The Real Work with Maggie Sterling

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If you've dealt with chronic anxiety, chronic pain, or long-term physical or mental symptoms, this one might be hard to hear. I spent 20 years identifying as the girl with anxiety, and later with every diagnosis that came after it. In this video I share the shift I had to make before anything started to change, and why it can feel like you're gaslighting yourself at first.

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If you're living with chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia, or a hypersensitive nervous system and you can't picture a future where you feel better, this video is for you. I share the realization that changed everything for me when I was at my worst, and the one thing I had to stop doing before anything could start to shift. My symptoms were horrific. Burning, stinging, insomnia, anxiety, OCD, anhedonia. I spent every day monitoring my body, trying to fix it, and grieving a future that hadn't even happened yet. If that sounds familiar, I want you to know your future may look very different from what you're imagining today.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If your nervous system always feels on edge, your phone could be keeping it there. In this video I share my honest answer on whether you need a digital detox, especially if you deal with chronic anxiety, chronic pain, or insomnia. I also talk about why I've never been a fan of detoxes, how I tell the difference between using my phone for work and using it out of hypervigilance, and what finally worked for me after years of making content online.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

In this anxiety recovery story, Brett shares how he went from being bedridden for months, believing he was dying every day, to working, working out, and taking care of his family again. Nervous system healing didn't look the way he expected, and he still has some symptoms today. Brett's symptoms started out of nowhere in May 2025. Over the next year he had panic attacks every day, made repeated trips to the ER, saw specialists, and paid for procedures hoping someone could fix him. In this conversation we talk about what got him to that point, the decisions that turned things around, and what his life looks like now.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If you have a hypersensitive nervous system, it can feel like your body is on high alert all the time. In this video, I share 10 tiny habits that help calm a hypersensitive nervous system, and none of them add more to your to-do list. Most of these are so small you wouldn't connect them to your nervous system, and some are the opposite of what you've been doing every day. Let me know in the comments which ones you're already good at and which one you want to start with.

14 day challenge (started 10/12/26): https://softregulationsystem.com/challenge

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If you've read all the self-help books and listened to all the podcasts and still feel stuck, this video is for you. Self-improvement burnout is real, and constantly consuming self-help content can turn into a compulsion that keeps you from actually living your life.

In this video, I share my own story with self-help, the signs that it's become compulsive for you, and the part of healing most people neglect.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If you've tried everything to heal your nervous system and nothing has worked, this video is for you. I dealt with chronic anxiety for 20 years, along with insomnia and a whole range of chronic physical symptoms, and I tried everything to make it go away. In this video I explain why nothing has worked for you yet and what I did instead once I figured it out.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If you have chronic insomnia, or you wake up at 3am and can't fall back asleep, there's a good chance your nervous system is sensitized and stuck on high alert. In my experience this is rarely a sleep problem. In this video I cover how your nervous system gets in the way of something your body already knows how to do on its own, what not to do when you're lying awake in the middle of the night, why I part ways with a lot of what CBT-I teaches, and how medication and medication withdrawal can factor into all of it. I also answer the four questions I get asked most about insomnia: How do I stop fearing not sleeping when the consequences are so real? Is this fear, or is it something physical? What if the thing keeping me up isn't fear? What if I recovered and I'm suddenly back to all nighters, am I at square one?

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If you've had anxiety for a while, there's a good chance you've been making it worse without knowing it. It happens automatically the second a symptom shows up, and it's the reason your nervous system keeps sounding the alarm no matter what you try. In this video I break down the most common way people respond to anxiety, what that response has actually been doing to your nervous system this whole time, and what to do instead. This applies whether your anxiety shows up as racing thoughts and rumination or as a racing heart and shortness of breath.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

Anxious thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and rumination are symptoms of a sensitized nervous system, the same way physical symptoms are. In this video I explain why your thoughts get so loud, so dark, and so convincing when your system has been stuck in threat, and why you can't think your way out of them. I go into why your brain zooms in on one problem at a time, why quieting one thought just makes room for the next one, and what actually keeps the whole loop running.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

Your nervous system won't regulate, and the tool you picked isn't the reason. Meditation, breathwork, supplements, cold plunges: if you've tried all of it and still feel anxious and wired, there are three things underneath it that nobody put on the list. I go through all three in this video, including the one signal your system is actually reading every day while you're busy trying to fix it.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

Nervous system regulation doesn't work for everyone, and the reason has nothing to do with how hard you're trying. If you've done the breathing exercises, the cold plunges, the vagus nerve tools — and felt nothing — there's something happening underneath that almost nobody in this space talks about. In this video I'm breaking down the difference between a dysregulated nervous system and a sensitized one, why that difference changes everything about what actually helps, and what to do when the tools everyone recommends aren't touching your symptoms.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

You've spent years trying to heal your nervous system, calm your anxiety, and finally feel better — but you're still waiting to actually live your life. Somewhere along the way, healing stopped being something you do and quietly became who you are.

