vigilance up.
Your gut is also where a significant amount of your neurotransmitter production happens. Around 90 percent of your body's serotonin (the neurotransmitter associated with mood regulation, calm, and sleep onset) is produced in the gut, primarily by the enterochromaffin cells lining the gut wall. The gut microbiome also produces precursors and cofactors for GABA (the calming neurotransmitter that allows your nervous system to wind down) and influences dopamine (motivation and reward) production. When the microbiome is depleted, dysbiotic, or inflamed, neurotransmitter production is compromised at the source, and the downstream felt experience is anxiety, low mood, racing mind, and an inability to wind down.
The loop then reinforces itself. Stress activates sympathetic dominance, which suppresses digestion and disrupts the microbiome, which sends more inflammatory signals to the brain, which activates more sympathetic response, which further suppresses digestion.
This is one of the reasons gut work is one of the most clinically significant interventions for anxiety, and it is also why women with persistent anxiety often have a digestive history that has been treated in isolation rather than as part of the same picture.
I see this in clinic in women whose anxiety improves substantially once their gut is addressed, even before any direct nervous system work has been done.
Neurotransmitter production (serotonin, GABA, dopamine and where they come from)
Your nervous system runs on neurotransmitters. The three most relevant to anxiety and nervous system regulation are GABA, serotonin, and dopamine, and each of them is produced from amino acid precursors that come from dietary protein and require specific nutrient cofactors to assemble. When the precursors are missing or the cofactors are depleted, neurotransmitter production drops, and the felt experience is anxiety, racing mind, low mood, and an inability to wind down.
GABA is the primary calming neurotransmitter in your nervous system. It is what allows you to transition from awake to asleep, to relax after a stressful day, to feel calm in your own body. GABA is produced from glutamate, with vitamin B6 and magnesium as required cofactors, and the magnesium is also required for GABA receptor function once the neurotransmitter is produced. Chronic stress depletes both. When GABA is low, your brain cannot wind down. You lie in bed with a racing mind, you feel tired and wired at the same time, and the transition from awake to asleep takes 45 to 60 minutes instead of 10 to 15. Alcohol works on the same receptors, which is why a glass of wine in the evening is so often the only thing that switches the brain off, and it is also why the next day is often worse.
Serotonin is your mood regulation, calm, and sleep precursor neurotransmitter. It is produced from the amino acid tryptophan, with vitamin B6, iron, and folate as cofactors, and around 90 percent of it is produced in the gut. Low serotonin presents as low mood, anxiety, premenstrual mood changes, carbohydrate cravings, and difficulty falling asleep, because serotonin is converted into melatonin (your sleep hormone) at night.
Dopamine governs motivation, reward, and the ability to start tasks and follow through. It is produced from tyrosine, with vitamin B6, iron, and copper as cofactors. Low dopamine presents as flat motivation, difficulty starting things, loss of interest in things that used to bring pleasure, and the high-functioning freeze pattern where you keep performing while feeling nothing about it.
I see this in clinic in women whose blood work looks "normal" but whose dietary protein, B vitamin status, iron, and magnesium are not at the level the nervous system needs to make what it needs.
Nutrient deficiencies behind anxiety symptoms (B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, iron)
Your nervous system has specific nutritional requirements, and when any of them run low, the symptoms of nervous system dysregulation get louder. Most women I work with are running on borderline-low or frankly deficient levels of one or more of the nutrients the nervous system depends on, and they have either never been tested or had results that came back "in range" without anyone looking at the functional optimal levels.
The B vitamins are required cofactors for almost every step of neurotransmitter production. B6 is required for GABA, serotonin, and dopamine synthesis. Folate (B9) and active B12 are required for methylation, which is the biochemical process that converts neurotransmitter precursors into usable forms and clears used neurotransmitters out of the system. When B6, folate, or B12 are low, neurotransmitter production is impaired at multiple steps. I see B12 in particular sitting in the lower end of the standard reference range in women presenting with anxiety, low mood, and brain fog, and a result of 200 picomol/L is technically "in range" while being clinically inadequate for nervous system function. Functional optimal sits closer to 500 to 700 picomol/L.
Magnesium is one of the most underestimated nutrients in nervous system health. It is required for GABA receptor function, for the conversion of tryptophan to serotonin, for the regulation of the stress response at the level of the HPA axis, for muscle relaxation, and for sleep architecture. Chronic stress burns through magnesium quickly because every cortisol release pulls magnesium out of cellular stores, and most women are not replacing what they are using. Magnesium deficiency presents as anxiety, racing thoughts, muscle tension, jaw clenching, restless legs, and disrupted sleep.
