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I went to one of the world's leading longevity clinics for some extensive testing and the first result floored me. My nervous system was running at almost 80% sympathetic dominance. Most of my time wasn't in rest and recovery, it was in fight or flight, despite doing everything right.

And I'm sharing this because what showed up in my data is something I see constantly in high-performing women. You can look healthy on paper and still be running on a nervous system that never fully switches off. Little context in my case, the day I tested, I'd slept for only four hours, been awake since 3.30 in the morning to travel, and I was carrying several months of acute stress. So this wasn't a perfect wellness snapshot, it was real life under real pressure. And honestly, that's what makes the findings even more relevant. In this video, I'm going to walk you through the testing, including nervous system function, body composition, full hormone panel, grip strength, and the treatments that made the biggest difference, including one result I still can't fully explain.

So let's start with the first test. The first test at Char was the one that revealed how stressed my nervous system actually was. It was an autonomic assessment called Max Pulse.

And honestly, this was probably the most confronting result of the entire week. The test measures the balance between your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. In simple terms, how much your body is in stress mode versus recovery mode.

And when my results came back, my sympathetic nervous system dominance was nearly 80%. Here's what that 80% number actually means and why it matters. A healthy nervous system isn't one that never experiences stress, it's one that can move fluidly between activation and recovery.

The problem is that many of us become stuck in activation for so long, the stress starts to feel normal. And when that happens, our body can keep functioning externally, while internally, our nervous system never really fully returns to safety and repair. When your nervous system spends too long in a heightened stress state, eventually your body starts paying the price for that adaptation.

You don't necessarily fall apart, it compensates, you keep functioning, keep doing the things you have been doing and showing up. But meanwhile, your nervous system quietly normalises the level of stress activation that was never meant to become permanent. And what stood out to me about this test was its ability to not only measure my overall stress load, but also separate the physical stress from the mental stress, highlighting how adaptability can mask the true sources of strain.

And this was the really important insight for me because physically my body was coping well. I train hard, I strength train multiple times a week, I do cardiovascular training, I focus heavily on recovery as well, I do monitor my HRV consistently. So my physical resilience was actually relatively strong.

But what the data revealed was that despite the physical resilience, the bigger load on my system wasn't physical stress, it was mental and emotional stress. And honestly, after the last few months, that made complete sense. I think a lot of people get too fixated on their HRV score when the real thing to pay attention to is how well your nervous system can actually shift and recover when you give it the right inputs.

Can you move into parasympathetic recovery through things like breathwork, meditation, music, laughing with people, rest, connection, good quality sleep, or simply just feeling safe enough to let go. The improvements in the retest I did were a direct result of the adaptability I'd built over years of meditation, breathwork, recovery work, all the things that I've just mentioned. And that became clear when I retested 48 hours later, because at that point, my parasympathetic activity had nearly doubled, my stress markers dropped dramatically, my resilience score jumped significantly.

So this was evidence that it wasn't a kind of broken nervous system. It was still highly adaptive. It had just been responding to a prolonged period of mental and emotional load.

And the fact that it could shift quickly once the environment changed was probably the most important result of the entire week for me. Because resilience is not the absence of stress. It's the ability to return back to balance.

And I think that's something that many of us never realise that you can actually train your nervous system to recover better, just like you train your muscles. Which brings me on to the next test, body composition. The next set of results showed what years of training, nutrition, and recovery had physically built inside my body.

One of the assessments I had at Chart was a full body composition analysis using an in-body scan. And this measures things like skeletal muscle mass, body fat, visceral fat, hydration, and overall body balance. My nervous system data and my body composition data told two completely different stories.

It became apparent that the nervous system measurement was reflecting short-term stress, while my strength and hormone testing showed the longer-term story. Because despite that sympathetic dominance showing up in my nervous system, my muscle mass was actually above the normal range for women my age across every segment of my body. My visceral fat was low, my cardiovascular markers were strong, and my body balance was excellent.

So I think those results, strong muscle mass, low visceral fat, point to a conversation that women in midlife really need to have. The resistance training and cardiovascular workouts are what take care of our muscle mass and keep body fat low. And that was despite the stress I'd been under.

Many women focus almost entirely on weight, but from a longevity perspective, muscle is one of the most important things you can build and protect as you age. Muscle affects your metabolism, blood sugar regulation, bone density, brain health, strength, mobility, recovery, inflammation, cortisol regulation, and even how resilient you are to stress and illness later in life. And as women move through perimenopause and oestrogen begins declining, maintaining muscle mass becomes increasingly important because hormonal changes can reduce anabolic sensitivity and accelerate age-related muscle loss unless strength training and protein intake are prioritised.