The constant researching, the new protocols, the recovery stories, the endless checking in on your symptoms — it feels like progress. For a lot of people, it's doing the opposite: keeping the alarm switched on and confirming to the nervous system that something is still wrong.

In this video I walk through how healing becomes your whole identity, why the "fixing" energy backfires, and what actually starts to move things — even while your symptoms are still here.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

Three everyday things are overstimulating your nervous system without you even noticing, and they're the ones that feel like relaxing. You can do almost nothing all day and still end up completely fried by the evening. In this video I walk through all three, and why the fix for every one of them is the same.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If your chronic pain or symptoms won't go away no matter what you've tried, the answer may be in your nervous system. What keeps chronic pain going is something most doctors and practitioners never talk about, and once you see it, it's hard to unsee. In this video I break down the loop that keeps chronic pain and symptoms switched on, why chasing relief quietly makes them stronger, and the sneaky ways fear keeps the whole thing running even when you don't feel afraid. If you've spent months or years trying to fix your symptoms and nothing has stuck, this is the piece that's been missing.

Buy the book "Unlearn Your Pain": https://amzn.to/3RFTxho Follow Dr. Schubiner on Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/hschubiner/ https://www.facebook.com/hschubiner/

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If you've been to doctor after doctor with no real answers, this conversation is for you. Dr. Howard Schubiner, MD, is a physician and researcher who has spent over 20 years studying chronic pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression — and what he's found changes everything. His new book, Unlearn Your Pain, lays out the science behind why your brain creates these symptoms and how they can be fully reversed. In this conversation we cover why most chronic conditions are neuroplastic, what medicine keeps getting wrong, and why the way you've been trying to heal may be making it harder.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

If you've been trying to decode every symptom — chest tightness, flares, intrusive thoughts, dizziness — searching for the hidden meaning your body is trying to send you, this video is going to reframe what's actually happening. The message you're looking for is there. It's just not what you think it is. In this video, Maggie breaks down why trying to interpret every symptom keeps you stuck, the one message your sensitized nervous system is actually sending you right now, and how to know when your body is ready to give you the deeper signals you've been chasing. If you're exhausted from trying to figure out what every twinge, thought, and flare means — this is for you.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

Brain retraining is being prescribed to the people it makes worse. If you have a sensitized nervous system and you've been doing brain retraining — monitoring every thought, interrupting cascades, redirecting hundreds of times a day — and it feels like you're getting more anxious, more vigilant, more obsessed with what's happening in your head, you're not failing the program. The program is asking the wrong thing of a system in your state. In this video, I break down why formal brain retraining backfires for hypersensitive nervous systems, what's actually retraining your brain whether you sit down to do it or not, and where mental work does have a place once you've desensitized.

Are your symptoms caused by your nervous system? Take the Quiz.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

5 signs your nervous system is causing your chronic pain, anxiety, gut issues, dizziness, fatigue, and other symptoms doctors can't explain. If your tests keep coming back normal and nothing has worked, this video walks you through the specific signs that point to a sensitized nervous system as the root cause — and what to do about it.

I spent 20 years dealing with chronic anxiety, panic attacks, and insomnia. Every test came back normal. Every specialist had a different prescription. Nothing actually moved the needle until I learned that my symptoms were being driven by my nervous system. Once I saw the pattern, everything changed.

Get my nervous system sensitization course

Take the nervous system sensitization quiz

Nervous system healing rarely looks like what you think it should. For 20 years I waited for the day I'd wake up calm, symptom-free, and finally "fixed." That day never came. What did happen was much quieter — and I almost missed it. In this video, I'm sharing 5 subtle signs your nervous system is actually healing, even when it doesn't feel like it. Plus one bonus shift that surprised me the most. If you've been doing the work and wondering if anything is changing, this one is for you.