Zinc is a cofactor for neurotransmitter synthesis, immune regulation, and the gut wall integrity that the gut-brain axis depends on. Low zinc presents with anxiety, low mood, slow wound healing, frequent infections, and digestive symptoms.
Iron is required for both serotonin and dopamine synthesis, and for the carrying of oxygen to every tissue including the brain. Low iron presents with anxiety, low mood, fatigue, breathlessness, palpitations, and brain fog. A ferritin of 30 mcg/L is technically "in range" while being clinically inadequate for women with anxiety symptoms. Functional optimal sits closer to 70 to 100 mcg/L.I see this in clinic in women who have been told their bloods are "fine" while sitting in deficiency or insufficiency across two or three of these nutrients at once.
Hormonal contributors (oestrogen, progesterone, thyroid and anxiety presentations)
Anxiety is not always a stand-alone nervous system issue. For a significant portion of the women I see in clinic, the nervous system dysregulation is being layered on top of (or amplified by) hormonal shifts that have their own anxiety footprint, and treating the anxiety in isolation never gets to the underlying picture.
Progesterone is your calming hormone. It binds to GABA receptors in the brain in a similar way to GABA itself, which is why women describe feeling more settled, more even, and more able to sleep in the second half of a healthy menstrual cycle when progesterone is at its peak. When progesterone is low (which is the most common pattern I see in women in their late 30s, 40s, and into perimenopause), the GABA-like calming effect is reduced, and any underlying nervous system dysregulation becomes more apparent. Anxiety in the luteal phase that eases the moment your period starts is one of the most reliable markers of low progesterone amplifying nervous system dysregulation, and PMDD-level anxiety often traces back to this same mechanism with additional hormonal sensitivity layered in.
Oestrogen fluctuation produces its own anxiety pattern. Oestrogen modulates serotonin, dopamine, and the stress response, and when it swings (which happens across the menstrual cycle, in perimenopause, postpartum, and around the contraceptive pill), the nervous system experiences each swing as a destabilising signal. Sudden anxiety, sudden low mood, and sudden sleep disruption that track with hormonal shifts are usually not coincidental.
Thyroid function is the third hormonal layer. An underactive thyroid presents with low mood, fatigue, sluggish cognition, and brain fog. An overactive thyroid (or a thyroid that is producing too much T3 or being pushed into overdrive by autoimmune activity) presents with anxiety, palpitations, heat intolerance, tremor, sleep disruption, and a felt experience that is almost indistinguishable from sympathetic dominance. I see women diagnosed with anxiety who actually have thyroid dysfunction that has been missed because TSH alone is not enough to assess thyroid function. A full thyroid panel including free T3, free T4, reverse T3, and antibodies is what catches what is going on.
I see this in clinic in women whose anxiety is significantly worse at predictable points in their cycle, whose anxiety started in perimenopause, or whose anxiety has never quite responded to nervous system work alone, and the missing piece is the hormonal layer.
My Approach
How I Work With Anxiety & Nervous System Health
My approach is root-cause, systems-based, and built for real life.
You have a job, a family, a schedule that does not pause for your gut.
I am not going to hand you a plan that requires juicing celery at 5am and eating 11 different seeds a day (unless you want that).
Food as Medicine
Nutrition is the foundation of your anxiety and nervous system plan, and thanks to my Graduate Certificate in Culinary Nutrition Science alongside my clinical qualifications, your food plan is delicious, practical, and designed around your life.
It is built around what your body needs through your specific clinical presentation, not a generic template pulled off the internet.
I look at your symptoms, blood sugar response, inflammation levels, nutritional gaps, and the specific foods that support the systems under most strain in anxiety and nervous system dysregulation: nervous system, gut, hormones, neurotransmitters, and adrenals.
You also get a custom recipe book matched to your plan, so you are never staring at a protocol wondering what to cook on a Tuesday night.
The goal is a way of eating you can sustain for the long term, that still lets you enjoy a margarita or pizza on a Friday night.
Supplements and Herbal Medicine
Supplements and herbal medicine are two of the most powerful clinical tools I use in anxiety and nervous system health, and you get access to practitioner-only prescriptions built specifically for your body.
These are the highest-quality clinical formulations available in Australia, with therapeutic doses and activated forms that absorb and work in the body.A different tier entirely to anything on a chemist shelf.
