A high-flying lawyer who struggled with severe burnout after losing her father in a car accident has revealed the 11 things she gave up to transform her health, and the daily routine she swears by to keep her nervous system in check.
Loren Hogue, 34, from Melbourne, was working as a junior lawyer in 2011 when her dad unexpectedly died in the accident.
The combination of working long legal hours with helping her mum wind down her business and grieving for her father led Loren to feel like she was barely coping.
Loren recalled her hair was falling out, she couldn’t sleep, she lost 10kg in weight and was anxious and exhausted all the time.
BEFORE AND AFTER: A high-flying lawyer who struggled with severe burnout after losing her father in a car accident has revealed the 11 things she gave up to transform her health (Loren Hogue pictured before and after)
Loren Hogue, 34, from Melbourne, was working as a junior lawyer in 2011 when her dad unexpectedly died in the accident (pictured at her graduation)
After Loren quit her job and spent thousands of dollars searching for answers, she eventually discovered she had the symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system.
Nervous system regulation allows you to maintain homeostasis, access restorative sleep, decrease inflammation, and is involved in memory, auditory processing, learning, controlling sensory processing and more.
Loren said she has given up certain things in order to ‘regulate her nervous system’, and now has a daily routine to keep her hormones in check.
‘The first thing I gave up was social media, TV and movies that made me feel anxious,’ Loren posted on Instagram.
‘I also gave up late nights and irregular bedtimes, as well as drinking alcohol in order to “fit in”.’
The 34-year-old said she ditched family and friends who ‘don’t support her’ and spending time with people who ‘drain’ her energy.
‘I gave up hiring expensive mentors, responding to all DMs, saying yes to anything that feels like an obligation, one to one coaching in my business and overly strenuous exercise,’ she said.
Finally, Loren said she gave up trying to explain herself to people who ‘just don’t get it’.
After Loren quit her job and spent thousands of dollars searching for answers, she eventually discovered she had the symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system (pictured now)
Nowadays, the 34-year-old has a daily routine in place that she loves and that keeps her feeling fit and healthy, including daily exercise and a morning smoothie that is full of nutrients (Loren picutred)
Nowadays, the 34-year-old has a daily routine in place that she loves and that keeps her feeling fit and healthy.
It starts with a series of exercises that make her feel ‘present’ in her body including squats, and some ‘early morning sun’.
Loren follows this with a ‘morning smoothie that supports brain function, stress management and nervous system health that includes good fats, high quality protein, mushrooms, pro and prebiotics’.
She dry body brushes, which reportedly helps to detoxify your skin by increasing blood circulation and promoting lymph flow/drainage.
She also does facial gua sha to ‘stimulate the lymph nodes’.
Gua sha is a natural, alternative therapy that involves scraping your skin with a massage tool to improve your circulation.
Finally, Loren said she drinks 3L of filtered water religiously every single day with either a pinch of lemon or Himalayan pink salt, she switches off all of her notifications and social media while she works and gets to the gym every day to move her body.
She also has a hot bath every evening in it with Epsom salts inside it, which helps her to wind down.
Loren and her scientist and tech entrepreneur husband (both pictured) developed their Neurofit app – which is designed to help people regulate their nervous systems daily
Loren said their average user reported 54 per cent less stress within just seven days, while within five minutes of doing the neurological fitness exercises, 96 per cent felt less stressed and dysregulated (Loren and her husband pictured)
Previously, Loren told FEMAIL that she spent thousands of dollars trying to figure out what was wrong with her.
‘After my dad died I began experiencing what I now know to be the symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system,’ Loren told FEMAIL.
‘I had gut issues, chronic anxiety and trouble switching off. I had severe brain fog and near-constant pain. I was irritable and emotionally irregular. I didn’t know what to do.
‘I hired psychologists, life coaches, healers, kinesiologists, business coaches, acupuncturists, naturopaths and even shamans in Peru to help me,’ Loren said.
‘I tried everything from meditation apps, mindset coaching, EFT, hypnosis, EMDR – you name it. I experienced some results but things still didn’t feel right inside of me.’
Loren said no matter how hard she looked, she just couldn’t seem to find the answer.
That was until 2020, when she was first introduced to nervous system regulation as a concept.
‘I was introduced to it and things finally started to click for me,’ she said.
‘I realised I didn’t have a mindset issue and there wasn’t anything wrong with me. I just had a dysregulated nervous system that was stuck in overdrive after years of stress.’
Loren added: ‘It turns out that 80 per cent of the nerves in the body are afferent nerves, which means that they run up from the body to the brain.
‘Only 20 per cent of the nerves go down to the body. This means we need to utilise the body and embodiment practices in order to treat burnout and stress and not mindset work.’
Loren and her scientist and tech entrepreneur husband began to delve deeper into the idea of nervous system regulation, which led them to develop their Neurofit app – which is designed to help people regulate their nervous systems daily.
‘I want people to realise that the nervous system is key to overcoming stress and burnout,’ Loren said.
‘There are body-based exercises people can do daily to assist them and habits people can implement to make them feel better almost instantly.’
Without a strong neurological fitness baseline, Loren said people are much more susceptible to chronic stress and burnout, anxiety, health issues and emotional dysregulation (Loren and husband pictured)
Within months of launching Neurofit, the app has already been a huge success.
Loren said their average user reported 54 per cent less stress within just seven days, while within five minutes of doing the neurological fitness exercises, 96 per cent felt less stressed and dysregulated.
Thousands of people have downloaded the app, and they’re already seeing big results.
‘A healthy nervous system is resilient to internal and external stressors and it significantly influences our behaviour and how we experience the world around us,’ Loren said.
‘A healthy nervous system can quickly shift out of the negative nervous system states of sympathetic (fight or flight) state, Dorsal Vagal (shutdown and freeze) state and overwhelm state into the more positive states of ventral vagal (read and digest) state, play state and stillness state.’
Without a strong neurological fitness baseline, Loren said people are much more susceptible to chronic stress and burnout, anxiety, health issues and emotional dysregulation.
‘Our nervous system mirrors the people around us. If you find a person draining, it is healthy and acceptable to take some distance from them and set a clear boundary,’ Loren said.
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