That's one of the reasons I prioritise resistance training so heavily, not for the aesthetics, but for the longevity benefits, for the strength and resilience and for future quality of life. That said, in-body scans are not perfect. The body fat percentage it gave me was around 15%, but bioelectrical impedance can fluctuate depending on hydration, caffeine, timing, and other variables.

So I also like to do the in-body scans regularly because they're easier to access and they're available in many gyms and health practises. And I do those in between my six monthly DEXA scans. And I think that's really important because so many women become emotionally attached to body composition numbers without understanding the context behind them.

What matters more to me is the bigger picture. Strong muscle mass, good metabolic health, low visceral fat, and a body that functions really well. Another really interesting longevity marker the team at Char tested was grip strength.

It sounds incredibly simple, but it's one of the strongest predictors we have for healthy ageing and overall longevity. And you can do this test easily at home with a dynamometer that you can get from Amazon. My grip strength came in at 30 kilogrammes, which is at the upper end of normal for women my age.

I'd like to work on getting this stronger, but it's a good baseline. And again, it reinforced the same pattern we were seeing throughout the testing. Despite my nervous system carrying significant mental and emotional load, my underlying physical foundation was still very strong.

And that wasn't built in a week at Char. It was built over the years of lifting weights, eating protein, recovering properly, prioritising sleep, all the things I talk about on this show to show up for my health, even when life gets busy. I think sometimes people look at health optimisation and assume it's about perfection.

But honestly, what this week reminded me is health is really about capacity. The stronger your foundation comes through taking small steps each day, the more life your body can absorb without breaking down. And I know not everyone can take a week at a clinic like this, but here's what I really want you to know.

Almost nothing that built these results happened in Spain. It was built at home over years with small things that actually cost very little. So if you take one thing from this video, let that be where to start.

Start with strength training two or three times a week because muscle is one of the most powerful longevity levers you have. And you can begin with body weight and a couple of dumbbells in your kitchen. Next, eat enough protein.

Most of us in midlife are eating far too little to hold the muscle we have, let alone build more. So anchor your meals around 30 grammes of protein and protect your sleep like it's a meeting you can't move. For me, a consistent bedtime is the single highest leverage thing I do for recovery and it costs nothing.

Give your nervous system one moment a day to downshift, not an hour, just five minutes of breath work or a short walk without your phone or a little stillness in the morning before you start your day. You don't need to do all of it at once. Pick the one thing that's most missing right now, the change that would quietly cascade into the rest and start there.

I call that the domino. That's how a strong foundation actually gets built, not in a weaker way, just in your normal life at home. So my body composition showed the physical side of all of this, but the hormone testing answered a deeper question.

Why could my body perform and recover the way it did? When we think of hormones, we think often of just oestrogen and progesterone, but our hormones are so much more than this. Because my nervous system was showing signs of sympathetic dominance when I arrived, I was very interested to see my blood work, specifically my hormone levels, because this is the part that most women aren't told.

The same hormones that build and hold lean muscle in midlife are the first things that chronic stress quietly dismantles. And muscle, as we just saw, is one of the strongest levers you have for ageing We tested oestrogen, progesterone, FSH, LH, testosterone, cortisol, DHEA, growth hormone, and IGF-1, the markers that tell you whether your body is building or breaking down. When cortisol runs chronically high, it's catabolic in nature.

It breaks muscle down, it pushes fat towards your middle, and it nudges your body towards insulin resistance. It's the opposite of what you want if you're trying to stay strong and metabolically healthy But what this did show is that my cortisol was sitting where it should be for the time of day. It was a healthy morning reading despite the travel, the broken sleep, and the emotional load.

And I read that one as a reassuring data point. The fuller answer came from the hormone panel because if months of stress had truly tipped me into a catabolic muscle wasting state, I'd expect to see it downstream on my in-body scan, but also in my hormone panel. Instead, I had muscle above range, low visceral fat, and anabolic markers sitting where I'd want them.

That convergence is what's held me in my body was in a balanced state, and it's why the muscle I showed you earlier is still there. Next up, we looked at the anabolic markers, the ones that actively build and repair. Firstly, testosterone.

Many women are not aware that we naturally produce higher levels of testosterone than we do oestrogen. Testosterone doesn't just affect your libido, it drives muscle protein synthesis and preservation, motivation, and recovery. I personally use a little bit of testosterone cream, which keeps it sitting nicely within the healthy reference range for women.

IGF-1 is the one that I found most interesting. It's the messenger that carries growth hormone signal to your tissues, central to repair and to holding lean mass. But here's the nuance that you don't want to skip.

You don't want it to be sky high. Chronically elevated IGF-1 is linked to faster biological ageing. You want it in the healthy middle, enough to build and repair, but not so much that you're accelerating the very ageing you're trying to slow.