Your protocol is matched to your anxiety and nervous system symptoms, test results, and the systems we are working on, whether that is vagal tone, neurotransmitter production, sleep quality, gut-brain axis, or hormonal calm.
Herbal medicine is one of the oldest and most evidence-backed forms of medicine in existence, and when prescribed correctly for anxiety and nervous system dysregulation, it often produces results faster than women expect.
I adjust your prescription across the package as your body responds, so you are always taking what is clinically useful and nothing you do not need.
Nervous System Regulation
Your nervous system regulates almost every other system in the body, and when it is held in a chronic stress state during anxiety and nervous system dysregulation, the nervous system stays in chronic sympathetic activation, sleep deteriorates, digestion suppresses, hormonal balance suffers, inflammation rises, and the body cannot return to ventral vagal regulation.
Chronic stress is one of the most significant contributors to anxiety and nervous system symptoms, and it is the part most treatment plans overlook.
Your plan includes clear, practical strategies that fit into a busy life: vagus nerve support, short breathwork practices, sleep support including circadian rhythm work and clinical strategies if your sleep is disrupted, stress regulation built around your capacity, and movement that supports your system rather than adding to it.
Most women notice improvement in the first month or two of working together.
Advanced Testing & Integrative Pathology Review
You have access to advanced functional testing when it is clinically useful for your case and your budget.
This includes organic acids testing for neurotransmitter metabolites, DUTCH Complete for cortisol-progesterone interplay, GI-MAP for gut-brain axis, and full functional blood panels including methylation markers (folate, active B12, homocysteine), alongside DNA and nutrigenomic testing and food sensitivity testing when indicated.
I only recommend testing that is going to meaningfully inform your treatment direction.
I also review your pathology through an integrative lens using functional optimal ranges, which are tighter than standard population reference ranges.
A result can sit inside the "normal" range and still be contributing to your anxiety and nervous system symptoms, and this is often where the clinical answers are found.
80/20 Always
You can have the wine. You can have the margarita on a Friday. You can have the pasta, the cheese platter, and the slice of birthday cake.
Restriction, perfectionism, and constant dieting work against your hormones, your nervous system, and your long-term consistency, which is the last thing your body needs in anxiety and nervous system dysregulation.
They also compromise your relationship with food, which is one of the most difficult things to repair in women in this stage of life.
Your plan is built to be sustainable for life, not for 30 days, so you can navigate anxiety and nervous system symptoms and enjoy your life at the same time.
The goal is a way of eating and living that fits into a full social life and continues to support your clinical outcomes.
Realistic & Built Around Your Life
Your plan is designed around how busy you are, your schedule, who you cook for, how much time you have, and the capacity you are carrying in this stage of life.
Simple, sequenced, and achievable.
I will not hand you a protocol that requires hours in the kitchen, a fridge full of obscure ingredients, or a morning routine longer than the average commute.
No plan produces results if it does not fit your life, which is why most generic programs fail women in anxiety and nervous system dysregulation.
Yours is built to fit yours, step by step, in the clinical order your body needs through your specific clinical presentation.
Naturopath In Your Pocket
Between consults, you have direct messaging access to me for questions about your protocol, new symptoms you want to flag, situations that change the plan, or progress you want to share.
You are not waiting for weeks with a clinical question until your next appointment, and you are not working through the complex parts on your own.
Anxiety and nervous system symptoms shift week to week, and having clinical support between sessions makes a significant difference to outcomes across a multi-month protocol.
Most women tell me this is one of the most valuable parts of working together.
Mindset & Your Relationship With Food
Most women I see in anxiety and nervous system dysregulation already have a bit of an idea of what they need to do.
They have read the books, followed the accounts, bought the supplements, and started the protocols.
What keeps them stuck is what is underneath: all-or-nothing thinking, self-sabotage when progress begins, food guilt, body image concerns, and years of yo-yo dieting that now feel amplified in this stage of life.
This thinking consistently undermines every protocol a woman has tried before.
Your plan includes work on these patterns as part of your clinical care, because a treatment plan does not produce lasting results if the thinking underneath it is pulling in the opposite direction.
This is part of your care, not an extra.
Your Questions, Answered
Anxiety & Nervous System FAQs
Can a naturopath and nutritionist help with anxiety and nervous system dysregulation?
