More patients are presenting with musculoskeletal pain that appears without clear cause and resists conventional treatment – often alongside sleep issues, headaches, tinnitus, digestive problems, or anxiety-like symptoms. The link? Chronic stress disrupting the body’s extended autonomic regulatory system. In this keynote, Tom Meyers introduces a regulation-first approach that equips manual therapists to identify and address this dysregulation before treating symptoms – unlocking better outcomes, avoiding counterproductive care, and keeping your practice relevant in today’s stress-driven health landscape.

More and more patients are arriving with neck, shoulder, or back pain that seems to appear out of nowhere – and resists conventional treatment. Often, these aches are accompanied by sleep disturbances, headaches, tinnitus, digestive discomfort, or anxiety-like symptoms.

The common thread? Chronic stress. It’s not only dysregulating the autonomic nervous system, but the body’s extended autonomic regulatory system. If manual therapists don’t address that dysregulation first, symptom-focused treatment is unlikely to deliver lasting relief – and may even be counterproductive.

In his Expert Keynote, Tom will explore:

25 minute keynote

• How health problems are evolving in a fast-changing world.
• Key signs of stress-related dysregulation in patients.
• What autonomic regulation really means – and how its failure drives far more than musculoskeletal disorders.
• Why effective treatment goes beyond the ANS or vagus stimulation alone (and how the latter can sometimes worsen symptoms).

45 minute keynote

• All the above plus
• Symptoms checklist of the Extended Autonomic Regulatory System 
• An introduction to Autonomic Reasetting with The Reaset Approach. 

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• Goldstein, D. S. (2024). Linking the Extended Autonomic System with the Homeostat Theory: New Perspectives about Dysautonomias. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 14(1), 123. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm14010123
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• Hallman, D., Lyskov, E. (2012b). Autonomic regulation, physical activity and perceived stress in subjects with musculoskeletal pain: 24-hour ambulatory monitoring. International Journal of psychophysiology 86, 276-282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.09.017
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