Mine was sitting right in that middle range, which is exactly where I'd want it. Many of these hormones are the Goldilocks effect. And we looked at DHEA, the raw material your body uses to make several of these hormones, and one of the first things to fall with age and with chronic stress.

Mine came back strong in the upper part of that range, and that's the direction you want it in. A robust DHEA level points to healthy adrenal reserve. Putting all this together, it's a really coherent picture.

My body is still in a healthy muscle retaining state, with a healthy morning cortisol reading underneath it. And every marker I tested pointed to good insulin sensitivity, low visceral fat, strong muscle mass, healthy glucose, alongside a healthy morning cortisol. Those together are a strong signal that my body is still handling fuel efficiently, and muscle itself is one of the biggest drivers of that, because it's where you store and burn glucose.

Hormone therapy in perimenopause is deeply individual, and it requires you to work with your doctor. Blood work can be helpful, but how you feel and how your symptoms matter just as much. I'm not giving any advice here, I'm just sharing my picture as I thought it would be helpful, so that you have a greater understanding of how these hormones work in the body as a set of systems.

Menopause hormone therapy can be helpful for many women, but it's a conversation for you and your own doctor. The only principle I'd offer here is that the goal is never the highest dose. It's about getting the right balance for your body, and that often changes as you move through perimenopause.

The other thing I think is important is that these markers sit downstream of how regulated your nervous system is day after day, year after year. So you can't separate your hormones from the life you're living. My body wasn't struggling, it was holding a strong, anabolic, metabolically healthy foundation, while my nervous system showed the signs of an intense period of stress.

We all have stressful periods. The key is to build enough capacity and energy to be resilient when we're challenged, and to allow stress to move through us. One of the best metrics to track this is heart rate variability, and I'll be sharing more on this in another video.

So, with the blood work in, the data had said I had a strong, resilient foundation, but my nervous system was carrying the weight of an intense few months. The question now wasn't what to fix, it was what would actually help my nervous system let go. So with all the testing complete, the focus at Char shifted from the assessment into treatment and recovery.

And what this week reminded me is that you cannot out-train or out-supplement mental stress. You can be physically fit, you can eat well, you can sleep reasonably well, you can have good blood work, and still have a nervous system that's quietly stuck in fight or flight if you're not also managing your stress. And that's why the treatments at Char felt so powerful to me, because they were intentionally designed to help my nervous system feel safe enough to finally let go.

Over my stay, I worked through a range of treatments in a very deliberate order, moving from the inside out. We did nervous system regulation first, because nothing else really works as well when your body still feels under threat. The treatments included acupuncture to support nervous system regulation and help shift my body out of fight or flight.

I also had massage and reflexology to release physical tension and promote deeper relaxation and recovery. And then we moved on to hyperbaric oxygen therapy to support mitochondrial function, tissue repair, and cellular recovery. I also had ozone and nutrient IVs to help support energy production, antioxidant status, and overall resilience.

I also did some breathwork sessions to directly influence the autonomic nervous system and improve stress regulation. I went in the sauna to support circulation and detoxification pathways, also supports cardiovascular health and recovery. And then I did some Pilates sessions to improve mobility, posture, circulation, and that all important, mind-body connection.

This all helped my nervous system feel safe enough to fully downshift and repair. There was one treatment that affected me on a completely different level, because it was the first time I actually felt the tension I'd been carrying in my body release. And honestly, I still find it difficult to fully explain.

It was something called watsu, a form of bodywork performed in warm water. And before I did it, I honestly thought it sounded a little strange. But the experience itself ended up being one of the most profound parts of the entire week for me, because what I realised during that session was how much tension I'd been unconsciously holding in my body.

Not physical tension so much from training, but emotional and mental tension and that constant underlying vigilance that so many high-performing women carry without even noticing anymore. And I think when you spend years being responsible for everyone else, making decisions constantly, performing at a high level, and holding everything together, your nervous system can forget what true surrender actually feels like. It can feel difficult to let go fully, because you're being held and moved in the water by the practitioner.

But when you do, the experience is hard to define. If you've ever been in a flotation tank, it's similar, but much more profound. And that experience revealed to me that true healing goes beyond a physical recovery.

It's about relearning how to let go of the constant tension we mistake for normal life. It taught me that many of us have become so adapted to stress that we confuse tension with normality. We don't even realise often how much we're carrying until our body finally feels safe enough to release it.

And what struck me afterwards was that my nervous system didn't let go just because of one treatment. It was also because of the groundwork that I'd built over the years. The breathwork, the meditation, the training, practises like Kundalini yoga, which I love, journaling, and nature walks, all of it has slowly been teaching my nervous system how to regulate and return to safety.