Yes. A naturopath and nutritionist can be one of the most useful practitioners to see in anxiety and nervous system dysregulation because the approach is root-cause and systems-based. I look at the nervous system, gut, hormones, neurotransmitter production, blood sugar, nutritional cofactors, and stress physiology together rather than treating one symptom at a time. For Australian women who feel dismissed by conventional care, or who want support alongside the work they are doing with their GP or psychologist, it is often the part they have been missing.
What is the difference between a naturopath and nutritionist and a GP for anxiety and nervous system dysregulation?
A GP is usually your first stop for diagnosis, mental health care planning, and any prescription decisions, which is valuable clinical care. A naturopath and nutritionist takes a root-cause, holistic approach to your health, because what happens in one system of the body affects every other system. Your nervous system, gut, hormones, neurotransmitters, and metabolism all communicate with each other, and treating them in isolation rarely gives lasting results.
In clinic, I use functional testing (DUTCH, GI-MAP, organic acids, full functional blood panels with methylation markers), practitioner-only supplements, custom herbal medicine, and personalised nutrition to support all of these systems together.
This is a comprehensive, intensive, and hands-on approach. You get a personalised clinical plan, ongoing support between consults, and the time to work through your anxiety and nervous system symptoms with the depth they need.
The two approaches are complementary, not either-or. I work with many women who are seeing a GP, psychologist, or psychiatrist and working with me on the gut, nutrition, nervous system, and lifestyle foundations that other forms of care do not replace.
How long does it take to see results for anxiety and nervous system dysregulation?
Energy and digestion usually start to improve in the first 2 to 4 weeks. Mood, skin, and early symptom relief follow between 4 and 8 weeks. Nervous system stabilisation and sustained calm comes across the 3 to 6 month mark. Every woman is different, but most describe significant improvement within the first few months of working together.
Can I work with you if I am on medication?
Yes. I work with women who are on a range of medications and prescriptions regularly. The goal is to support your body through anxiety and nervous system dysregulation regardless of what else you are taking.
I do not prescribe or deprescribe any medication, that conversation belongs with your GP or specialist. I support the foundations (gut, nutrition, nervous system, lifestyle) that medication does not replace.
What testing do you use for anxiety and nervous system dysregulation?
Tests vary depending on each person, and recommendations are based on your history and symptoms. Not every woman needs every test.
Commonly, I will run organic acids testing for neurotransmitter metabolites, DUTCH Complete for cortisol-progesterone interplay, GI-MAP for gut-brain axis, and full functional blood panels including methylation markers (folate, active B12, homocysteine).
Where it is clinically useful and fits your budget, I also use DNA and nutrigenomic testing and food sensitivity testing when indicated.
Do I need a GP referral to see you?
No. Naturopaths and nutritionists in Australia do not require a GP referral. You can book directly.
Do you consult online across Australia?
Yes. All my consultations run online via telehealth, which means I work with women in every state and territory. Most of my clients are in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and regional NSW, but geography is not a barrier.
What does it cost to work with you for anxiety and nervous system dysregulation?
The initial consultation is 90 minutes and includes a personalised plan you leave with. Follow-up consultations run 30 to 60 minutes depending on what is needed. Testing is additional and quoted up front so there are no surprises. Full pricing is on the Consultations page. Private health rebates may apply depending on your fund.
Do you order blood tests?
Yes. I can organise pathology and functional testing directly through the private labs I use in clinic, including full functional blood panels, DUTCH Complete, DUTCH Cycle Mapping, GI-MAP, DNA and nutrigenomic testing, and other specialised tests when indicated.
These are out of pocket because they are not covered by Medicare. Some standard blood tests are covered by Medicare when ordered through a GP, so for those panels I will write you a clear list of exactly what to ask your GP for, which keeps the cost down.
Functional tests like DUTCH and GI-MAP are not available through Medicare or the public system, so these are always out of pocket. I will give you the cost up front before we commit to any testing, and I will only ever recommend testing that is going to meaningfully inform your clinical plan.
Will I have to give up wine, coffee or sugar?
Not forever. Not all at once. I work on the 80/20 rule personally and professionally. There will be periods where reducing certain things speeds the process up (particularly in the early weeks of rebalancing blood sugar or the gut), but the plan is always built for sustainability.
You can have the glass of wine. You can have the margarita. Restriction is not the strategy.
Credentials
Bachelor of Health Sciences (Naturopathy)
Master of Advanced Naturopathic Medicine
Graduate Certificate in Culinary Nutrition Science
A5M certification in anti-ageing medicine
8+ years of clinical practice
1,000+ women worked with
Australian Nutrition Ambassador for MyFitnessPal
© Michaela Sparrow 2026