And that week away gave me the environment to access it more deeply. The biggest lesson Shah gave me was this, real health, the kind that shows up in your data and in how you feel is integration. Health isn't just physical, it's emotional, neurological, spiritual, energetic, psychological.

True health is the integration of mind and body. And so many women are optimising their physiology while completely losing themselves emotionally in the process. So when I look back on this week as a whole, the biggest transformation wasn't really in the data itself.

It was in what the data revealed about the relationship between stress, recovery, performance, and what it actually takes to stay healthy over the long run. Because what this experience reminded me is that health is not just about pushing harder, it's about creating enough recovery and alignment for your body to actually thrive. And honestly, I think that's something many high-performing women struggle with.

We become incredibly good at functioning, at coping, at showing up, and holding everything together. But functioning and thriving are not the same thing. And what struck me was that my body responded incredibly quickly once it was given the right environment.

As you saw, within 48 hours, my nervous system markers shifted significantly. And that's because the foundations were already there. The years of strength training, the small things we do at home, the good nutrition, the sleep, the breathwork, the meditation, and learning how to regulate my nervous system, that's what had built the adaptability into my physiology.

CHAR simply gave my body the opportunity to access that recovery more fully. And I think it's a really important distinction because true resilience isn't about never feeling stressed. It's about recovering from it.

It's about how quickly you can return to balance once the stress passes. That, to me, is real health. And there are definitely things I'll continue taking away from this experience, being even more intentional about recovery, protecting space for stillness, making time for things that regulate my nervous system, not just my body, catching the tension I'm holding before it quietly becomes my baseline, and remembering that slowing down is sometimes the most productive thing we can do because you can't out-train mental stress. You can't out-supplement emotional overload.

At some point, our nervous system needs safety, rest, connection, and recovery. And honestly, I think many women are waiting for permission to prioritise that. So let this be your permission and reminder to slow down and rest, to go to that yoga class, take a walk with your friend, the breathwork session, get in the sauna, maybe even book a weekend away.

Put some boundaries in place for yourself. Create space for that stillness. Maybe there's a retreat you've been meaning to go on.

Those things are not indulgent, they're part of protecting the energy, clarity, health, and longevity that you're going to need for the life you want to live. And I think that may have been the biggest lesson that Shah gave me. Not that I needed to become someone different, but the more I support my nervous system, the more capacity I have to fully become myself.

If this has resonated with you, especially the conversation around stress, nervous system load, energy recovery, and hormones in midlife, I'll link my free midlife health diagnostic in the description below and a link to my 21-day reset programme I put together, especially for high-performing women that are carrying a high output but want to optimise their health and longevity. It's designed to help you better understand the patterns that may be affecting your energy, resilience, sleep, recovery hormones, and overall performance right now, while showing you how to protect your longevity. Because sometimes the first step is simply becoming more aware of what your body has been trying to tell you.

If you're new here, make sure you subscribe because every week we explore the science and strategies behind health, longevity, hormones, performance, and living well in midlife. And if you want to know the seven habits that helped me reverse my biological age, tap the corner to watch.

Your workout has a job, and burning calories isn't it. In this solo episode, Angela breaks down the real difference between training for muscle and training for strength, and why blending the two with a calorie-burning agenda quietly sabotages both. She walks through why load matters far less than effort for muscle growth, why strength has only one real lever, and shares a practical band-assisted progression for building toward an unassisted pull up. 

The conversation then turns to protein, unpacking why so many midlife women are chronically under-fuelled, what the research shows happens when that's corrected, and the precise per-kilogram target worth aiming for. You'll come away with a clearer, less complicated framework for structuring your training and your plate, so fat loss becomes a byproduct of good decisions rather than a constant uphill fight. If you've ever wondered whether you're lifting the "right" way, or whether you're eating enough protein to actually see results, this episode gives you a straightforward answer.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

- Train close to failure, not to a specific weight — muscle growth responds to effort near failure regardless of whether you lift heavy, moderate, or light, so choose the load you enjoy most.
- Separate your goals before you plan your workout — if strength is the priority, only heavier loads will get you there; lighter loads won't build meaningful strength no matter the effort.
- Don't ask your lifting sessions to burn calories — use diet or aerobic exercise for a calorie deficit, and keep resistance training focused on quality, near-failure sets.
- Build toward an unassisted pull up with band-assisted reps and eccentric (lowering) practice — both let you rehearse the actual movement while gradually shifting more load onto your muscles.
- Aim for roughly 1.6g of protein per kg of bodyweight (about 0.75g per pound) — benefits taper sharply past this point, so hitting even a partial increase toward that target still delivers meaningful gains in lean mass and fat loss.